Since the invention of the first “earset” in the late 1990s by Carl Countryman, this new class of microphone has rapidly grown to be one of the most popular tools for miking presenters, singers and performers. Unlike a headset, which wraps around the head and grabs both ears, an earset fits over only one ear of the performer and positions the microphone element right next to the mouth. This results in a perfect marriage of comfort and unobtrusiveness for the performer and extreme isolation from ambient noise and feedback for the engineer.
Most sound engineers know about earsets and a vast majority use them regularly, yet many are still unaware of some non-traditional applications where earsets can really shine. Let’s examine some unusual techniques and out-of-the-box applications — some of which don’t even involve mounting the earset on the ear — that will make earsets some of the most powerful tools in your kit.
Earsets — More Than Just a Vocal Mic
Although most earsets are intended for speaking applications, some models offer acoustical and mechanical performance well beyond that, so the tool you already own may be capable of even more than you realized.
High-end earset mics feature a frequency response that’s nearly ruler-flat from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Historically, such precise frequency domain performance was expected only from half-inch diameter reference mics, but is now possible with tiny 0.1-inch diameter elements used in ultra-miniature earsets. Harmonic distortion is nearly imperceptible, even at sound levels exceeding 130 dBs. These characteristics can completely capture the human voice, and much more.
So what about the mechanical design? I can barely see the earset when my pastor wears it — does that mean it is fragile? Absolutely not. And with some models offering different softness options for the boom arm, the earset can be gently bent into nearly any shape — opening new options for the creative user.
Instrumental Applications
Let’s say you’re a sound engineer for a premier orchestra — given that you’re reading this magazine, you may be in those shoes already. Your violinist arrives for the first day of rehearsal with her priceless violin that had its own seat on the airplane ride over. You approach her with your instrument mic — an excellent, high-end model with an elegant system that clips onto the violin for close pick-up. As you get close, the violinist’s jaw drops, eyes open wide, and she tells you forcefully, “No way is that contraption touching my violin!” Now what? Your producer doesn’t want stand mics — they’re bulky, distracting, and always in the way. They get bumped and moved all the time. He specifically said, “Close-miking only for this one.”
The answer? Go find your favorite soft-boom, flat frequency response, high-overload earset. Fit it to the violinist’s face — at this point, you’re her hero for not clamping that “other mic” onto her precious instrument. Bend the boom away from her mouth and toward the violin. If you’re using a mic with changeable frequency shaping caps, use the flat response cap for the most accurate and natural reproduction. An omnidirectional element will give you the highest leeway in terms of placement. Run the cable down the violinist’s back to an hardwired XLR adapter (or bodypack) on her belt, and ask her to please disconnect before walking away for breaks. (Choose an earset with a reinforced cable so that if she does accidentally walk away, the mic just pulls off of her face rather than the cable snapping in half.) As soon as you’re done with this setup—and it could literally only take a few minutes—you should go back to the console, let her play, and enjoy the warmth and accuracy of violin-miking with an earset.
Fastening an instrument mic on a flute can produce the same horrified look from the flautist as you got from the violinist — but this time, it can also lead to vibration artifacts in your sound signal each time he presses on the keys. Again, let your earset do the miking. Place the earset on the flautist’s ear, just as you would to pick up his voice. Position the capsule about a half inch back from the corner of his mouth. Use an omnidirectional element, unless you are dealing with extreme feedback or isolation issues, where a directional unit with a windscreen might be the choice. If you’re miking someone playing a pan flute, which can have a very strong burst of air coming back from the closed tubes, lower the mic slightly below the corner of the performer’s mouth, and always use the wind screen. With a small enough earset, even the audience in the front rows will never know the performer is miked.
Theatre Miking
Instrument miking is not the only means of creatively using your earset. Imagine you are a theater sound engineer, and you need to mic the actors without any microphones showing. This is where, for the actors wearing hats, positioning a soft-boom earset microphone within the hat can be a great way to pick up the actor’s voice with excellent gain-before-feedback — and no one will ever see the mic. Also, with the mic positioned slightly in front of and above the face, the frequency characteristics of the voice are accurately preserved. Try using a straightened-out soft-boom earset rather than a lav. You can avoid a lot of the hassle of taping, clipping and cleaning the adhesives off of the lav cable after the performance. Instead, you can simply use the structure provided by the stainless steel boom to feed the earset through the cloth of the hat, and weave it exactly into place. You can even hide the transmitter in the hat, making costume changes smooth and less challenging from the audio standpoint.
Mic Selection
With a world of choices available for earset mics at different prices, you’re probably wondering where to start. Start with quality. Two mics, even if from different manufacturing batches, should sound essentially the same — same sensitivity, frequency response, noise characteristics, and overload level.
Quality is not just about consistency, it’s about durability. No matter what your application, the last thing you want is for your mic to fail in the middle of a performance. You’d also like to get some mileage out of it. Finding new applications for your mic is not the only way to get more bang for your buck — choose a mic that lasts for years instead of months.
Another tip: be creative! Lav users have traditionally outdone their earset counterparts when it comes to creative mic placement. Pushing the lav tip out from behind a buttonhole, down the frame of a pair of eyeglasses, in the sole of a tap shoe, sewn into the cloth of a costume, clipped into the hair, taped to the forehead—what haven’t they tried? The advantage they have is that lavs have been around for 40 to 50 years, while earsets are in their teens. With that said, I propose a challenge to earset users to take this article and run with it, and find new and innovative uses for earsets that would make even the most inventive lav users proud. We’d love to hear your stories about what you tried and how it worked.
Dr. Omer Inan is the chief engineer at Countryman Associates and a visiting scholar at Stanford University. Send your tips & tricks to george@fohonline.com.
