The verse sounded fine.
Then the chorus came,
you leaned in
to sing it with more feeling,
and your voice turned into
a late night radio host.
Boomy.
Thick.
Muddy at the bottom,
as if somebody had turned up the bass.
You had not touched a knob.
You had moved four centimetres.
That is the proximity effect.
Most vocal microphones are directional.
They pick up what is in front
and reject what is behind,
and the way they do that
is by responding partly
to the difference in pressure
between the front and back
of the capsule.
Very close to the source,
that difference grows
much more at low frequencies
than at high ones.
So the closer you get,
the more bass the microphone gives you.
A few centimetres away
the boost can be large.
A hand's width further back
it mostly disappears.
Omnidirectional microphones
barely do this,
because they only respond to pressure,
not to the difference.
Figure of eight microphones
do it the most.
None of this is a fault.
Radio presenters use it on purpose
to sound warm and close.
Rappers and crooners
work the microphone with it,
pulling in for the low intimate line
and back for the shout.
The problem is
when it happens by accident,
and it changes between takes,
and every chorus has more bottom end
than every verse.
Then somebody spends an evening
chasing it with EQ,
automating a filter up and down the song
to repair what was only
a matter of distance.
So decide the distance.
Put a pop filter at the spot
and sing to the filter,
not to the microphone.
Use your hand to measure,
the same spread fingers
every take.
If you want closeness,
take it,
and then use the low cut
on the microphone or the channel
to give back the clarity.
And if you do move,
move on purpose,
with the song.
Your listeners will hear distance
as emotion.
Make sure the emotion
is the one you meant.
– Serguey Asael Shinder
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