Just interested in what other people do to prevent feedback from microphones in this live situation.

The mixer I use has a feedback cancel function.
It's a Behringer UB1222FX

Jim

down and dirty guide

Due to the nature of live music (generally LOUD) the best place to start is the microphone. The SM58 is the industry standard with various equivalents or better. Positioning is the next point to look at keep the mics pointed way from floor monitors and try to keep the mics Behind the front of house speakers(PA).

Set your gains and volumes so that at max volume when the mic is uncovered (No one in front of it) it just beings to feedback then turn the gain down just a tad and don't be tempted to push the gain during the performance, If its not loud enough you need a bigger PA.

As a rough guide a smallish to medium pub gig 600w RMS at 8ohms per channel will give you plenty of head room to please the most demanding lead singer.

If are micing the whole band then you will have even more issues with feed back from guitars, mains hum, dodgy earth lifts etc garb a few DI boxes these usually solve the issues.

I'm with Jimbo on this! A good quality mic is a must. Most live sound engineers will either groan or grimace if they even glimpse a feedbacky mic they've got to use. Old roadies usually know 'em all.

I wouldnt bother with feedback eliminators, except as an auxilliary tool, they usually squeek and sqawk a bit before cutting in and if you move the mic around they'll need to reset themselves again when the feedback characteristics change.

If it's your own system you're hiring or lending to a band then for goodness sake get a limiter, or risk having your speakers returned in bits. As a former engineer to a pub chain supplier, it was screwdrivers at the ready whenever I got the phone call to say 'can you look at these speakers from ***bar or ***club, only they had a band on last night and they plugged into the soundsystem....."