online course is available at the moment for only \u00a30.13<\/a> as we test the technology!)<\/p>\nI’m not going to go into it here (but I will soon, I promise) but so many people mis-use microphones and so many venues have shocking systems that our default for presentations is not<\/strong> to use a microphone. For example, I recently spoke a a large regional expo in the north of England – great stage, great kit… except that the speakers were built into the back of the stage. As a result, every time a speaker tried to move to the back 60% of the stage, they risked feedback.<\/p>\nNot good. Not good at all. Very off-putting because even if you managed to avoid the feedback (and audiences hate<\/strong> feedback – it smacks of being an amateur) it means I had to concentrate more on how I was saying things and less on what I was saying.<\/p>\nWhat I’d like to talk about here is whether to use a microphone or not. No doubt your experience will be different (and personal experience tops generalisations here!) but for what they’re worth, here are our guidelines.<\/p>\n
\n- If the presentation is being recorded, wear a mic. Distance-based mics just don’t cut it and you’ll end up sounding like you’re being recorded from the bottom of a toilet. Don’t forget, just because you’re wearing a microphone doesn’t mean you have to use speakers and so on – it can just<\/strong> be recorded<\/li>\n
- If there are people in the audience using hearing aids that can patch directly to a special system, use a mic. Not everyone else needs to hear it but it helps people who would otherwise struggle to hear you<\/li>\n
- If your presentation is to a huge<\/strong> audience – and by ‘huge’ what I mean is bigger than you can project to, reasonably comfortably. Of course, if your voice is properly trained you can project to audiences of a couple of hundred reasonably easily with all the advantages of that but until you’ve got yourself trained a microphone and sound system is a better backup than either not being heard or having to shout!<\/li>\n
- If a microphone is expected as part of your professional image: see my opening comments to this very blog – there was no way I needed a microphone in a theatre of only 150 people but I chose to wear one for the sake of appearances. Not using one would have looked odd to that audience.<\/li>\n
- If you’re ill in any significant way – as a professional speaker and trainer it wouldn’t do for me to have a sore throat and not be able to perform. A distressingly high number of illnesses include ‘sore throat’ in their list of symptoms :( There’s no shame in being ill – and if you’re ill you can’t get your voice to work properly.<\/li>\n
- If the rest of you is injured in any way that affects your voice – for example, I recently had to work two days back to back, doing eight hour training courses with an injured knee. Standing badly to protect the injury has an impact upon my voice<\/strong>. I was okay, because of my training and awareness but if you’re not as lucky as me to have had the training I’ve had, maybe you should consider getting a bit of technological help rather than risk your voice not working the next day………<\/li>\n
- If the system isn’t ready when you walk in to the venue and\/or you’ve not had chance to test it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
And, of course, you should avoid microphones if<\/p>\n
\n- the sound-system isn’t very good – I’ll be blogging about this next week but don’t forget that anything that gets between you and your audience is a bad thing! \u00a0Even just the confusion of your voice coming from a different direction to your mouth (that is, if the speakers are offset) can reduce your audience’s understanding :(<\/li>\n
- you don’t have the necessary technical knowledge or microphone technique – and I’ll blog more about that shortly too!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
So, folks, what are your thoughts – when should you (and when should you not) use a microphone…?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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