learn how to use a mic, folks

Every time there are Senate hearings, I get frustrated.    They use a standard kind of microphone for such settings.    And so few know even the basics of how to use them. 

Those little mics that you see on lecterns are called omnis:  omnidirectional mics.    As you may imagine, they pick up sound from all around.

By comparison, think of singers on those mics that look like flashlights.    They work like flashlights too, sort of:  the sound pick-up is more like a beam.    Move out of it and we can't hear you that well.    You hold them right up to your mouth and speak right into them. 

It's great for live performance, because it cuts out noisy bands and fills a channel with just your voice.

Now, back to the lectern.    Omnis pick up from a general area, so you set it on the stand and you can move and turn this way and that and look at the audience and it picks you up pretty well.

So —– we see all the time people hunching in on a mic to close in and get close sound, but the only time that sounds good is with the other kind of mic.    With these omni mics, it ends up overloading.    It sounds blasty and distorted and bad.    Particularly on Ps and Ks and Ts.

Here's a good example.    Watch for about 45 seconds.    This gal knows how to use it.    Look how far she is, and how comfortable she is moving around, confident that the mic is picking up her words.

Now look at this guy, from just a moment later.    He's speaking into it as if it were a unidirectional dynamic mic, making sure to aim his mouth right into it.    Achhh!    Horrible.

As for Justice Brown herself, the focus of these hearings, she's usually so soft-spoken it doesn't really get too bad, but even then, a good quarter of the time, she gets too close and spits right into it, and it overloads, and even a soft-spoken justice gets that coach-at-a-pep-rally sound.

When you use a tool a lot, you should learn how to use it.

Every Senator and federal judge uses omnidirectional mics regularly.    So many just don't know how to use them. 

Learn how to use your tools.