4 Microphone Technique
4.1 HT 40 FLEXX
Handheld Transmitter
4.1.1 Working Distance
and Proximity Effect
4.1.2 Angle of Incidence
Refer to fig. 11 on page 4.
4.1.3 Feedback
Refer to fig. 12
on page 4.
4.1.4 Backing Vocals
Refer to fig. 13 on page 4.
4.2 PT 40 FLEXX
dypack Transmitter
4.2.1 CK 55 L
Lavalier Microphone
Refer to fig. 14 on page 4.
Note:
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WMS 40 FLEXX
A handheld vocal microphone provides many ways of shaping the sound of your voice as it
is heard over the sound system.
The following sections contain useful hints on how to use your HT 40 FLEXX handheld trans-
mitter for best results.
Basically, your voice will sound the bigger and mellower, the closer you hold the microphone
to your lips. Moving away from the microphone will produce a more reverberant, more dis-
tant sound as the microphone will pick more of the room’s reverberation.
You can use this effect to make your voice sound aggressive, neutral, insinuating, etc. sim-
ply by changing your working distance.
Proximity effect is a more or less dramatic boost of low frequencies that occurs when you
sing into the microphone from less than 2 inches. It gives more "body" to your voice and an
intimate, bass-heavy sound.
Sing to one side of the microphone or above and across the microphone’s top. This provides
a well-balanced, natural sound.
If you sing directly into the microphone, it will not only pick up excessive breath noise but
also overemphasize "sss", "sh", "tch", "p", and "t" sounds.
Feedback is the result of part of the sound projected by a speaker being picked up by a mi-
crophone, fed to the amplifier, and projected again by the speaker. Above a specific volume
or "system gain" setting called the feedback threshold, the signal starts being regenerated
indefinitely, making the sound system howl and the sound engineer desperately dive for the
master fader to reduce the volume and stop the howling.
To increase usable gain before feedback, the microphone element of the HT 40 FLEXX hand-
held transmitter has a cardioid polar pattern. This means that the microphone is most sen-
sitive to sounds arriving from in front of it (your voice) while picking up much less of sounds
arriving from the sides or rear (from monitor speakers for instance).
To maximize gain before feedback, place the main ("FOH") speakers in front of the micro-
phones (along the front edge of the stage).
If you use monitor speakers, be sure never to point any microphone directly at the monitors,
or at the FOH speakers.
Feedback may also be triggered by resonances depending on the acoustics of the room or
hall. With resonances at low frequencies, proximity effect may cause feedback. In this case,
it is often enough to move away from the microphone a little to stop the feedback.
1. Never let more than two persons share a microphone.
2. Ask your backing vocalists never to sing more than 35 degrees off the microphone axis.
The microphone is very insensitive to off-axis sounds. If the two vocalists were to sing
into the microphone from a wider angle than 35 degrees, you may end up bringing up
the fader of the microphone channel far enough to create a feedback problem.
1. Fix the microphone to the supplied lavalier clip or to the optional
H 41/1 tiepin.
2. Clamp the microphone on your clothing as close as possible to the talker's mouth.
• Remember that gain-before-feedback will be the higher the closer the microphone sits
to the user's mouth!
3. Make sure to aim the microphone at the user's mouth.
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