Working with a Dynamic Mic

[ITHertz]

Hi Folks,

A while back, I bought a nice outboard compressor via eBay, When I picked it up I got talking with the seller, who gave me a tour of his semi-pro home studio. He played me some tracks he'd recorded (ambient/pop) and I was really impressed by the quality of the vocal sound. He said that he used a dynamic mic (an AKG D330).

So I decided to get something similar and ended up with an AKG D7. This is a live mic (obviously) but what I'm curious about is how best to use it in my own little studio. In most live situations singers will be encouraged to "eat the mic" which makes sense when there's spill, but what about in a studio setting?

The AKG "manual" suggests the following:

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 distant 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. simply 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. If you sing directly into the microphone, it will not only pickup excessive breath noise but also overemphasize "sss", "sh","tch", "p", and "t" sounds.• Therefore, sing to one side of the microphone or above and across the microphone’s top. This provides a well-balanced, natural sound

So, what distance/angle are people using with dynamic vocal mics in a studio setting?

What about pop filters?

And shockmounts?

BTW, gain isn't a problem as I'm using it with a McBoost and a WA273-EQ.

Cheers,

Chris

[CS70]

You can try different distances and what sounds good is always right.. but probably you still want to eat the mic. Live dynamic mics are made in the expectation that the singer is very near, so without proximity effect they may sound thin.

Also the mic is supercardioid, so it requires a little more precise angle from the singer as the sides roll off quite fast, and (without looking at the specificmic) supercardioids have a back tail in a broad range of frequencies, which captures a little more room than a regular cardioid.

[Wonks]

Whilst it would probably benefit from an additional pop filter, to be effective it means moving your mouth too far from the mic and suffering lack of bass, reduced output level and allowing a bit more room sound into the mic (one reason dynamic mics can be better than capacitors in an untreated room). Stage mics have a much higher level of built-in 'pop' protection than studio capacitors, so you are less likely to get significant issues. Plosives can still cause an increase in bass levels, so best to use a high pass filter in the DAW to reduce unmusical bass noises.

Stage mics are designed to be handled, so are less in need of a shock mount than capacitor mics. It is really a question of need. If you are getting thumps from the mic from floor vibrations travelling up the stand, then you'll need one (recommend a Rycote universal mount) or learn not to tap your foot in time etc. but otherwise you won't.

[Tim Gillett]

As the AKG manual states, the mic is most accurate to a singer when they are about 2" from the mic. Closer and the bass will rise unnaturally. As the manual implies, singers who "eat" the mic will sound "dramatically" bass heavy. Further than 2" and the bass will decrease unnaturally. This is typical of stage vocal mics. For performers there's very little margin for error.

The AKG manual doesn't mention that mics which arent nearly as sensitive in this "proximity effect" area have been with us for a long time. Here's an old TV show example https://youtu.be/k0t0EW6z8a0 and since those days mics have only improved in this area - for those performers who understand and value them. In fact AKG itself once made such mics. In my college years I had the privilege of using what were then brand new AKG D202 mics for our student musical shows. After that early experience, most other dynamic mics seemed to pale by comparison.

These days, the choices are somewhat limited. EV still sells some models. Shure's KSM7 is the latest incarnation and apparently is a very good performer but it comes at a price as it's a sophisticated design. Elite vocalists seem to have been early users. Here's a recent concert performance by Rufus Wainwright using a KSM7. Just the audio here. https://youtu.be/kGn-p53yP6k Other YT uploads give the video but are only amateur uploads so terrible audio.

Obviously there's more to a great recorded vocal performance than this but a mic that makes it a lot easier to produce a more consistent tonal result probably wont do any harm...