What's up with the mics in live concerts these days?

[SrinathK]

There are a few issues I've observed, related to most live performances, which become especially glaring with artistes who like to move around a lot. It's been hurting my live listening experiences of late.

1) You must literally swallow the mic before it seems to start to work. This is true for any instrument or voice. With some instruments like the violin, this means you can literally hear every scratch and squeak of the bow, things that you don't hear in a mikeless concert. Any attempt to increase mic volume causes instant feedback.

2) As soon as you move a little away from the mic, poof goes the sound. It doesn't dim as much as it vanishes. It actually makes the vocalist sound like they're having issues with their voice and are forced to sing softly or are overusing the fade effects. I have later heard one or two of them in closer quarters and there is nothing wrong with their voices. However, they like to move, and every time they move away from the mike, nothing...

3) Has it always been this way, or is this ultra close mic-ing the cause of drowning out your natural voice on stage?

I know for a fact the mic sound is 20-30 dB higher and it's very easy therefore to be unable to hear oneself on stage. The fact that the mic volumes tend to be high in fact makes it HARDER to hear, while hearing sensitivity is massively increased when ambient noise is lowered. I mean, I closed the windows and switched off the fans in my room and the tick tock tick tock of the seconds needle of my clock soon filled the room with an overpowering presence. That's where everyone goes wrong in the matter of amplification - the more silent the space, the lower the volume, the greater the sensitivity.

Issues like these never crop up in studio recordings.

So here's the question? Why are all these issues happening? What were they using in the past that you could keep the mic some distance away from you, move around and still get a more natural sound? Or have only one mic for the whole team and get decent sound balance?

And, will they ever start using the windscreen?

[rajeshnat]

So here's the question? Why are all these issues happening? What were they using in the past that you could keep the mic some distance away from you, move around and still get a more natural sound? Or have only one mic for the whole team and get decent sound balance?

And, will they ever start using the windscreen?

those antakalathu microphones (the big kondai microphones)had a longer range of reception, the fact that the mrudangam picks up adequate song from the two microphone system -one for vocal and one for violin did possibly make the concert of yesteryears more balanced in relative volume.