Harman-Kardon WMS 470 manual Microphone Technique, PB 1000 HT 470 C5 only, First WMS

7 Microphone Technique

Handheld Transmitter 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.

Working Distance and Proximity Effect

Refer to fig. 13 on page vi.

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.

Angle of Incidence

Refer to fig. 13 on page vi.

Feedback

Refer to fig. 14 on page vi.

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.

Backing Choir

Refer to fig. 15 on page vi.

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.

PB 1000 (HT 470 C5 only)	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.
PPC 1000 (HT 470 C5 only)	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
42	WMS 470