- Hi, I'm Jordan from Kettner Creative.
In this video, I wanna help you answer the question,
can I plug my microphone directly into a speaker?
We get this question all the time
from first time event planners
or people who are new to sound systems,
maybe they get a quote from us
that has a microphone like this Shure SM58,
the small 10-Channel Mixing Console,
and it has a small powered speaker like this.
In ihis example, we have a 8 inch powered speaker.
You're trying to figure out, do I really need this?
can I save a couple bucks
and can I plug my microphone directly into the speaker?
So in this video, I'm gonna discuss how you can do that
and then I'm going to discuss why I wouldn't do that.
So to answer your question, yes, it's possible.
If your microphone has an X
or if your speaker has an XLR input,
and your microphone has an XLR output which most do,
you can plug in your speaker to your microphone,
and it will work.
Now a couple things that you need to double check
before it will work.
One needs it to be a powered speaker.
Most speakers in 2020, like 95% of them are self powered,
which is what you need.
If you're unsure if your speaker is powered or not,
the dead giveaway would be
if there's a power cable going to it
and some sort of control
or usually if there's a fan on it,
then you know it's a powered speaker
'cause it has an amplifier that needs cooling.
All the things like that can help you figure out
if it's a powered speaker,
but generally it'll say like this one does.
DXR8 Powered Speaker.
So there's another dead giveaway
as to what you're dealing with.
Now another thing you're gonna want to look for
in the back of your speaker is some way to confirm
that you can do mic-level.
When you're dealing with an audio console,
it sends it all the information at line level
which is much louder.
So if you're trying to come from a mic,
you need to toggle that switch to be mic-level
and that nodes that it needs to add another preamp
to get this microphone up to the volume
that the amplifier needs in order to amplify it.
So we plugged it in, we're on mic-level now,
adjust the volume,
and there you can see that it works.
So that's great, the speaker does work.
Now, why would I not do this?
One, if you're renting a sound system,
you're renting it generally, for one reason,
you want your content to be louder
and you're trying to get the attention of your guests.
We've all been to weddings where the groomsmen
or somebody will walk up and do a speech
and then you hear feedback and squealing
and it's super distracting.
When you plug your microphone directly
into a speaker like this,
you lose all types of control compared to a mixer.
So what I would generally do
if I'm running sound for a wedding,
is I would click on one of these buttons.
There's a high pass filter.
So a high pass filter would instantly
get rid of a bunch of low frequencies,
and it helps tidy up your voice
and make it a little more crisp
and intelligible for your guests.
You generally don't need anything out of your voice
under 80 hertz,
so it gets rid of all that information
and it makes the microphone sound much more clear.
So that's one advantage of using a mixer.
Two, you can see here that there's only one microphone input
on the back of the speaker.
So maybe you have a set of speeches or something like that,
but sometimes it's really nice to have two microphones,
you can't do that in this situation.
You really need a mixer like this,
that has say four microphone inputs.
So you can plug in four different microphones,
you can adjust the volumes,
and you can put in the high pass filter
to make sure that they all sound a little bit nicer,
a little more crisp,
and that really helps you with your sounds,
you're not passing microphones back and forth all the time.
Another thing that a mixer would give you
is it would give you a basic EQ.
So say you do have a problem frequency in your venue,
the way that you prevent audio feedback and that squealing
and that screeching sound,
is to try to identify this the frequency
that's bouncing around the room the most
and turn that frequency down.
So at the base key EQ like this,
maybe you can turn your mids down a little bit
and that allows you to get a little bit more volume
out of your microphone without it squealing in the room.
This is a pretty basic EQ, won't do a ton for you,
but it does give you some basic tools
to help defeat those problem frequencies
and offer more distraction free audio
for your audience and your guests.
Now with a mixer like this as well,
you also get these stereo inputs
and these stereo inputs are great for plugging in an iPod,
or a laptop or anything like that.
So if you are renting this
for kind of a do it yourself wedding,
where you want to set it all up,
You like really can't do this without them.
There are some stereo inputs on some speakers like this,
generally you can't count on them
and you get way more control, like I said,
using them with an audio mixer.
Another advantage of using an audio mixer is you can put it
where you want it.
The last thing you want to be doing at an event
is be walking up to each speaker
and adjusting the volume,
this allows you to do it all from a central place.
Sometimes you want to put the mixer
right beside the podium
so you can adjust it yourself while you're speaking,
sometimes you want this mixer at the back of the room
so somebody can be mixing sound,
they're out of the way, none of the guests can see them.
Again, it really comes down to you want your event
to be as distraction free as possible.
So this means you don't want people running around
trying to adjust volumes,
you just want to be able to do it from one place,
and that's what the mixer will do for you.
So yes, you can plug your microphone directly into a speaker
and that works really great for pop up events,
rallies, events that are on the move
or say you just want like play an iPod into a speaker
when you're camping or something like that and that's great.
You probably don't need a mixer.
But if you have any type of professional event
with multiple inputs, music and microphones
or anything like that, I really recommend
it's pretty cheap to rent the mixer as well
in the grand scheme of things,
and I would recommend going that way.
I hope this answered your question
if you have more questions like this,
please leave a comment in the comment section below.
And we're going to keep making these videos
as much as we can in the future.
Thank you so much for watching.