Microphones for Dummies

Microphones are not that complicated, they really aren't. But some people seem to have an unnecessarily difficult time using them, so here are a few basic rules:

1. Anything said to you by an actual, breathing microphone tech or sound engineer immediately overrides anything on this list. This is a general overview only; there are many different types of microphone, many different types of sound setup, and many different types of sound engineer. It's impossible to cover everything in one list.
2. A note on the different types of microphone:
1. You do not know anything about the different types of microphone (unless you do). This list does not equip you with significant knowledge about the different types of microphone. DO NOT ARGUE WITH YOUR SOUND TECH ABOUT WHAT TYPE OF MICROPHONE YOU ARE WEARING.
2. A handheld mic is a microphone you hold in your hand. Hopefully that makes sense to you.
3. A lapel mic is a mic that is worn on your lapel (weird, né?), on your collar, or between the first and second or second and third buttons on a button-up shirt. It is not interchangeable with a handheld; you cannot hold it in front of your face. If you do so, you will sound like a robot from an '80s sci-fi film doing an impression of a gale-force wind with laryngitis, in a war zone.
   Once again for the benefit of our lecturers: You cannot hold a lapel mic in front of your face.
4. A "Countryman" is a microphone that hooks over your ear and runs down the side of your cheek. They can be bent slightly to allow the microphone tech to get the actual microphone the right distance from your mouth. The R600 microphone is not a toy, and nobody is impressed by the fact that you can bend a wire. They will be substantially less impressed when you break it.
5. A "Lavaliere" microphone has different meanings depending on where you are; in the South African lexicon (the one I know, at least) it is a microphone that is hidden inside your fringe. For crying out loud, people, try not to smear hair gel, hair cream, hair wax or anything else all over the R1000 microphone...
3. The ideal distance between your mouth and a handheld microphone is about 10cm.
1. If your life is so devoid of human interaction that you feel the need to make out with the microphone, you need to a) Consider therapy, and b) Stay the hell away from my expensive sound equipment.
2. Conversely, the microphone is not going to bite you, and at most 25% of the various species of bacteria deposited on the microphone by people ignoring 3.1) are dangerous. Please don't hold the microphone so far away that it's closer to the audience than it is to you.
4. More important than precise distance is constancy. A decent sound engineer can generally account for anything between 5 and 20cm, but if you constantly move the mic around, nobody human will be able to keep up. In summary: If it looks like you're fellating the microphone, you need to fix that (not least to avoid becoming the joke of the week).
1. Very experienced singers can use microphone movement as a vocal effect in and of itself. If your monthly income from singing alone is not enough to feed you for the month, you are not experienced enough.
2. Contrary to what appears to be popular belief, your voice does not emanate from your forehead, your neck, your breasts, your navel, your shoulders, or either of your ears. Nor does it magically issue from the air ten centimeters in front of your face. Point the microphone at your mouth.
5. Microphones are not magic voice generator boxes. They do not collect your thoughts and transform them into words; nor are they magically attuned to your voice alone, at the exception of all background noise.
   What I'm trying to get at here is that just because you are holding a microphone does not mean you no longer need to put some oomph into your voice. It is ridiculously easy for the whisper most people assume when they get a mic to be drowned out by pretty much any other noise on stage. This is particularly, but far from exclusively, a problem with lapel, Countryman and Lavaliere microphones.
6. If you are carrying a microphone, it is in all likelihood the most expensive thing in your possession. Endeavour not to throw it at the ground or at the mic tech, juggle it, use it as a crew-prod or backscratcher, wash it off with tap water when it is still on, or wager it in a game of poker. If you can possibly restrain yourself.
7. The monitor mix - the mix you hear onstage - is completely different to the house mix, which is heard by the audience. There are two valid complaints you may give to the sound engineer: "I cannot hear myself well enough to sing", and "I cannot hear my accompaniment well enough to sing". That's it. Nothing else.
8. You may have noticed that if you point your microphone towards speaker or wander too far forward, into the projection range of a speaker, you get a horrible screeching noise called "feedback". I dearly wish I did not have to explicitly state this, but don't point your microphone towards speakers or walk in places where you get feedback.
9. If you are wearing or carrying a microphone, it is on at all times. Yes, the sound engineer will mute it whenever possible, but when 20 different mic'd actors have just left stage at the same time, it's going to take a while. Endeavour not to swear at the audience when it's possible that your voice will be broadcast to the very same audience.
1. There is a feature of almost every mixing desk called AFL, which allows a sound engineer to listen to a mic that, to everybody else, is muted. It allows microphones to be checked, balances to be sorted out and general "admin" to be made a lot easier. Unfortunately, it also means that we will probably hear at least some of what you say backstage. For some reason, girls are particularly bad culprits. I have no desire to hear about your period, your sex life, your pregnancy scare, how much of a bitch "she" is, how horrible you think the sound engineer is, how much you want to slap/kiss/slapkiss/kissslap/<censored> "him", what you think the director should do to himself, how drunk you were last night, or who you want to jump at the cast party - all things I have heard before. Please, keep your mouth shut backstage.
10. The microphone tech has willingly decided to spend two weeks of his life taping wires to your sweaty skin, running around after you like a toddler constantly in need of nappy changes, freaking out every time you sit down on a R600 battery/transmitter pack, meticulously removing the hair gel you somehow managed to get inside a microphone, and staying an hour after you leave every single night to wipe your sweat off of his ridiculously expensive equipment, all so the audience can hear your solo. Be nice to the poor bastard.