Microphone technique
It’s been awhile since I talked about technical issues and I think it's time to touch on them a bit more often. One thing that comes up quite often is microphone technique. We've all seen the lead, or especially the tenor, yank the microphone full arm's length away when they nail the big ending on a song. There are really two reasons for doing that.

First, very often it’s on the last note of the song, and is the highest and/or hardest note for them to hit. So they pull out of the mic until they make sure they’ve nailed the note they were chasing, and then ease the mic back up some. And, of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. If it’s a tough part prone to mistakes, I think better safe than sorry is a reasonable strategy.

But the second reason singers do it is what bugs me more often. To get the power and fullness many of our songs need, the singer has to rare back and belt it out. And that means get loud. Very loud. And the fear of blasting out the folks on the front row is the reason for pulling the mic so far back. But so very often (in fact, I say most of the time) the singer far overcompensates, and pulls the mic so far back his last note just disappears for a bit until he eases back into it. I won’t bore you with talk of decibels and logarithmic scales (unless you want, then just email me), but here’s something to ponder. If you sing with the mic about 1” from your mouth, and then pull back 1” more, you’ve cut roughly 75% of your signal. Pull back 2” more, you’ve lost another 75%. So moving the mic from 1” from your lips to 4” cuts your amplified volume by roughly 95%. Amazing, but true. It’s easy to figure out, then, what happens when you fling that mic out to arm’s length, then, eh? You get nothing. Nada. And at the biggest and most powerful part of your song. That’s not what you want.

So, what to do? Not moving the mic as far away may seem like a good idea, but when there’s such a dramatic difference between 1” and 2”, it’s not practical to expect consistent results. The best solution is simple, inexpensive and proven, but it’s almost always absent from the sound boards of groups I see. Putting a good vocal compressor on each singer can work absolute wonders for this problem. It attacks the problem from 2 ways. First, it will dramatically decrease the sensitivity of mic distance from your mouth. Moving the mic from 1” to 2” might only make, say a 25% reduction in volume rather than the 75%. But the best part is if you keep that mic at 1” and hit a very loud note, it will lower the signal for you, even without moving the mic. You don't even have to worry about pulling the mic back at all, just go ahead and belt it out with no fear of shattering windows. A good compressor runs a very, very close second to reverb as the most important tool a PA system can have.

There are dozens of ways to set a compressor up wrong, and just a few ways to do it right. Anyone who wants to talk technical about it, I’d love to chat about it in email with you. But please, please, please…don’t buy a cheapo compressor. You will sound awful and regret it forever and ever. Unless you want to go very high dollar, there is only one choice. Buy a RNC compressor, one for each singer. They’re about $175 each and are really wonderful devices. Learn how to use it, and you will have a tool that will serve you very well.

- posted by SGM Blogger @ 11:50 PM or here to Email me