What goes around comes around.

From the 1920s through the 1940s, PA systems for music often used only a single microphone.

Band members would gather closely around this mic, balancing their sound by moving toward or away from the mic.

Radio broadcasts and recordings often used one mic as well.

This “old fashioned” technique has made a comeback; for example, many bluegrass and folk bands utilize the one-mic method with surprisingly good result, typically using a large diaphragm cardioid condenser.

It picks up sound with amazing clarity and usually with very good gain before feedback.

How can a single mic work so well? As the theory goes, the fewer the number of open mics, the better the gain before feedback.

Also, a single mic can pick up all instruments and vocals with a coherent, focused sound.

There are no phase cancellations between multiple mics to color the tone or smear the transients.

Careful Placement
Want to try the single-mic method? Install the mic on a stand, ideally in a shock mount. (Use a boom if you need more room for instruments).

Place the mic at about chin height and 12 to 18 inches away from the performers. The stand should be positioned in the middle of two or three musicians.

If the band is larger, every two people might be allocated a single mic.

In a typical bluegrass or folk group, you’ll see a fiddle, guitar, banjo, mandolin, singers and maybe a dulcimer or bass.

It’s possible to get a good balance of all these elements through careful mic placement.

Raise the mic stand to make the vocals louder relative to the instruments, or vice versa.

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