Tuning, Height & Microphone Woes
I’m a vertically challenged person (e.g. short), and I sometimes find myself in the position of needing to tune the band’s drones. I use an app on my phone to tune, and the phone’s microphone works well at picking up the individual drones without being overpowered by the loudness of the chanter. Of course, the microphone has to be positioned close to the opening at the top of the drones, which is where the height problems come into play. Although I can reach the top of the tenor drones all right, I struggle to comfortably reach the top of the bass drones.
To remedy this, I started trying out a couple of clip-on microphones. I’ve tried the InTune mic, but I find that is annoying to clip on and off each drone as it takes too much time to position it correctly. I then bought the Korg clip-on contact microphone and the correct adapter to use it with my phone, and it is much more enjoyable to clip on and off. I would prefer using the Korg microphone. However, it seems to be overpowered by the loudness of the chanter. With just the drones going, it is able to get an accurate read, but as soon as the chanter is started, it only picks up the chanter tuning. I thought that a contact microphone that is clipped on to a specific drone would find that to be loudest noise, but that is apparently not the case.
Does anyone else have this problem with the Korg microphone and maybe have a solution or tips? Or is there another microphone that works better? Is this a problem with the Korg tuner as well?