In my last post, I mentioned some of my favorite mics. There are a couple questions I get frequently about mics, and I’m going to answer those in this post. There are 3 tricky things to mic well, and those are: pianos, choirs, and pastors.

Pianos are one the most challenging inputs for me, and probably you too. I have tried pickups, condensors, dynamic mics, stereo mics, single mics… and no mics. A grand piano has a couple sound holes in the frame of the body, and there are inputs that can be placed right in those holes. Have you ever tried a mic right in front of the sound hole of a guitar? It’s very boomy, dull, and uneven… and it’s the same if you try to mic a sound hole on a piano.

Be patient and experiment. I try to face the mic across the strings, a foot or so away from the hammers. Your biggest challenge can be that the lid of the piano, if left open can funnel other sounds from the stage right into your mic. If the lid is closed, it can be difficult to place the mic in a good spot. My last piano was miked from the high strings, close to the keyboard, facing 45 degrees across the strings towards the other end of the piano. As for the mic, try a 57, then an 81, then a 414 or 4050. Budget depends a lot.

Choirs pose a similar problem. Relatively, a choir is not that loud compared to a drummer or electric guitar. Because of that, the mics are more sensitive and pick up a lot of stage noise. If you get the microphones closer to the choir, you can start to pick up individual voices instead of the whole.

There is no perfect answer, but try positioning the mics above the choir pointing slightly down towards them, instead of being directly in the focus of their voices. You should be able to get the mics closer and still hear a blend. The other tactic is to work with your choir director to strategically place the mics away from the dominant voices, or the dominant voices away from the mics. The small condenser mics work fine, but I’ve also had success with large diaphragm condensers.

Lastly, I’d like to recommend the countryman e6 over-the-ear mic for your preacher. A lot of churches use these now, and they sound great. The best part about them is that the distance never changes from his/ her mouth to the mic, which is not true about lapel mics.

As always, leave your comments. What questions do you have? What mics do you use? What lessons have you learned?