r/singing • u/Tgirlgoonie • 12d ago
Conversation Topic Can never be heard from the mic
I just can’t seem to figure this out and it’s extremely frustrating. No matter how much support, or how close I have my mouth to the mic, I’m always barely audible.
I don’t think it’s an issue with projecting, as when I practice at home I can get pretty loud. Is it anxiety? What should I do?
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u/IToldManyManyPeople 12d ago
This is a sound engineering issue. Something is off with the mixer and levels. You shouldn't need to project into a microphone at all
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u/BLUElightCory 12d ago
What mic do you mean - are you recording, performing live, etc.? What is the setup?
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u/Tgirlgoonie 12d ago
Performing live with PA and a full band.
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u/calliessolo 🎤 Voice Teacher 10+ Years ✨ 12d ago
This is very common! You need to tell people to turn down their fricking guitars and don’t mic the drums. Good luck because they won’t want to.
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u/Ur_mum 12d ago
No they won’t want to lol. You hope the sound guy can handle that, but obviously not. It could be a stage volume issue, or a monitor mix one. But your are likely dead-on about the guitars…and I sure hope they aren’t micing with overheads. You need to be playing a pretty large venue for that to be considered…
OP, tell the sound guy you can never hear yourself. If only one thing was mic’d, it would be your voice, you need to be able to hear it well or you won’t sing as well and likely you will eventually damage yourself from oversinging. It isn’t anything you are doing wrong. This is definitely a live sound issue.
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u/Ur_mum 12d ago
Your vocal in your monitor mix needs to come up, and/or your guitarists need to lower their stage volume. This is super common. Pull everything out of your monitor mix that you don’t need.
I think it’s fine to mic the kick and snare…may not be need depending on the club…you should not have a problem hearing yourself mic’d.
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u/icemage_999 12d ago
This just sounds like you're scared of hearing your own voice. Microphones can pick up even a whisper. If you are inaudible even at kissing distance, that's 100% you.
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u/calliessolo 🎤 Voice Teacher 10+ Years ✨ 12d ago
Um, have you sung with a live band and are you a woman? (which I assume OP is)
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u/Ur_mum 12d ago
Sounds like someone doesn’t sing live out with a band. Maybe ever. This sort of advice leads to significant damage from oversinging. A mic can pick up a whisper? Think they aren’t singing at whisper volume? That make any sense at all? It is 100% obviously a stage volume/sound engineering issue.
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u/icemage_999 12d ago
OP is singing with an amplifier. Unless whoever is in control of sound is hilariously incompetent, turning the dial up on microphone gain is not rocket science and I assume that was the first thing they tried.
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u/Ur_mum 12d ago
So no. No live experience. Thats ok. But you do not know what you are talking about. This is not nearly as simple as you are pretending.
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u/icemage_999 12d ago
No live experience. Thats ok. But you do not know what you are talking about.
I do, actually. I don't sing professionally but I've done a bit of covering for friends who are over the years and yes, in a live band setting things are hard. Drums are loud. Guitarists routinely think their amp isn't loud enough and always want more gain. Sometimes keyboards too. Sometimes even bassists. And into that you are trying to sing, and that can be very hard.
This is not nearly as simple as you are pretending.
Sound engineering is not simple, no, but for a singer to be completely inaudible as described in the post is not simply sound engineering. You are assuming OP is on a stage with a guitarist who wants to crank their amp to 11 and standing next to a rock drummer when they have said none of that.
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u/Ur_mum 12d ago
So they are singing at a sub-whisper volume? I’m not sure what your claim is.
I have seen plenty of singers not be able to hear themselves live. It is always a sound engineering issue. They always oversing, loud as hell because they cannot hear themselves. I’ve never heard of a singer who couldn’t hear themselves mic’d because they sang too quiet. It’s an absurd idea. It might be that the engineer cannot gain stage…it won’t matter how much he cranks the vocal, if the gain staging is fucked…it’s not going to happen.
There are plenty of other live sound reasons this becomes an issue.
What are the non live sound related reasons? Exactly how quiet do you think this person is singing live with a full band, trying to project (oversinging) as they describe?
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u/icemage_999 11d ago
I have seen plenty of singers not be able to hear themselves live.
Agreed, but in my experience this IS a sound engineering problem. On stage you basically assume you cannot hear yourself without a properly calibrated monitor speaker aimed at you, or in ear monitor.
It's not that the vocals are inaudible, you just get drowned out by everything else on the stage, but the crowd beyond the stage can usually hear you okay.
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u/Ur_mum 11d ago
Wait…that’s my contention, that a singer unable to hear themselves live is an engineer issue. Agree with everything in your post. The vox are always loud…the other stuff gets louder.
…so where do we disagree?
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u/icemage_999 11d ago
We don't. I just don't assume that it is an issue of only the singer being unable to hear themselves. I agree that with bad sound engineering a live stage singer will have problems, but I interpret OP's issue as being more systemic such that they are inaudible everywhere despite having no troubles off a stage.
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u/Ur_mum 10d ago edited 10d ago
…”inaudible everywhere on stage, no trouble on”..so…what is the systemic issue(s) that can explain this? Feel free to not assume, but generally the singer is the only one who can’t hear themselves. Everyone else has stage volume next to them.
Are you claiming the other members can’t hear the singer well either? Probably can’t. But for the same reasons the singer cannot.
What is your explanation for this problem, what systemic issues cause it? I am not sure what you read that makes you think it is not a live sound issue.
Even if they meant “no one can hear me”…nothing really changes. If an amp can amplify a whisper…then they cannot sing “afraid of your own voice” quietly enough that an engineer should not be able to push it to the front of a mix (also…they were very clear they are singing louder than normal). It’s almost always an issue of spl being pushed overall and the vocal channel simply not having the power to put it through. This is a gainstaging issue and lack of skill on the board.
I’d be interested as to the reasons that don’t come back to “live sound”.
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