I can’t imagine how Moses talked to millions of people in the wilderness without a mic. Perhaps the natural terrain offered some acoustic advantage? Or maybe more likely, Moses employed a chain of command. Either way, I’m extremely relieved that we don’t have to worry about that.
Do not underestimate this nifty little machine in our hands. It looks similar but is on an entirely different level (both quality and price) from those mics you find in the Karaoke rooms. This faithful companion delivers our hard work to the people who need to hear it, over the “last mile” where a number of things could go awry. Knowing how to work with it is not only crucial to getting the job done but also conducive to a comfortable experience while we are at it.
No Tapping
The first thing we do with that thing is turning it on, doy. And that concludes the easy part. What follows is the first pitfall. Have you ever seen your friends or relatives casually taking over a mic, then proceeding to tap on it to see if it’s on? Yeah, DON’T DO THAT.
Mics are built to receive sound, not physical impacts. Tapping on it damages the mic in many ways. There is a type of high-end mics that can be rendered useless or permanently degraded with excessive physical forces, so that’s tapping upwards of thousands of dollars away.
How do I know if it’s on then, you ask? Speak into it. If you don’t hear anything, then it’s time for some adjustment. Work with the sound engineer to test the mic, not your fingers, however gentle you are.
Away from Speakers
There is a simple rule for holding the mic, never point it toward any speakers when it’s on. That includes the big speakers positioned at the front of the room, floor monitors on the stage, and you know what, anything that remotely looks like a speaker.
Otherwise, we create a positive feedback loop (or simply, “feedback“) between the mic and the speaker. Any sound can travel through the mic, get amplified by the speaker, and go straight back into the mic, only to be amplified even more. On and on it goes. The result is typically that eerie “eeeeng” sound or gut-wrenching “woooong” sound that quickly goes out of control. Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl.
When we speak, we point the mic straight toward our mouth, leaving 1 inch or so distance between it and our lips. When we stop speaking, we put it on the bench or keep it in our hands, but always point it away from any speakers. I usually keep it in my hand with my arm down, pointing it towards the floor or the back of the room.
Assert Yourself
Now it’s time to speak. That’s an art in itself, but allow me to make it simple. You know how we speak very differently when we confide to our friends over a fireside chat versus when we give a public speech like TED talk? Not only is the volume different, but also the strength, intonation, and pace are much more controlled and asserted. What we do is much like giving a TED talk. We can go gentle at times, but even then, it’s not without deliberation.
In contrast, our daily conversation is normally relaxed and uncontrolled, which is fine if we are catching up over coffee, but fares poorly when we use a mic. How? When we speak softly or when the strength of our speech trails off at the end of a sentence, the mic has a hard time picking up our voice. To counteract, sound engineers have to increase the mic’s sensitivity (gain) to maintain its integrity. The downside of this operation is that the mic now picks up extra noises from the surroundings and is even more prone to the feedback phenomenon we discussed before.
Simply asserting, not yelling, makes our voices more even throughout the session, easier to work with, and pleasant to both ourselves and the audience.
Communicate
At this point, you are probably aware of the teamwork happening between us and the sound crew. It doesn’t take much to make the “magic” happen. Most of the time, communication is all we need. Feel free to say hi to the crew beforehand and get an understanding of what can be expected on that day. Perhaps get their contact information and a chat open during the interpretation so that you can tell them if you need a boost of your volume or when anything else goes wrong.
Test your mic before the service begins to remove as many problems beforehand as possible. It’s worth noting that you need your voice loud enough to hear when all the instruments are playing, so keep that in mind when you test the mic when everything is quiet. During interpretation, you may sometimes find your voice too loud or too weak, but the sound engineers usually pick that up and make the proper adjustment. If you need an extra push, text them.
Lastly
No matter what, NO MIC DROP!
Photo by Greg Reese on Pixabay