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Proximity Effect

A microphone has a property called proximity effect. The closer that the mike is to the sound source the more low and low mid frequencies are reproduced.

Proximity effect can be enhanced or reduced by the physical engineering of the microphone. Some are designed to minimize the proximity effect and some are designed to include more proximity effect. Many vocal mikes are designed with a fairly strong proximity effect while instrument mikes may be designed to minimize the proximity effect.

Proximity effect can give some added warmth to vocals. The singer needs to understand how to use the property of the microphone to the best advantage. If the singer backs off of the microphone the sound will be thin and as they get closer to the microphone the voice will fatten up. Mike technique is something that is important for a vocalist to learn.

Have you noticed the proximity effect in vocal mikes?

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 3:33 AM and is filed under Mixing Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Proximity Effect”

  1. Emerson Says:
    March 27th, 2010 at 9:24 AM

    It is good to know proximity effect, in fact there were really good singers which are not aware of these. But I do observed them closely by experience, that even though they are not aware of the science behind, great singers tends to hold the microphone closer to their mouth when the pitch of the song is soft and low pitch. While when they sing high pitch notes, they hold it away.

    This makes low notes captured warmly,and the vocal recording sounds very even, a good example of proximity effect in recording.