Where You Stick It Makes A Hell Of A Difference

O

Orson

Well-known member
A few months back we decided to have a change around in our little studio. The mic which is on a boom arm had been used in an upright position. But because of extra pc monitors and where we had them placed to read from, we inverted the microphone to make reading from the monitors easier. So now we also have a 'trendy' looking set up with the overhead mic.

There was a break in our recordings and when we got back into it after a month or so, the recordings were troublesome. On some there were lots of mouth noises, throat noises and even stranger noises.:oops:

We had to position this trendy looking inverted mic in an in-direct position and change the distance etc to get rid or lessen the mouth noises.

Then the other day I was editing an older recording before we had the change around. There are very few of these noises and the recordings are so much better to edit and better sounding.

Lesson learnt. We would have realised this straight away if we hadn't had the break in recording, but also nearly all of these noises are only noticeable when editing with the headphones on.

Inverting your microphone can change the sound it hears completely.
 
Surely you mean the angle the mic points at, as in looking slightly down or slightly up? I've never had this issue with any mic when the angle to the subject was the same. Inverted, I find the mic usually has to be tilted down, while on a straight stand, they get tipped back because they're usually a little low? There seems no physics reason a mic element has an up or down difference. I guess the body of some could be a barrier to chest noises? I'd not considered that? They would be in clear line of fire when the mic is dangled? Interesting? Lung sounds? Maybe?
 
Well this happened Rob and what I think it was about is that when it was normal the mic was lower and pointed slightly up because it was under chin level. It was lower than the mouth so we could see the monitor screens.

When it is inverted, the mic is pointed straight into the mouth because the monitors have been moved to a lower shelf. It was improved by angling the mic away from shooting straight into the mouth.
 
I have used my mike upright and inverted, pretty much at random. It often depends on what I used it on before doing vocals. And I have not noticed any appreciable difference.
 
Orson said:
When it is inverted, the mic is pointed straight into the mouth because the monitors have been moved to a lower shelf. It was improved by angling the mic away from shooting straight into the mouth.
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Way to experiment - it is often accidents that produce great tracks.
 
gecko zzed said:
I have used my mike upright and inverted, pretty much at random. It often depends on what I used it on before doing vocals. And I have not noticed any appreciable difference.
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Well when you think about it in our case. If someone has a slapping tongue, the the inverted mic pointing down in to the mouth directly on that tongue, is going to be picking the noises up directly. But if the mic is below chin level pointing up at the nose then those tongue noises won't be so prominent...........in theory anyway but in our case it seems so. I have seen some videos where they point the mic across the mouth rather than directly at it. I bet Rob knows a lot more about this.
 
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