TIM...
Thanks for the question. As someone who has sung in musical theatre without the use of microphones and still had to be heard by those in the back row, I know a thing or 2 about acoustics and projection. My suggestion was for the powerfully voiced person who when singing with a microphone has trouble hearing their voice coming through the sound system (whether through the front of house speakers or foldback) even though others can hear themselves fine with nothing being adjusted but the mic volume.
My theory is that the sound waves coming from the powerfully voiced person, cancels out the sound waves coming from the sound system. In effect, their head is encased in its own bubble of sound created by their vocal power which acts kind of like a force field against the sound meant to reach them from the foldback / foh speakers. If said singers lay off the volume a little bit, not only will it be easier for them to sing and maintain pitch but also it should then be easier to hear themselves through the sound system. It also gets around the problem of having their vocal quality altered when pulling the microphone away as that will make the sound top heavy (more treble-y and even tinny dependent on the sound mix).
Remember, this is only a theory on my part, so I am curious to see if indeed that holding off one's own singing volume (just a touch) is the solution to the problem.
The other thing that could be at play is that singing with power can cause a resonating effect and if the singer's cochlear is basically vibrating from their own vocal power, that will interfere with their own hearing. It is difficult for me to describe right now but the result is, all you hear clearly is your own voice just as you would when singing to yourself. You cannot however hear your voice coming through the sound system clearly. Logically, the singer encountering this problem thinks they have to hold the microphone closer or sing even louder but all that does is cause peaking (excessive volume which leads to distortion through the sound system) and the KJ will turn you down because they and everyone else can hear the singer absolutely blasting through the speakers. It seems to me that letting the microphone do the work instead of singing so powerfully would solve all those problems.
Sorry that took so long to explain but it seems clarification was necessary. I understand that it does seem counter intuitive to sing softer in order to hear oneself better. I could go into the principle of sound waves and troughs cancelling each other out, thus producing that sound bubble force field effect but I'm sure you get the gist of it all now anyway.
I'm talking about doing this at karaoke obviously and not a live concert performance, say, where you get a sound check in advance and microphone volume adjustments catered to your voice. In that situation, of course, go for it. In karaoke though, if you have to let the microphone take care of the volume for you in order to hear yourself and not burst your audience's eardrums, then do.
Submitted by Johnny B on 08-06-2007

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