Working with headset mics

Here's an interesting experiment you can try out on stage — it's probably easier to set up if you're the lead singer of your band, more difficult if you're the drummer, but I can guarantee interesting results.

Rearrange one of your songs so that you can step out from behind your instrument and sing directly to the audience centre stage. OK, I'm presuming you sing. Croak if you have to. What you will learn from this is just how scary it is to perform when you're effectively naked in front of the audience. Removing the protective barrier of your instrument suddenly puts you much closer to your fans than you would ever have thought.

Now, imagine taking the next step and removing the microphone and stand from in front of you. There's nothing — absolutely nothing — between you and your audience. The first time I tried this (using a headset mic, of course), I scared myself silly. It was much more horrifying than I expected and it didn't help that the club was packed, extremely sweaty, and the front row of the audience was close enough for me to touch! Of course, if I were a more accomplished performer, then maybe the extra confidence I would have gotten from my skills would have come in handy. But what I took from the experience was that, by removing these barriers, I was so much more in touch with the audience. My conclusion, after I had tried it a few more times, was that it was simply a better way to perform. With or without my guitar, I felt a much better sense of communication without the barrier of a stand-mounted microphone in front of me.

If you sing lead vocals Bono-style without an instrument, then you will already be aware how much better you can communicate with the audience. But consider for a moment how much you are using that mic as a prop. You take it off the stand, you put it back, you change the angle you hold it at, you throw it way up into the air and catch it again to distract attention from the guitar solo... That mic, if you think about it, is getting between you and the audience. You're caressing the mic with your hands when you should be communicating to the audience with your soul. The mic is like a third party playing gooseberry in the presence of lovers. OK, just a thought, but it's worth thinking whether this piece of mere technology should get so much attention.

The other problem with a stand-mounted mic is that, if you also play guitar for instance, it locks you into a single point on the stage. Whenever you sing, you have to be back at that one central point, and pronto too. Yes, you can move away and strut your stuff between times, but that mic is always calling you back. And something else I hate about the stand-mounted mic is that it gets in the way of my view of the audience. I want to see the audience (at least as much as I can under lights) and I want the audience to see me (ugly git though I may be), without something in the way. Call it vanity if you like, but why would we be on stage in the first place if we weren't attention-seekers?

Head-worn microphones have long been the norm in musical theatre, so we can look there for examples of how it is done. Notice that I said 'head-worn', not 'headset'. A headset mic is one that is attached to a band or wire of some kind and usually wraps around the ears to position the mic in front of the mouth. A head-worn microphone, on the other hand, is just a small microphone on a thin cable. It can be taped in place and is often concealed in the hairline or protruding ever so slightly from above one ear.

In either of the aforementioned positions, the mic is clearly some distance from the mouth. In musical theatre, this doesn't matter, because they don't use rock & roll levels and feedback is much less of a problem. These positions actually do pick up an amazingly clear sound that is more natural than the mic placed very close in front of the mouth. But when high sound levels call for effective feedback management, then the closer the mic is to the mouth, the more resilience there will be against feedback.

In the theatre, when conditions require that the mic is placed closer to the mouth, a short boom can be fitted that extends from the ear closer to the sound-emitting orifice. Obviously, this will be more easily visible, but booms, and the mics themselves, are available in a range of skin tones to provide reasonably good camouflage.

There is no reason, other than the risk of feedback, why you couldn't try out theatre-style head-worn miking. It would depend on the type of music and, of course, the venues you play — some venues, as you will know, are more prone to feedback than others. But let's go back to the headset mic. Shall I tell you a secret? I made mine from a wire coat hanger. Not the mic, the headset of course! It took about five minutes with a pair of pliers and I don't feel the need to spend any money on a 'proper' one. The microphone itself is a Beyerdynamic MCE5 miniature mic that I've had for twenty years and still sounds fine. Amazingly, it's still available now, although it is a little larger than modern designs. And I must remember to switch it off, otherwise it runs the internal battery down, and they don't sell them in Boots any more.

In my view, the default condition is a wired microphone. There has to be a special reason to use a radio mic. Radio mics are amazingly good these days, but there is always that once-in-a-while opportunity for malfunction. My time spent working in theatre has taught me that batteries are replaced every show, so you know for sure how you stand on that point. Even so, some venues can have unexpected reception problems or 'cold spots' on the stage. There's also the ever-present danger of interference, and not every country is as regulated as the UK on radio transmissions.

So that's my preference but, of course, it is personal and yours might differ. If you use a headset radio microphone, then the advantage you have is that you can move anywhere on the stage without restrictions. You can even go out among the audience if you really feel you have to (it always helps with those slow numbers!) With a wired mic, you firstly have to arrange the cable so that it fits comfortably on you. I just put the connector end of the mic and the XLR that it attaches to in my pocket, so the cable to the stage box sprouts out of my pocket. Those with a more sophisticated stage appearance would probably want to arrange this differently, perhaps mounted on a waistband with Velcro — it isn't any kind of rocket science. Having a cable dangling from you does limit your range of movement but, compared to a stand-mounted mic, you have an incredible range of movement anyway.

One thing you will have to pay attention to, however, is the position of the mic itself. There's not a lot the front-of-house engineer can do to help here, other than give you a bit of advice if necessary. Once the show starts, making sure the mic is in the right position is up to you. Where you want the mic to be is in the line of fire of your voice, but not in the line of fire of your breath. So, you can't place it directly in front of your mouth. Even if the mic you use has a tiny clip-on windshield, you can't expect this to be as effective at dealing with breath noise as the grille on, say, a Shure SM58. Fortunately, the voice projects over quite a wide angle compared to breath, so you only have to position the mic a short distance above, below or to the side of the mouth and it will be far enough away from the breath but still pick up a good voice quality. The best tone of voice is usually found above the mouth. This is worth a try, actually — record yourself at your leisure and experience the range of qualities available with small changes in mic position. From a distance, the mic will look like a wart on your upper lip, but it's going to look like a wart anyway, so it's just a matter of deciding where you want the wart to be.

But there are two people in the typical band line-up that have even more to gain from the headset mic — the keyboard player and the drummer. Being multi-talented myself (using the word 'talent' in a very loose way, you understand), I have spent time behind a keyboard on stage. It is certainly workable to have the mic coming at you from the front on a boom, but there are times when you want to look at the audience, times you want to look at the keys, and times you want to do a quick bit of programming. Having your head effectively locked to a single position is not ideal and using a headset mic is much more flexible. The same goes for singing drummers. I have to admire how they do that. I can't even play the drums (I know this because I've been practicing for three years and nothing is happening yet!) There have been some amazing singing drummers over the years — yes, including Phil Collins, because he can actually play those things pretty well — but you only have to look at a drummer, with arms and legs flailing and mouth firmly pressed to a stand-mounted microphone, to see how awkward this is. And out of the entire band, the one person who has the most difficulty connecting with the audience is the drummer. A singing drummer, therefore, must surely benefit massively from a headset mic. The only problem could be feedback from the massive levels of foldback that I have sometimes heard drummers use.

A second drawback is that you're strapped into the microphone the same way you are with a guitar. Where the headset mic offers freedom in certain ways, it takes it back in another. And, depending on how energetic your performance is, you might have concerns about physical security. I've never had one fall off or seen it happen, but I imagine it could.

Another point is that the front-of-house engineer is less likely to become your friend. He or she likes to choose the microphone, but you have made the choice for them. It is, in a way, putting them in an uncomfortable position, because they now have to work with an unfamiliar mic on the all-important lead vocal. I could also tell you the story of trying to communicate my desire to use my headset mic to an engineer who didn't speak English, when, sadly, I had no knowledge of Eastern European languages — still, it's amazing how much better communication goes with a few beers after the gig...

Having said all of that, I am convinced that the headset mic has a lot to offer, and that we should be using them a lot more than we do. Even if they don't ultimately replace stand-mounted microphones completely, having better communication with the audience is a significant factor in providing great entertainment. And don't forget, the more the audience can get involved with your performance, the more merchandise they'll buy! So, a headset mic can add to your bottom line. How much better than that can it get?  0