Singers' Mic Technique

Words, Words, Words

Mic Technique Can Make or Break Your Show

by Joanna Cazden
from Electronic Musician, October 1998

The house lights go black. I've traveled far to a long-awaited festival, and the hall is blessedly cooler than the 110-degree mugginess we've suffered outdoors. The comic MC has revved up the crowd, and it's time for the music.

A solo artist appears in the spotlight, strums her guitar, and tests  her foot-pedal drum effects. Then she starts to sing, and suddenly I'm  frowning, puzzled. It's not that I can't hear her; the voice is gutsy and intense, and balanced adequately with the instruments. Some of the lyrics are clear, but others are mushy or simply missing. The only thing I'm sure of is the hook, which repeats a lot. I figure the sound-person will have things cleaned up soon. But the second song is no better.

By now my consciousness has flipped from relaxed listener to vocal analyst. What's wrong? The sound engineering? The performance? The hall? I can't quite peg the problem, until the set is over and the next act 'a duo' starts in. Suddenly I'm hearing every word.

Getting the Message Across

You can have the best mic in the world, a great PA system, and an engineer who knows every nuance of the hall and your material. But it's all useless, if your words don't make it into the mic in the first place. Your mic position, diction and attitude must all come together so that the right signals fly through the PA system and home to the hearts of your audience.

Unless you're using a headset microphone, the first challenge is to position the mic so that it captures your voice but doesn't hide your face.  Generally, pointing the mic towards you from a little below - aiming at your chin - allows you to communicate easily over the top, without sacrificing tone quality.

Placement is easy if you use a hand-held mic. But for most of us who play an instrument as we sing, coping with a stationary mic stand is a necessary discipline. Don't place the mic so high that you have to stand unnaturally tall to reach it; but don't set it so low you'll slouch. Instead, take your best, most confident on-stage posture, with your instrument in place, then bring the vocal mic in to meet you.

Close & Personal

Each mic has its own sensitivity and ideal distance from the sound source. In some situations you'll need to - eat - the mic, nearly touching it with your lips. Other environments and equipment allow the vocalist to be several inches away. Most important is to be consistent: once you've established effective settings in sound-check, keep the same position throughout your set.

One excellent way to practice is to set up a mic stand at home, in front of a full-length mirror.  Go through your material and critique yourself in relation to the equipment. Do you look comfortable or awkward? Do you tend to back away from the mic, or sneak up too close as you loosen up and get emotionally involved?  Or do you scatter your sound with head or body gestures around the mic, causing fluctuations no engineer could fix? 

Once you've established a consistent, comfortable posture you can try variations for different emotional effects: whispering closer on your most intimate phrases, shifting the mic to the corner of your mouth for a change of tone,  and backing away on the loudest, highest peaks. Eventually you'll "play" the mic and its surrounding space just as you play your instruments, not as foreign devices but as tools of self-expression.

By the way, when I saw the soloist up close after the show, she was talking rapidly in short bursts, wagging her head around, restless. No wonder her lyrics had not come through. She'd probably spent half her set off-mic, and filled the other half with erratic consonant explosions. On a personal level, I'd guess she was nervous and hadn't had much coaching.

We all start somewhere, and I tip my hat to anyone who sings their own songs in front of strangers.  So if you're not yet comfortable with all that equipment in your face: practice! And if you want to get your message across clearly, just remember the old adage: mind your P's and cues.

© Joanna Cazden 1998