off-axis miking

[dobro]

Okay, what exactly is off-axis miking?

Is it:

1 Singing at the diaphragm, but not straight on. Singing at the diaphragm, but at an angle.

2 Singing, not at the diaphragm, but past it.

 

[Hawking]

Setup as normal, facing the mic. Turn your head X number of degrees either direction. You can do this in the vertical plane as well.

Try this simple experiment. Record a track of the singer singing. While singing, have him/her rotate his/her head slowly side to side or up and down ('off-axis'). Obviously, depending on the microphone, you will get differing results. Off-Axis micing is good for many things including reducing breath noises and pops, reducing leakage from an instument the singer is playing at the same time, etc...