How To Sound Better Using Proper Mic Technique While Singing

Practicing your singing isn’t the only way you can improve your sound in the studio or on-stage; it’s good mic technique! Many singers are inexperienced when working their way around a microphone, so don’t feel bad if you’re one of them! You can dramatically improve your sound by following these super simple tips about good microphone technique.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Technique 1: Don’t Cup The Mic!

I know, you look super cool doing it. You see all of your idols do it, so you should too; well guess what! Their audio person is probably in a corner crying because there’s nothing they can do to fix it!

Cupping the mic is exactly what it sounds; covering the microphone with one or both hands on the grill.

You can probably guess the main purpose for the grill: to protect the microphone. However, it’s also used to make the microphone directional; meaning it will mostly pick up what’s in front of it, and reject sound coming from the opposite direction/sides. This is due to the holes in the grill precisely put there for this phenomenon to happen.

What happens when you cover this up is, it makes the microphone pick up sound in all directions. Do you know what happens when you put a microphone and a speaker together?

The reason feedback doesn’t happen when performing is because the microphone isn’t picking up enough signal from the speakers to cause feedback. But, when you make the microphone more omni-directional, meaning it can pick up sound all around it, you run the risk of causing feedback because the microphone is picking up sound in the direction of the speaker. Yikes.

This is when you need to hold the microphone by the handle away from the grill, and point it in the opposite direction to the speaker.

Not only does it cause feedback when you cup the mic, but it can change your vocal tone too; it can make you sound like you’re speaking through a telephone. If the engineer tries to make this sound good, when you take your hands off the grill, your vocal tone will sound very hollow. Best to keep your hands on the handle, and when you realize you’re cupping the mic, change up your grip immediately!

Technique 2: Move To And Away From The Mic In Relation To Your Volume

Sometimes the loud parts are really loud and the soft parts are really soft. Well, you can dampen this effect by changing the distance between you and the mic!

This may take some practice and mindfulness at first, but you should be able to do it from muscle memory eventually.

When you’re about to hit a very loud note, try moving your body back from the mic or the mic back from you. Usually if it’s in the studio and it’s a super expensive setup, you’ll be the one needing to move your body back instead of moving the mic 😂.

For soft parts, you can move in, for obvious and opposite reasons from the above.

It’s important and advantageous to know that your vocal tone changes depending on the distance to the mic; there’s something called proximity effect.

The closer you are to a microphone, the more bass there will be in the sound. So, generally the loud parts you sing while away from the mic will be less bass heavy than the softer parts.

This is a good thing because in vocals, the more bass you have, generally the more close you sound and the more intimate it is. This is beneficial if you really want to connect to the listener and be right in their ears!

Technique 3: Soundcheck Consistency

This point is more for live performances, but you’ll want to keep everything as close to what happened at soundcheck as you can.

What does this mean? At soundcheck, you’ll want to use the mic exactly how you would during the show. That means not having the mic too close or too far, singing at the correct volume, and standing out of the way of speakers to avoid feedback.

The engineer is going to make moves based on how you sound at soundcheck that will most likely be left how it is for the rest of the show unless something is really off. So, if you stay consistent, then you should get a good consistent sound throughout the show.

The biggest thing to probably take note of is to make sure you really sing at the volume you will perform at; this isn’t the time to be shy! If the engineer turns you up because you’re quiet at soundcheck, and then you belt your face off during the show, there’s a good chance it’ll cause distortion by overloading the mic pre. So, make sure you’re consistent between soundcheck and the real deal!

With these quick and easy tips, you should be able to get a much better vocal tone and relationship with your sound person! At the very least, help get that sound person out of the corner crying by giving them the best damn mic technique they’ve ever seen!!

Next article goes into what microphone you should use whether it be on stage or in the studio. Stay tuned!

-Michael