Microphone Technique

Although it sounds strange to you, to hear your own voice over the P.A, in fact it doesn’t sound any different to the audience than if you were talking to them in normal conversation.

The trick here is to be Yourself, if you haven’t got the skill to project a warm friendly personality at the functions where ice breaking is required then being an entertainer isn’t for you. The trick is to find a balance, most people would simply hire the gear – saving around 50% of a D.J’s booking fee and throw a NOW Cd on – if human input and personality wasn’t important to them. At some functions, if they pay for an entertainer and get a human jukebox who doesn’t own a mic and just sits there playing music then they occasionally feel cheated!.

I can’t stress the “BE YOURSELF”, advice enough, don’t put on a radio style zany DJ voice – that will sound false and doesn’t fool anybody. If you are lucky enough to have a D.J training you, or are a young person helping an older mentor D.J then DON’T be tempted to become a clone of him or her. Adopt your own mic style (not a false voice), use your own tag lines but don’t rely on the same cliche’s 20 or 30 times a night – this becomes boring and predictable.

Don’t rely on “that was”, “This is” introductions all night. At some functions going out with a Radio Mic and creating banter with your audience is a great way to break the ice at the beginning of difficult, non formal functions – and a good way of enouraging them onto the dancefloor early on. You can relax the mic work and the frquency of them – once the dancefloor is filling.

Of course there are always going to be functions where you need more mic work than the last, and other functions where it is going to be little mic use, but the key is to develop a style and strength and confidence in your mic working ability and not to rely on non stop music alone to do the work for you.

Just be yourself, and talk normally into the microphone. The thing to work on is to speak confidentally and clearly and try to pace yourself. Speaking too fast will make what you are saying sound garbled, speaking too slow will make you sound like you are addressing a bunch of village idiots . Pretty soon, with a little time and practice you’ll develop your own individual skill and style and that is the most important aspect, don’t try to copy anybody else or put on a different voice, it will sound false and make learning and maintaining the technique a lot more difficult.

If being a comedian is not you, then avoid the jokes unless you are good at this sort of thing , forced comedy can sound false and you may find yourself laughing alone, after all the Client has booked a Mobile Disco and not a stand up comedian!. One of the best pieces of advice I was given my the D.J who trained me, was to “Stick at doing what you are good at and have been booked for, and if in any doubt then leave it