Introducing Mr. Mike Check

Mike Check

The Other Sound You Make with Your Other Instrument

One of the most important people you’ll meet in your artistic journeys and endeavors is a guy named Mike Check – he usually spells his name, Mic Check.

You will meet Mic before the start of a radio or TV interview when the host or producer says, “Let’s check your volume and and see how you sound on the Mic.”

Just as you should be prepared for an under prepared interviewer, you need to be prepared for the possibility that the mic check process will be rushed over.  Sometimes the interviewer is too busy during the interview to monitor your volume or to see where your mouth is in relation to the microphone.

If it’s just you and the radio interviewer, and they are not wearing headphones, you should be concerned.

I encourage you to buy an inexpensive microphone and experiment to find the best places to position the mic: how close or how far away should you be to the mic to sound clear and easily audible. Plug it in to your phone or any other playback device and listen to yourself.

Most importantly, what part of the mic should you talk in to?  Should you be at an angle, off to the side, above the mic?

In general, you rarely what to talk directly in to the center of the mic: that’s often where the microphone POPing occurs.  Microphone POPing sounds are the biggest radio listening turn off and distraction in all of broadcasting. 

When you experiment with mic settings, you’ll see and hear where you sound the best.  You’ll also find the mic position and placement where the undesirable microphone POPing occurs, and know what mic positions to avoid.

This is also good research to do if you ever speak in front of your audience at a concert preview or at a conference gathering.

Bad audio like this can happen in any interview situation, even in a first-rate broadcast environment.

So, basically your name is also Mic Check.