ChaoticKraus said:
If we could see each other i would bow before you, you're really helpful to all the people in this thread. Thanks for reminding me of the pop screen, it really sound weird if you don't have it. If you have the time it would definitely be useful to know proper mic technique. On a related note, is there any good entry-level mic's i should get? I'll just grab one of the smaller mixers in our rehearsal space.
Glad you're getting something out of this thread - hopefully the following is useful. this is the stuff I didn't have to time to do yesterday on my lunch break:
Pop screens are awesome, but whatever you do, don't
buy a pop screen - waste of money unless it's for a photo shoot and you want to look all "professional". You can make a pop screen out of a microphone stand, a crappy used stocking (easy to get, girls are always throwing them out) and a bent wire coat hangar. Take the mic and the clip off the stand, bend the coat hangar so it's in the shape of a circle and straighten the hook so it's a straight line. Shove the now-straight hook upside-down into the hollow inside of the mic stand, so the circle points upward, maybe tape it up a bit for stability, then stretch the stocking over the circle part. Presto, you've got a pop screen and it cost you probably nothing unless you had to go out and buy a mic stand for it. Chances are you or somebody you know has got a broken mic stand sitting around gathering dust that won't hold a mic anymore but will still work fine for this purpose.
Entry level mic for vocals, the Shure SM-58. Don't get anything cheaper than this. It's the standard grey and silver mic you see at live gigs and there's a reason for that - it's a serviceable sound and it's practically bulletproof. For
really good vocal recording you want a large diaphragm condensor microphone but they're really expensive (in Australia you won't see much change from $1000), the SM-58 will do the job on a budget and unlike the expensive condensors it's durable so you can sling it in your bag or whatever and take it to a friends' house without having to worry about accidentally sitting on it on the bus on the way there. You can get the SM-58 Beta if you want, they're fine too (more or less the same thing), but under no circumstances be talked into a cheaper mic than this. And don't get the SM-57, that's good too but it's designed for instruments, not vocals. Also make sure you're buying it from a music shop, not an electronics shop. Don't worry, every single music shop that deals in mics will have plenty of this model on the shelf. Those $20 mics you see in hobby shops are toys and the sound you get from them will reflect that. Microphones are one of those rare things where you always get what you pay for.
I've discussed mic technique before but I may as well revisit it with a new post, it'll give me a chance to say a few extra things. The singer with the most perfect mic technique I've ever seen is Mariah Carey:
I chose this video because the mic here is really
big and the video quality is clear so it's easy to see what she's up to. The tip of the mic in this case is fuzzy, that's basically a pop screen. Fuzzy-tip pop screens are good for live work where using a normal pop screen would look stupid, but don't use the fuzzy-tip ones in the studio - an actual stocking screen works better believe it or not. Anyway - most of the time the mic is pointing at her throat, but notice how she swings it back away from her face and/or changes the angle whenever she does anything loud. All that mic waving isn't for show, she's regulating her voice volume, so she's always at more or less the same volume. Of course her voice will also be going through a compressor which will even out a lot of that anyway, but compressors aren't perfect (live you're lucky enough if the sound guy has one to put on your vocals at all and
really lucky if he has got time to optimise it for your voice) and what the compressor won't catch, her mic technique will. The result - a nice, smooth, audible sound, where you can hear every word.
Now let's look at some rap music:
Rap music demands that you hold the mic
wrong. You shouldn't hold it by the tip, however a lot of rappers feel a bit... well,
gay if they hold it by the shaft. I'm not making this up - I told one rapper that I know how to hold a mic and he baulked, he was like "but... that's gay, dude". Whatever. Anyway, in this video you can see a clever compromise between looking cool and having good mic technique, and to explain what that compromises are and why they're important, I have to talk a a bit about how dynamic microphones work.
A dynamic microphone is basically the principle of a speaker in reverse - it picks up vibrations in the air through a little diaphragm and converts those vibrations into electrical signal.
Your average dynamic microphone is directional - in other words, it picks up more sound from the front than from the sides and the back. It's designed to be this way. There are words for this, "cardioid" (directional), "supercardioid" (very directional), "hypercardioid" (extremely directional) and those "shotgun" boom microphones that you see film studios use are the most directional things going, they pic up very little except what they're pointed directly at. There's also what's called an "omnidirectional" microphone, these are microphones that pick up all sounds in the area more or less euqally regardless of where you're pointing the thing, and there's a "figure 8" microphone which picks up from the from and the rear equally but nothing from the sides (some expensive studio vocal mics like those $1000 condensors I mentioned earlier are like this). But most mics are cardioid or super-cardioid. The name "cardioid" is because the pattern of frequency response mimics that of a heart, in case you're wondering.
So what determines a microphone's directionality? Well, a dynamic microphone has air vents at the rear of the capsule. Air from both the front and the rear of the microphone can get to the diaphragm inside. However, there's a slight delay between when the air hits the front vent and the rear one, due to the placement and shape of the vents, and it's this difference that gives the mic its directional properties. It's like getting two signals instead of one (well not really, but I'm simplifying this next bit a whole lot here because this is already a huge wall of text) and when those two air gusts hit with a slight delay they reinforce each other, strengthening the sound. However, if those two signals hit too close to each other then they will hit
out of phase and cancel each other out and that's what the mic is designed to do when someone talks into it fromt he rear instead of the front. Hence, directionality.
Now, if you
put your hand over the vents at the back of the capsule you fuck all of this up. There is no more directionality, your microphone has suddenly become omnidirectional. What's so bad about this? Well, you don't want your vocal mic to pick up anything else apart from your voice in most cases. Imagine performing live where you're singing (or rapping) away - stages are loud places, and there's a foldback wedge in front of you playing your own voice and the music back to you so you can hear it all, right? If you mic goes omnidirectional, suddenly it's going to be picking up a lot more of that foldback wedge, plus the sound from the venue's PA speakers and just whatever else is in the room, which means you've created a feedback loop, which means feedback, which means the sound guy then has to turn you down to stop you from feeding back, which means you are now quiet. So you cup the mic even closer to your mouth so you're practically eating it, so you get louder - oops, more feedback, now you sound all muffled because you're too close to the mic (see below), AND you have feedback, AND you're straining your voice, AND you're getting pissed off.
In the video, both Enimem and the D-12 guy are doing something clever - they're cupping the mic but they're leaving gaps between their fingers so the air can still get in the back way. You'll also notice that Mr. D-12 has his index finger pointed towards his nose - no, he's not trying to pick it, he's doing that so he can maintain the correct distance between his lips and the microphone. Live he probably wouldn't do that, but they're doing their thing in a radio station so he probably doesn't mind looking like he's picking his nose a bit.
With dynamic mics, if you move a sound source closer, it gets bassier (let's not go into why, my fingers need a rest). Bass is good but if you're eating the mic you're practically
all bass and that's bad, you've probably noticed the effect yourself if you've ever tried to record yourself with your lips right up to the mic. Hence the index finger - he's got a really bassy voice already and he knows it, so he's making sure he keeps that little bit of distance so he doesn't muffle out. On the other hand the DJ in the green tracksuit who introduces the track is eating his mic and thus he sounds a bit distorted and it's a little harder to hear what he's saying at the start of the track (not impossible though, on the plus side he's got a clear voice).
Eminem could have used a pop shield though!
