singing live? distance to the mic?
2-feign-reluctance
Posts: 23,243
i'm going out tonight to sing some songs at an open mic. i was curious if any of you old pros out there have any advice on how far one should stand back from a mic. the vox aren't terribly loud for these tunes. a bit more mellow, no screaming or anything. also, is it true about standing up as opposed to sitting down for better projection?
www.cluthelee.com
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Standing up is always better for projection. I usually give the mic a couple of inches, but if I'm trying to hit a note that's a little too high out of my range I pull it back quite a bit.
http://www.reverbnation.com/brianzilm
cool, thanks for the tip! i don't do alot of singing, but my music buddy moved to boulder last year so i've been forced to go out alone. i'm going to do "i am mine" amongst some orginals. luckily none have too many high notes. a few weeks ago i thought buying thick gauged strings was a good idea, but now i'm wishing i hadn't! my fingers are killing me!
Odds are at your open mic you will be confronted with a Shure 58.
http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/Products/WiredMicrophones/us_pro_SM58-CN_content
This is a solid work horse mic and it has a very considerable range of space around it that can pic up sound. A mic like this can be used with a considerable amount of technique... getting closer to it for quiet sections, and pulling back from it for louder ones. It can be a bit tricky getting the hang of this "proximity effect" if you haven't worked with a mic like this before so if you aren't already familiar with it I'd suggest a middle ground approach.
If you don't recognize the mic when you get there all bets are off. Ask the sound guy what sort of mic it is and what he recommends.
As you get more comfortable in front of a mic, you can use the mic's characteristics to develop better mic technique. For instance, you can use distance to help adjust for changes in overall loudness. The closer you are to the mic, the louder it will pick up, and the further away, the quieter. There is also a phenomenon called "proximity response" wherein a cardiod mic (the typical vocal mic) will pick up more bass when closer to the sound source, and less bass further away. So, for a real deep, rich tone, you want to be as close to the mic as possible, and for higher, more reedy tone, back away about 6" (or more). If you pay attention to professional singers, they will get closer or pull away to use these characteristics to their advantage.
It helps to consistently use the same mic as you develop your technique, as different mics will respond differently. The most common mics in live sound are the Shure SM58, the Shure Beta 58, the Sennheiser 835/855, and the Audix OM-series. These all have pick-up patterns that are slightly different, so mic technique that works for one mic won't translate perfectly to another mic. For instance, I find that an SM58 works best by using front-to-back distance to compensate for volume, whereas an OM-7 works best by pulling off to one side. An SM58 requires pulling away about a foot to achieve the same result as pulling an OM-7 off to the side about 4-5".
That being said, if you're fairly new to singing into a microphone, the last thing you need to be thinking about is mic technique, it's very confusing and takes a long time to develop. Stay about 1-2" away from the front of the mic, with the mic pointed toward the back of your throat, and you'll be fine.
This way if you really need to get loud you can back off of the Mic and your levels stay consistent.
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I've just started singing with a mike in the last few days, in preparation fopr a jam on Thursday night, and I've been struggling a bit. I find if I get too close, I lose all the timbre and projection. Coming off it a few inches brings back the character of my voice, and the boomy bass goes a way a bit.
I'm using a clean channel of a guitar amp, not a PA, which might not be optimal either.
There is a bunch of great advice here, and I'm going to run with the 2" off approach until I get more experience.
here are some grainy iPhone pictures of the event.
http://www.ligerskickball.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/v/sI7YKUnrJSA&hl=en
Ideally you should be an inch or two away from the mic. Unless i'm hitting real loud notes i'll stay up close and then only pull away slightly for them.
The best way to hear your own singing is to listen to the speakers and hear what the guys in the audience will hear. As you sing, try closing your eyes and really concentrate and keep your mind on your speakers. When you are singing the first few notes of a song, hold the mic bout 1/2 inch away, then an inch away then 2 if you need and just keep moving it back and forth until you like your volume.
You need to be in control. The mike volume can be too low, or the track music too loud, or both. Don't be afraid to demand the changes that will help you sound better. I see from your pics that you play guitar as well as sing, so that adds to the difficulty of positioning yourself right with yor mic. I learnt to sing when i was young so when i picked up guitar when i was about 12 it wasn't as hard to gel together.
You can't solo while you sing (well, unless your jimmi page), it's so hard to solo and then sing something completely unrelated at the same time. Sometimes picking is much harder too.
We're lucky because we have an awesome drummer. I'm basically laying my guitar track on his drum track. Then i lay my vocal track on the guitar track which has been previously adapted to the vocals, sounds kinda weird i know, but that's the way to do it. Once you're playing your guitar track without thinking about such things as counting, you'll be better able to sing. 1-2 inches from the mic . Have confidence in yourself and it's like anything, the more you do it the better you are gonna get at it. Wish you the best!
Cool pics. thanks for sharing.
Good luck tomorrow night lucy! Duff as many notes as you want, no ones gonna notice, they will all be looking at lola. *sigh*. but seriously, all the best, i've been keeping up with your threads and you should be proud.
I won't have Lola tonight. I will go straight from work, and she is just too valuable to leave in the car all day, or drag around. I'm still deciding which guitar to take, maybe Violet.
BTW gurlie, do you know how to compress a digital video clip to make it small enough to load onto youtube ? I tried to load a small clip once and the file was about 10x too big. No-one I know seems to know. I started a thread in the tech section here, but got no answers.
Mics (as IDGotI explains excellently) and sound engineers can play a part in your vocal sound, though. At open mics it's rare that you're going to have a top notch genius twiddling the faders, so to be extra sure you're heard, be on that mic. It can be tricky if you're playing complicated guitar or have a habit of checking your instrument when you're playing and singing, so think about mic positioning too. If there are monitors at the venue (and they're not always a given), don't be shy to ask for more vocals through them, if you need them. It's better to fluff ten seconds, ask the soundperson to turn you up, then hear yourself, than spend a whole song struggling.
A big thing we work on during my lessons is the importance of boldness and attack, which in turn produces volume. We work on projection a lot too, and I do exercises for vocal tone and timbre, which also produce volume, and I found that coming too close to the mike makes me want to hold back with the volume, which stuffs my attack.
BTW Fins, your gig reports are a huge motivation to me to get out there and do stuff live. I thank you for that !!
i am officially technologically retarded. must be someone here that can help.
nerdlings, can anyone help lucy out?
Gosh, made me laugh a bit.
I'm a techno-retard too, otherwise known as an analoga-saurus.
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/STOIK_Video_Converter.htm
Then, when you're set up, browse for your input file (your original file). Say, it's an .avi file of a few GB. Choose DivX AVI (either the PAL or NTSC option, but I find NTSC's more stable) as your output format, and name your output file. Make sure that output file ends in the .avi extension. Then hit that red button, and you'll have an .avi file much smaller than your original.
Youtube videos are usually no longer than ten minutes and 100MB, unless you've some special kind of account. If your open mic slot ran to longer, you could edit it into clips, using Windows Movie Maker (providing you've Windows and not a mac. I don't know about macs and what they'd have).