For the intelligent audiophile, the experience of watching just about anybody use a handheld microphone is often a painful one. If their voice is especially pleasant to listen to, then it’s that much more frustrating to witness them limiting their own performance by making stupid little mistakes.
There are obviously a wide variety of microphones and microphone types. The handheld ones (like Shure’s famous SM-58) are often handed to inexperienced speakers and singers and then the audience proceeds to wonder why they suddenly don’t sound as good. Nine times out of ten, they’re holding it like a lollipop; completely vertical such that their mouth is at an angle to it.
The average microphone is not engineered to capture sound from an angle but rather straight on. Imagine one of those hard metal bands with the leader singer that seems to just scream every lyric; regardless of whether or not you’re a fan of the genre, it is undeniable that the singer is using the microphone perfectly. The most effective way is to maintain it in a perpendicular position relative to your face. That way, you’re always speaking/singing/screaming directly into the receiving parts within the microphone.
Another common mistake has to do with volume and distance from the mouth. If the system being used will just be set up and left without active monitoring, then the only answer to this issue is testing ahead of time. It is important that the performer personally does a test, not just some technician. This is because everybody speaks a little bit differently and microphones are all different so that nobody really knows what to expect without trying it out.
If the system has active monitoring of some sort, then err on the side of being too loud and holding it too close. Any audio technician worth their salt can easily turn down a signal and/or compress it such that it is more pleasant and mixed in with other audio if applicable. It’s much harder to do the opposite and crank up the system on a person that is quiet and far away from the handheld microphone. Volumes can be increased but you’re inevitably going to run into other issues like crackling, background noise, and other quality issues.
If you are ever in a position to help somebody using a microphone, whether speaking in a huge auditorium or playing karaoke with friends, hopefully you will find this information useful.
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