Theatre Lighting Design, Technical Direction and Consulting

Charles R. Kaiser
Aurora, Ontario CANADA

Mr. Microphone

It is my firm opinion that vocalists should never use a microphone unless they have been trained to sing without one. They not only need to be trained to sing, but they also have to be trained to listen.

I have never seen a problem situation in my career where the real solution to the problem was to throw another microphone into the mix. Technical issues of gain before feedback and many others aside, if a person cannot sing well without a microphone, they are not going to sound any better with one. Oh yes, they will be louder, but there is no way that I know of that will make a poor singer sound good in a live situation (Milli Vanilli may have been on the right track, but then it's not really live is it?).

All too often I am asked to provide a dozen microphones or more for a "jazz choir" or other vocal group, and all too often that group has no idea how to sing, blend, and listen without using microphones, and then they leave it up to me to fix the problem. If a member of an a capella group can't hear themselves in a group of eleven other singers, handing them a SM58 and shoving a wedge in front of them is only going to make the problem worse.

Once a vocalist or group can sing well without microphones, they need to be taught how to use microphones as an instrument to assist them in performance. Training in how a microphone works, and how things like proximity effect can be used to change the sounds that are sent to the sound console are just the tip of the iceberg.

And I don't want to leave out instrumentalists! They need to learn to play and listen without microphones too. They also have to be trained in how to properly use microphones in performance. I can't count the number of times I have been asked to provide solo microphones for a jazz band or combo only to have the soloists stand ten feet away from the microphone with the mic pointed at, say, Cleveland while the horn is pointed towards Des Moines. . .

And what's the deal with the microphone cables? How is it that a rock singer can sing all night and the mic cable coils up without a problem, but give that same microphone to a high school jazz singer, and the cable has to be hung from the grid to spin all of the twists out of it? Man, they must be standing up there fidgeting that microphone in circles non-stop. I've seen the same thing in ClearCom cables. I know of a stage manager who managed to put so many twists in a cable over the evening, that a 50 foot cable was reduced to an effective length of ten feet!