In March 2020, voice lessons moved online for most of the world. I had not previously taught online, and because I teach musical theatre, I had also only taught voice lessons without using audio equipment. My university was requiring me to use Zoom, so I had to make the best of it. I stayed apprised of the best possible (and constantly changing) audio settings for musicians and made sure my students applied them as well. Even still, I was consistently having trouble hearing high notes and long notes, which would attenuate or clip. I knew that USB microphones could really help, but I couldn’t pass that cost onto my students. Fortunately, my university was offering special supplemental grants to support the pivot to online teaching. Over the summer, I applied for and received a $5200 grant to support the purchase of 40 USB condenser microphones for theatre department students and teachers to use during remote voice training.
In the application for the grant, I presented three different microphone options with low, medium, and high price points, and laid out the pros and cons of each option. I included some audio jargon, but I also distilled everything into a simple simile. I explained that without a microphone during remote voice lessons, hearing the sound was like seeing a blurry photograph. Hearing through a high-quality microphone was like seeing that same photograph in crystal-clear focus. I received funding for the highest-priced microphone, which was also my first choice.
I chose USB desktop microphones because they could work without software on either a Mac or PC and wouldn’t require the purchase of an additional sound card. I shopped at length on the Sweetwater website. I listened to every microphone and reviewed the specs on this USB Mic Shootout page. Ultimately, I selected the Samson G-Track Pro as my first choice.
The microphone features that were important to me:
- Adjustable gain – I needed to be able to demonstrate really high and loud singing without clipping, but most of my vocal output in the lesson would take place at a much lower volume. With a gain dial, I can turn it down temporarily to sing, and then back up to a comfortable volume for speaking.
- A headphone jack on the microphone – The ability to plug my headphones into the microphone and hear my own voice in my headphones. This helped me to avoid talking too loudly while wearing headphones or earbuds, minimizing my own vocal fatigue.
- Input volume separate from headphone volume – I needed to be able to turn up the volume on my students without simultaneously changing my input volume. Why are these two things ever conflated into one dial?!
- Polar pattern options – This wasn’t essential, but it was a bonus. Mostly, we use the cardioid setting for lessons and recordings. For the future, omnidirectional will be great if a pianist and singer are recording together in the same room, and figure 8 will be great for duets or dialogue scenes.
Students have not only used the Samson G-Track Pro for voice lessons and group singing classes, but also for all of their self-tapes for performance classes and auditions. Musical theatre singers rarely operate their own microphones, the sound design team does it all for them. There are few opportunities to learn about microphone technique, yet they are expected to create self-tapes for auditions and to maintain reels on performance websites. Using the microphones during every lesson allowed students to experiment with and refine their skills in polar pattern selection, microphone placement, direction, and distance.
Since recording with a pianist in the room was also not possible, students learned how to record their vocals to a piano backing track, and then mix them together to optimize levels. This skill empowered them to be able to create content for their websites and auditions without the expense of a pianist or sound engineer. This strikes me as an equity issue too, wherein we can eliminate the unfair practice of requiring singers to pay collaborators before they have even applied for a job themselves.
Thanks to the grant, I was able to purchase enough microphones for faculty and production use. All of our productions this season were adapted into video or audio format and the new microphones came in very handy. As a teacher, the microphone has been essential for me in terms of demonstrating singing concepts in remote lessons. I’ve also been able to record higher-quality instructional and performance videos, ensuring that every nuance would be captured. In professional development, I have put my best “audio” foot forward at online conference presentations and book talks. As the entire music world has spent months operating online, we are all becoming more sensitive to background noise and poor audio quality. I think of the microphone as operating in the same way as a frame for a painting. When your product is your voice, it should be “framed” in the best possible audio quality at all times.
Praised for her “delightful” (The Boston Globe) and “delicately compassionate” (Times Herald Record) singing, Elizabeth Ann Benson is recognized as a dynamic and versatile performer. In her Carnegie Hall début, she created the title role of Lucy by Tom Cipullo, and her performance was acclaimed as “excellent” (The Big City). She has sung leading roles with Loveland Opera Theater, Luminous Thread Productions, and Cabaret Otaku. Favorite roles include Áljana (A Little Princess), Hope (Anything Goes), and Jessie (Mahagonny Songspiel). As a 2015 winner of The American Prize Chicago Musical Theatre Award, she made her solo début at Chicago’s Symphony Center. In 2019, she was a national semi-finalist in the American Prize Art Song competition. She made her Telfair B. Peet Theatre onstage debut in her 2018 solo cabaret show: Weaving Stories: A Cabaret of Connections, which featured songs drawn from classical art song, musical theatre, and contemporary pop/rock.