First, speak into the microphone. Don’t speak in the general neighborhood of the microphone. Get up on that thing. Eat the microphone. It is not a snake. Yes, true, there is a phenomenon called the “proximity effect” so that when you get closer to the microphone there is more bass to whatever is going into the microphone, but this is higher math and not our concern. Perhaps it’s because I sound like a tin can when I talk/sing, but I always enjoy the proximity effect. I need it. I relish it. But still, if this is something you’re worried about, then you’re a more advanced student. Proceed to the honors class and let us know how you did on that AP exam at the end of the year. 

The reason that you want to get up on that thing is because it’s a lot easier to amplify a strong signal. It’s a matter of how strong the signal is going in, how high the gain is set on the microphone, and how loud the volume is leaving the mains. I realize I am mixing some terms here so I will try to clarify. The signal here is your voice, duh. Gain is a concept I don’t fully understand, still at this late date, but the best way I know how to describe it is the hotness of the front end. How hot the mic is, basically. The trick is to use as much gain as you can stand before feedback, a term we will address momentarily. Volume is just volume, but the sound coming out the back end, or the true end, or the speakers pointed to the audience. These are your “mains” in your public address system. And that leads me to . . . 

Figure out where the sound is coming out. There is going to be at least one place where the sound of your voice comes out, the primary speaker or speakers that point at the audience, those mains mentioned above. It helps to know where the sound is coming out because you need to listen to your voice as it’s amplified, because it’s going to change. It’s going to sound different at the other end of the portal. One key lesson is that whenever you amplify an acoustic phenomenon, its attributes change. Sorry. It’s a pain but this is reality. An acoustic guitar is a good example. Amplify it how you will, a magnetic soundhole pickup, a piezo bridgeplate transducer, a Neumann KM84 at the neck joint, it’s not going to sound the same out front. It might sound better! But probably not. Sure, there are people on the internet who have the solution, which they will sell you or at least lecture you about in the comments. More power to them. I am going to grant their expertise, but they ain’t on my gig and are of little use to me when the sweat hits. 

The other place your voice could be coming out, depending on the circumstances, is through one or more of the monitors. These exist so that you can hear yourself better. A couple of my favs rather famously don’t use monitors (Leo Kottke, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings). You only need enough monitor to hear yourself. There is a whole internet cult out there of in-ear monitors — headphones, basically — but I treat these people like Scientologists. They are advanced and evangelical, and I am just a poor lapsed protestant from the south and thus sticking to the old-fashioned brimstone I understand. 

Have a soundcheck. If you’re giving a speech, you probably don’t have time for an actual sound check, so instead use a word or phrase. “Good evening” is a good one. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Don’t say, “Is this thing on?” Don’t be a goober. Don’t slap the mic. Don’t say “testing” if you aren’t literally doing a pre-show sound check test. Just say something innocuously introductory and if you can’t hear yourself or if people can’t hear you, it will become apparent. Adjust accordingly. See above re speaking into the mic. But the point is to listen to how you sound as an amplified voice. Taste that cake you’re baking. 

Stay behind the mains. General audio reinforcement ignorance and cheeseball preachers everywhere have convinced innocent everyday people that when speaking into a microphone they can walk anywhere they want with impunity. This is a mistake. That speaker is somewhere, and you need to know where it is. This is also brought about by the invention of the wireless and/or headset microphone. Like automatically dispensing paper towels in the airport, these seem like a good idea, but they don’t work. They just make a mess of everything. Stay behind the podium where you belong. Get your steps in some other way.

Understand feedback. It’s not something you get in your one-on-one. It’s not something you get from your therapist or your partner. I hate how “feedback” has gone from the audio sphere to the interpersonal relationship sphere because now no one knows what it actually is, so when the squealing starts everyone acts all surprised. Feedback is when the signal (your voice, that guitar chord, whatever) comes out of one of the speakers and gets back into the microphone. The portal forms a loop; the sound feeds back into the transducer. It’s when sound becomes postmodern, when it becomes recursive, when the mold starts growing on mold, and what it sounds like often is a high-pitched industrial keening and everyone in the audience immediately clutches their ears and assumes the tornado position. 

True, there are many different types of feedback and some can be musical, but I am not Hendrix and neither are you, and besides we’re talking about microphones, and feedback here is not your friend. When it feeds back it means you’re too loud. So the question is where are you too loud and what speaker is getting frisky with the microphones. This is why you only need your monitors loud enough so that you can hear yourself clearly, not so the grandparents three blocks away can hear you, and it’s why you need your mains to be in front of the microphones. 

Practice what you are going to say. My minimal but still valuable experience suggests that there is no such thing in life as improvisation; it’s all just accrued practice. If it’s difficult to speak extemporaneously to a small group of close friends, it’s even more so in a roomful of slightly inebriated strangers. Have a plan. Practice what you’re going to say. Remember that brevity is your friend. Everyone you’ve ever seen who talked into a microphone and sounded spontaneous and at ease practiced that speech beforehand. I realize it’s tedious, but it’s the only move that works. No amount of positive visualization will suffice. Actually say out loud what you plan to say later on the mic. Do it more than once. No one is born just knowing how to do a backflip. 

The other thing is that a microphone amplifies more than just the volume of your voice. Any hesitation, stutter, lisp, gargle, bungled word, mispronounced name, voice crack, vocal fry, tongue tie, sudden loss of vocabulary, spontaneous stormfront of uncertainty — any type of friction, like the smallest loose grains of spilt salt on a granite countertop, become magnified in that microphone. Plus your own voice sounds weird. Who is this hick overhead? It’s you, friend. 

People get weird on microphones. There is the kind of person, often drunk, who thinks they are god’s gift to microphones, and if they get on one during or after your gig, say a prayer and cut the power. These people often curse on the mic. It’s my conservative belief that unless you are a stand-up comedian doing a show where people have paid to hear you talk, don’t curse on the microphone. It’s not that I disagree with cursing, I enjoy a well-deployed profanity, it’s that it doesn’t work. It’s not usually effective as a means of emphasis. It’s like lighting a candle with a bazooka. But everyone attempts it now. Just last week I was playing a birthday party and some dude got on the mic to give a toast and out came the big ducks. Fellas, no one wants to hear you strain like that. 

And ladies, no one wants to hear you scream. Or, if you prefer, go wooo!