iBeam Active Volume Control & Feedback Question

[ibeamidiot]

Hi all, I have a quick question about the iBeam active's volume control. I am playing in my church's Christmas concert in a couple weeks and I am having a bear of a time getting feedback under control. Part of it is due to stage volume, but part of it is not.

I am using a soundhole cover, and this has helped with stage volume problems. At first, I set the guitar volume all the way up, and the popped in the sound hole cover. It was still feeding back in my church's sound system, like the signal was too hot. But when I rolled off the volume enough to kill the feedback (and the "on the verge of feedback" resonance noises), the overall signal was a little too quiet.

I guess my question is this: for a set it and forget it scenario, is it best to have the volume dial all the way up or is there a sweet spot that balances a strong signal with less danger of feedback?

I am using less tha 20 feet of cable overall, and it is high quality cable. Because of the soundhole cover, I cannot easily keep adjusting the guitar's volume.

I am thinking about picking up a Para DI to help fine tune the sound and help with notching out the feedback, and I would have the same question about where to set the guitar volume vs where to set the DI volume and how that affects feedback.

A new pickup is not really an option right now, plus I do like the sound of the iBeam in general. I am mostly looking for a quick and effective fix for now, and then after the concert I can start to think about more drastic measures.

Thanks.

[loren]

Hi,

I used to have the IBeam passive. Same problems. A cover for the hole won't be much help and I found the best solution was the LR Baggs Feedback Master. Could really dial out those frequencies and keep more of your tone intact. LR Baggs doesn't make the Feedback Masters anymore but maybe you can still find them on Ebay. I highly recommend them. For me, a sound hole cover killed too much of the top guitar vibration and so it affected tone, feedback wasn't cancelled much. Other options are the Venue DI and the ParaDI. I got the Venue DI (a Christmas present from my wife). It has the Phase Inverter, notch filter, Eq, all are all there to help you remove feedback and shape your tone with minimum tone degradation and maximum headroom before feedback and noise. I also went for the Imix (IBeam + Element). Hope this helps.

Suggestion, instead of lowering your IBeam volume, keep your IBeam volume at 80% up and ask the tech to lower you at the board, this way the board get more of your signal, this may help bring down feedback a bit but will definitely give you better tone and less noise.