The Cultivation Foundation Seal
Front of House · Module 3 of 8 · 4 hours

Microphones and direct boxes

A microphone is a choice, not a default. What it hears, what it refuses to hear, and where you put it decide more about the sound than any control on the desk.

6 lessons · 3 paper · 2 practice desk · 1 the room

Every lesson is read, then do, then check.

The check carries its answer underneath it. Look only after you have tried — the attempt is what teaches, not the answer.

Lesson 1 of 6Practice desk · Runs in a browser, including a phone

Dynamic or condenser, and how to tell

Read
A dynamic microphone makes its own electricity from the sound hitting it. It needs nothing from you, it tolerates being dropped and shouted into, and it is what you put in front of a loud singer or a guitar cabinet. A condenser needs to be fed power to work at all, hears far more detail, and is more easily overwhelmed. You use it on quiet, detailed sources — an acoustic guitar, a choir, cymbals. The quickest practical test: if it needs phantom power, it is a condenser.
Do
On the practice desk, bring up a loud source and a quiet one. Note which one needed much more gain to reach a usable level. That difference in sensitivity is the same difference you are choosing between in the box.
Check

A singer who moves a lot and sings loudly on a small stage. Which type, and why?

Lesson 2 of 6Paper · Needs nothing but a pen

Polar patterns — what a microphone refuses to hear

Read
Every microphone is deaf in some direction, and that deafness is the most useful thing about it on a live stage. A cardioid hears in front and rejects behind — which is why you point the dead side at the monitor wedge. A supercardioid rejects more from the sides but has a small live spot directly behind it, so the wedge goes slightly off to one side instead. An omnidirectional rejects nothing and has almost no place on a loud stage. You are not choosing what the microphone hears. You are choosing what it ignores.
Do
Draw a stage from above with one vocal microphone and one wedge. Place the wedge correctly for a cardioid. Now redraw it for a supercardioid — the wedge has to move, and you should be able to say exactly why.
Check

Why does the pattern matter more on a live stage than in a studio?

Lesson 3 of 6Practice desk · Runs in a browser, including a phone

Phantom power: what it feeds, what it kills

Read
Phantom power is 48 volts the desk sends up the microphone cable to run a condenser or an active direct box. Dynamic microphones ignore it and are unharmed. Two real cautions: never plug or unplug a microphone with phantom power already switched on into a live system — the thump can damage speakers and will certainly frighten an audience — and a few ribbon microphones can be destroyed by it outright. The habit is: connect first, then power, and mute before you touch anything.
Do
On the practice desk, find the phantom power switch and note which channels have it engaged. Then write the safe order of operations for patching a condenser into a live system, in four steps, from memory.
Check

You need to swap a condenser mid-show. What is the order?

Lesson 4 of 6The room · Needs real equipment · the Depot

Placement: voice, cabinet, kit, acoustic

Read
Moving a microphone two inches changes the sound more than any EQ you will apply afterwards. On a voice, close and on-axis, and teach the singer not to cup the grille. On a guitar cabinet, right up on the grille cloth — at the centre of the cone it is bright and harsh, at the edge it is darker; the tone control is how far across you slide it. On a kick drum, how far inside the shell decides how much attack you get. On an acoustic guitar, never point at the soundhole — that is where all the boom lives; aim at the twelfth fret. Place first, EQ second. Reversing that order is a whole career of fighting yourself.
Do
Pick one source and write down three placements and what each would sound like. Then at the Depot, actually move a microphone through those three positions on a live source and listen. Write down whether you predicted it correctly — and if not, what you now believe instead.
Check

A guitar cabinet sounds harsh and brittle. What do you move before you touch the EQ?

Lesson 5 of 6Paper · Needs nothing but a pen

The signal that travels through the air

Read
A wireless microphone does not plug into the board. The transmitter — a handheld, or a body pack feeding a lavalier or a headset — sends over radio to a receiver, and it is the receiver that has the XLR going to your desk. Three things follow from that, and all three catch people out. There is a gain stage you cannot see. The transmitter has its own level, set on the pack and not on your desk. A pack set too hot distorts before the signal ever reaches you, and no amount of pulling your gain down will clean it up — the damage happened in the performer's pocket. Every wireless device owns a frequency for the night. Two packs on the same channel means both drop out. Even on different channels, two transmitters can combine and land interference on a third — which is why you coordinate them together as a set rather than one at a time, and why you scan the room before you trust a frequency you used last week. And it is a battery. A wireless channel can fail mid-song with nothing visibly wrong on stage and nothing wrong on your desk. ⛔ It is not only vocals: an instrument transmitter plugs straight into a bass or a guitar, so a player can be wireless without anybody telling you.
Do
List every wireless device for a show: handhelds, body packs, instrument transmitters. Beside each, write the frequency or channel it is set to and whose it is. That list is the thing you check at line check and the thing you hand to whoever covers for you.
Check

A wireless vocal sounds distorted. You pull the gain down on that channel and it is still distorted. Where is the problem?

Lesson 6 of 6Paper · Needs nothing but a pen

Why the bass and the keys go in on a DI

Read
A direct box takes the output of an instrument — bass, keyboard, laptop, acoustic pickup — and turns it into a balanced signal the desk can receive cleanly over a long run. You use one instead of a microphone because there is often nothing worth pointing a microphone at: a keyboard has no acoustic sound of its own, and a bass cabinet on a small stage mostly contributes mud and feedback. The DI also gets you the instrument without the rest of the stage arriving with it, which on a loud stage is the difference between a mix and a mess.
Do
List five sources that would go in on a DI and five that need a microphone. For each DI source, say what you would be pointing a microphone at if you used one instead — some of them have no answer, and that is the lesson.
Check

A bass player has a cabinet on stage. Why might you still take a DI?

For whoever is teaching it

Instructor notes

  1. Students arrive with strong opinions about microphone brands and almost none about placement. Spend the time on placement — it is where the actual sound comes from.
  2. The polar-pattern lesson is where feedback first becomes a thing they can predict rather than fear. Connect it forward to module 5 explicitly.
  3. Phantom power is the one place in this module where a mistake costs money. Make them say the safe order out loud before they ever touch a patch.
  4. The placement lesson needs a real source and real monitoring and therefore the Depot. The prediction exercise beforehand is on paper, and doing it first is what makes the listening session land.
  5. Have them predict before they listen, every time. A student who guesses wrong and hears it remembers; a student who is told does not.
  6. Watch for the acoustic-guitar soundhole instinct. It is almost universal and it is almost always wrong.
  7. If a student plays an instrument, mic their own instrument. The learning is twice as fast when they already know what it is supposed to sound like.

Slide running order

What goes on the screen.

  1. Dynamic and condenser, cut away side by side
  2. Cardioid, supercardioid, omni — as rejection shapes, not pickup shapes
  3. A stage from above: wedge placed right, then placed wrong
  4. 48V traveling up the cable to the microphone
  5. One cabinet, three microphone positions, three described tones
  6. An acoustic guitar with the soundhole crossed out and the 12th fret marked
  7. DI or microphone: ten sources, sorted

If you want more

Extra credit

  1. Microphone the same source two ways with anything you own, even a phone, and listen back. The principle does not care about the equipment.
  2. Find the polar pattern of a microphone you have access to. It is usually printed on the body or in a one-page datasheet online.
  3. Watch a live stream of a band and work out from the picture alone which sources are on a DI and which are on a microphone.
Module 4 · The console and gain structure →All eight modules