Harman-Kardon WMS 470 - Manual (Page 48)

7 Microphone Technique
Handheld Transmitter
Working Distance and
Proximity Effect
Refer to fig. 13 on page vi.
Angle of Incidence
Refer to fig. 13 on page vi.
Feedback
Refer to fig. 14 on page vi.
Backing Choir
Refer to fig. 15 on page vi.
PB 1000 (HT 470 C5 only)
PPC 1000 (HT 470 C5 only)
42 WMS 470
A handheld vocal microphone provides many ways of shaping the sound of your voice as it
is heard over the sound system.
The following sections contain useful hints on how to use your handheld transmitter for best
results.
Basically, your voice will sound the bigger and mellower, the closer you hold the microphone
to your lips. Moving away from the microphone will produce a more reverberant, more dis-
tant sound, as the microphone will pick more of the room’s reverberation.
You can use this effect to make your voice sound aggressive, neutral, insinuating, etc. sim-
ply by changing your working distance.
Proximity effect is a more or less dramatic boost of low frequencies that occurs when you
sing into the microphone from less than 2 inches. It gives more "body" to your voice and an
intimate, bass-heavy sound.
Sing to one side of the microphone or above and across the microphone’s top. This provides
a well-balanced, natural sound.
If you sing directly into the microphone, it will not only pick up excessive breath noise but
also overemphasize "sss", "sh", "tch", "p", and "t" sounds.
Feedback is the result of part of the sound projected by a speaker being picked up by a mi-
crophone, fed to the amplifier, and projected again by the speaker. Above a specific volume
or "system gain" setting called the feedback threshold, the signal starts being regenerated
indefinitely, making the sound system howl and the sound engineer desperately dive for the
master fader to reduce the volume and stop the howling.
To increase usable gain before feedback, place the main ("FOH") speakers in front of the mi-
crophones (along the front edge of the stage).
If you use monitor speakers, be sure never to point any microphone directly at the monitors.
Feedback may also be triggered by resonances depending on the acoustics of the room or
hall. With resonances at low frequencies, proximity effect may cause feedback. In this case,
it is often enough to move away from the microphone a little to stop the feedback.
1. Never let more than two persons share a microphone.
2. Ask your backing vocalists never to sing more than 35 degrees off the microphone axis.
The microphone is very insensitive to off-axis sounds. If the two vocalists were to sing
into the microphone from a wider angle than 35 degrees, you may end up bringing up
the fader of the microphone channel far enough to create a feedback problem.
The PB 1000 Presence Boost Adapter (installed in the HT 470 C5 handheld transmitter)
boosts the sensitivity of the microphone element by approx. 5 dB between 5 kHz and 9 kHz
for optimum intelligibility of speech.
The PPC 1000 Polar Pattern Converter (optional accessory for the HT 470 C5) will change
the microphone's pickup pattern from cardioid to hypercardioid. This makes the microphone
even less sensitive to sounds arriving from the sides, resulting in higher gain before feed-
back when you use monitor speakers on stage.
• To install the PPC 1000, you need to remove the PB 1000 Presence Boost Adapter
first.
Note
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