Singing with a microphone is a whole different practice to singing without one. There’s a shift in everything from how you stand to how you hit your consonants. Mastering those skills expands your scope for performing, saves your voice, and lets you introduce reverb, delay, and other effects.
Not knowing how to sing into a microphone can produce muddy, muffled sound that can stand in the way of you becoming a singer who books gigs.
But how do you master using one? Seasoned singing teachers Laura Ratcliffe and James Hall share their top tips.
1. Learn how to hold it.
Distance
Hold a mic too close and the sound becomes distorted, overloaded, and aggressive. Hold it too far away and the quality degrades, excessive background noise is picked up, and bass is lost.
“Sometimes singers hear their voice louder than they are used to, so they back away too far off the mic,” Ratcliffe says. “Ideally, you want to stay approximately 5 to 15 centimetres away as a basis for commercial singing.”
You may pull away slightly when singing louder or belting. Just be sure to stay within range and make any distance changes smooth and controlled.
Angle
“Unlike TV presenting (where the mic is held vertically at chest level), you want to hold the mic straight on for singing, so the bulb is facing your mouth head on (not from below),” Ratcliffe says.
Hall says that finding the right angle can be a matter of trial and error as you switch among mics. “Some microphones work best directly in front of the lips and others don’t. Often a standard handheld mic works better lower down, near the chin.”
Grip
Hold your mic in the middle of its body using a relaxed but stable grip. Do not cover the grille, even with a stray finger. You’ll only create a dull, mid-heavy sound bereft of proper clarity and resonance.
Ratcliffe also recommends keeping your hands from the switch or cable. “Remember that anything you move around or pull at will likely have an effect on the sound (and the sound guy’s sanity),” she says.
2. Perform a sound check.
Taking time to warm up your voice and perform a sound check prior to performing helps ensure that everything is balanced and the mic is properly positioned.
Even a smidge of sound system know-how can help. “That knowledge is always beneficial,” Hall says. “It never hurts to learn more about something.”
“If the genre is quite tech-based, such as R&B or dance, learning about production will be really useful,” Ratcliffe says. “It’s never a waste to learn more, consider the style and genre you enjoy singing most, and what technical considerations you may come across both performing live and in recording sessions.”
3. Avoid overloading the mic.
How loud do you have to sing into a microphone? Probably not nearly as loud as you think.
Trained singers often project by keeping their muscles engaged and shoulders back. It’s great for when you’re learning to sing without a mic, but with a mic, not so much. All that power can overload things.
Sing for the mic, not for the room. Let the equipment do the heavy lifting while you concentrate on precision and clarity. If you’re having trouble, try bringing articulation forward toward your teeth to minimise the required air pressure and effort.
4. Be aware of feedback.
Bringing your mic too close to a speaker creates an intensifying feedback loop and that ear-splitting noise that can kill a performance in its tracks. Avoid it by never pointing your mic at a speaker and checking safe areas during sound checks in larger venues. If there’s space to move around and you intend to do so, roam during the check to find where it’s safe.
If you’re startled by feedback (and it happens to the best of us), place your hand or body between the speaker and mic to dampen the sound as you reposition yourself.
5. Control your consonants.
Switching from acoustic to mic’d singing necessitates a change in how you treat hard, or “plosive,” consonants such as P, B, T, D, K, and G.
“Another giveaway for a newbie is often plosives – your B’s, K’s, P’s, T’s – popping when you sing,” Ratcliffe says. “You have to balance your consonants and vowels, and you learn this quickly when a mic becomes involved!”
Without a mic, those hard consonants are generally exaggerated to keep lyrics intelligible. With a microphone, you’ll want to soften those sounds to prevent harsh bursts and pops muddying your sound. Try forming them farther back in your mouth and reducing lip and tongue pressure.
6. Manage your breathing.
Microphones amplify everything, including the sound of your breathing. Try to prevent excessive or heavy breathing sounds by:
- Taking quick, controlled, and quiet breaths through your mouth
- Turning your head from the mic or moving slightly backward to breathe deeply
- Practicing breath control until you can hold long notes and complete complex phrases without gasping for air.
7. Practise.
Much of mastering the art of professional microphone singing comes down to practise, keeping the mic aligned, relaxing your grip, and maintaining the right distance. Everything eventually becomes second nature.
Is it easier to sing with a microphone at home when you’re practicing? It can be, although a simple prop mic works for rehearsing movements and distances. When you’re ready to invest in some kit, Hall and Ratcliffe both caution against going overboard.
“What you send to the microphone is crucial,” Hall says. “If your diction or clarity is poor, the type of microphone can’t change that.”
“All tech stripped away, it’s still always about your voice, your technique, your expression and delivery, your vocal health,” Ratcliffe says. “You could pick up a little PA for home practice; it will be great to get used to singing with a mic. If you don’t have the means for that investment, then don’t worry. You don’t really need anything at all to be doing fantastic vocal development work. Pirate Studios are a nationwide company where you can hire a soundproof practise studio by the hour. I’ve used them to teach lessons, and they can be a great option.”