Vocal mic placement

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chris Jahn
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Chris Jahn

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Ive seen quite a few people place vocal mics sorta above and angled down towards the mouth.

what does this do? and other than straight on, what other angles and palcements create differnt qualities/effects?
 
As far as I can tell, its to minimize problems like sibbilance... I usually set my LDC up higher than my mouth when I record vocals to reduce the sibb as well as even out the proximity effect. The pops and such are controlled by a pop filter, although not singing dead-on with the mic will also reduce this in the event you don't have one.
 
Put your hand in front of your face. Now say "pop". Did you feel the air hit the bottom of your hand / your wrist? When you talk/sing, the "plosives" (blasts of air) generally end up at or below your mouth-level. Plosives come out in your recording very obviously: they sound like wind ('cause they are!) and can pretty easily ruin a good vocal take. Put the microphone slightly above you, pointing down, and you'll get generally the same sound as if it were directly in front of you, except without the plosives :)
 
so it just take the place of a pop filter, which is use always, i wonder if its "better" than a pop filter?
 
Yes and no, it's also related to the sibilance issue that cusebassman brought up. Pop filters take care of plosives much more effectively than just moving the mic. Plus, they help keep the damn singer off the mic too :p
 
There's also a more pragmatic reason along with what's been mentioned that can come into play: often times the vocalist will have song lyrics, cue sheets, or (in the case of voiceover) a script on a music stand in front of them. Having the microphone raised just a bit allows the artist to be able to glance down and read without having this big honking microphone in their way.

G.
 
Agree. There is kind of basic conflict between the eyes wanting read a page and the mic needing "line of sight" access to the mouth. Large mics in even larger external suspensions can make the problem even worse.
Then if you reverse it and place the mic below and the page above there can be a problem with knocking the mic with page turning.
I'm not a fan of moving the mic off axis, unless there's no other option.

Tim
 
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