Your voice is your instrument, but in the context of amplified singing, it is only part of the instrument. Like an electric guitar – or bass, more accurately – your sound must interface with an electronic pickup, which is going to have a major effect on everything you do.
If you sing as part of a larger group that uses only area mics and uses a single mic for soloists, you’d best read something else, since this will be of absolutely no value to you, unless you’re the kind of geek, like myself, who reads things and files them away for possible future trivia games and crossword puzzles. On the other hand, if your background is singing in area-mic’d ensembles and yearn to be a part of a one-on-a-part band, this might be for you.
Attack!
One fine day at MIT, a gaggle of techno-geeks, having nothing better to do, decided to do a study on the psychoacoustics of attack - not the blitzkrieg kind, but the beginning of a musical tone. The most interesting bit that came from that study was that when they eliminated the attack from a sound by literally snipping it off the tape (tape was before hard drive recording), even the most experienced musicians had a difficult, if not impossible time distinguishing the instrument that had created it. Without the attack, they couldn’t tell the difference between a violin and an oboe, or a bassoon and a trombone and a ‘cello! This led them to conclude that the attack is the ear’s major clue to the nature of the instrument creating the sound. It turned out to be quite a bit more than that, but that in itself was big news.
The bass voice in an a cappella group fills much the same function as a bass instrument, in that it is both a harmonic and rhythmic instrument. And just as a bass player has a range of attack types and sounds to choose from, so does a bass singer. A bass player will change the sound by using different pickup and tone control settings, playing higher or lower on the neck, and use a pick or fingertips or fingernails or thumb to contour the characteristics of the attack.
A bass singer has perhaps even more flexibility than a bass player. Altering the position of the mic in relation to the mouth can yield quite a palette of sounds and attacks, as well as altering the basic character of the voice by consciously varying the way the vocal cords bang together (approximation), changing the shape of the mouth and throat, and using different styles of attack. Playing with these variables – mic/mouth relationship, approximation, shape-shifting, and attack style, can give you a surprisingly broad range of sounds without ever having to use a stomp box or any other sort of electronic augmentation. Obviously I’m not talking about octave dividers, since changing where and how you place the mic ain’t gonna give you low Bb’s if you don’t have them already.
Put yer money where yer mouth is.
Most cardioid pattern microphones share a phenomenon called “proximity bass”. This can be both a great boon and boom to bass singers of both genders. The gloss on p.b. is that the closer the microphone is to the sound source, the greater the increase in bass frequencies that the mic picks up and amplifies. Thus, “eating the mic” – holding it up close to the mouth, will give the performer a big gain in overall testosteronial grandeur. As the mic is moved progressively farther from the mouth, the bass energy will drop off dramatically. You can use this principal as a crude but effective bass EQ, and have much greater control over your end of the blend. If you make sure that your hottest level is when the mic is right up to your face, you can then back off both volume and low end simply by moving the mic away from it.
Axis on, axis off
Microphones also possess both “on-axis” and “off-axis” response characteristics. “On-axis” means a sound source aimed straight at the mic’s diaphragm. With hand-held stage mics, that means singing straight into the mic. “Off-axis” means aiming the sound at the mic indirectly, usually by angling the mic so that you are addressing it from the side. Changing the angle of the mic in relation to your mouth will generate a whole new field of tone colors, since off-axis response characteristics are different from on-axis characteristics, and tend to feature different elements in the sound. Combining changes in both angle and distance from the mouth will give you a ton of tonal possibilities, and can have the added benefit of giving you much more immediate control of your sound and the overall blend of your band. Your mixing engineer might have to work less, too.
Where to stick it
Another vital element in creating your attack and the following tone is exactly where you place the mic in relation to your face. Placing the mic directly in front of your mouth will usually result in a rather harsh, spitty attack, which you will probably want in some instances. Since much bass singing is done with a closed mouth (some call it “humming”), it’s useful to know that the characteristics of bass energy change when they are filtered through bone and flesh. Lots of sound is conducted through the bony surfaces of the head, most importantly the hard palate and teeth, so when the mouth is closed, a lot of bass sound is emanating from the area of the face between the mouth and the nose. Holding the mic in that approximate area can often yield a fuller, rounder, bassier tone than simply holding the mic right in front of the mouth. Experimentation will help you find your “sweet spot”. This mic position also has the effect of removing much of the spitty quality of attack that one gets by holding the mic directly in front of the mouth, but it is possible to further modify the attack with the lips.
Don’t Do Doo
Speaking syllabically, “doo” is perhaps the least effective yet most often used sound. I think it’s a holdover from an earlier day. If you want to be prominent in a mix and still blend, you might want to abandon “doo”, or at least use it sparingly. The attack is mushy and it leads to what is classically referred to as a “closed” vowel (oo) which tends to create a narrow, focused, hard to mix sound. For starters, there are lots of variations on “tum”, “pum” and “bum” to play with. I should probably write them as “tm”, “pm” and “bm”, since there is a huge difference between a note attacked with the syllable “bum” (amateur night) and using the sound “bm” with the vowel excised.
With the latter, the “b” forms the attack, and only enough air gets past the lips, which need to be rather loose for this purpose, to etch out an attack. The sound is sustained on the “m”, so in this case there is no vowel sung with an open mouth. This creates a smooth, consistent sound with a nice, fairly percussive attack that doesn’t jump out of the mix every time you open your mouth. You can contour your attack using this technique in combination with the ones already mentioned. In terms of hardness or percussiveness of attack, “pm” (a labial plosive) is the softest and “tm” (a dental plosive) is the hardest. From an instrumental standpoint, “pm” is more of an upright bass attack emulation and “tm” is, for lack of a better word, “slappier”. “Bm” falls somewhere in the middle. With any of these three options, holding the mic either above the mouth or in front of the mouth but off-axis, you will do much to alleviate breath pops, leaving just the sound of your righteous rockin’.
Approximate noise
The act of bringing the vocal cords together is called approximation. A loose approximation allows more air to flow through the cords than a tight one, and produces a breathier, less focused sound, which often sits better in a mix than a tight, focused tone. You can add heaps of that breathier sound to a mix without overwhelming it. The more focused sound certainly has its place, but generally speaking you’ll get a much better blend out of something a little less sizzling. Vocal training can help you get a handle on approximation, which is the analog of a big tone control knob on an electric bass.
The other big tone control you possess is the ability to change the shape and size of your mouth and throat. Changing the shape of a resonating cavity alters its tonal characteristics. Keeping the larynx low and making sure that you are creating plenty of room in your mouth and the back of your throat for that sound to roll around in will give you a bigger, plusher sound that will support the upper voices (which are, after all, merely an excuse for a bass line), blend well, and create elation and awe in your listeners.
Since every voice is different, and different microphones have very different response characteristics, you’ll have to play around to find the combinations that yield the best results for you. Now go out there, make some sweet thunder and make me proud. Add as favorites (63) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 3294
Be first to comment this article
Only registered users can write comments. Please login or register.
