Darwin, Here are a few thoughts: Besides working on mic technique, pay attention to enunciation. Somecallerstendtoruntheirwordstogetheranditmakesthemimeanthecallerswellactuallyboththewordsandthcallerswhosaythosewordshardtounderstand. I'm not saying that you should hyper-enunciate to the point of sounding stilted, but if you want to be understood in spite of room reverberation and competing sounds (crowd noise, music, electric fans) a little hyper-enunciation can help. One way to check yourself on enunciation (and more) is to make a recording from the back of the hall and force yourself to listen to it. If you're a guest caller at someone else's dance, politely let the sound tech know that your voice may be different from the main caller's, and ask for whatever help (s)he can give to make sure you're intelligible. Try to arrive early at the gig so that you and the sound tech can have a few minutes to experiment with what equalization and what mic position work best for you (e.g., what's not too close, but not too far), at a time when dancers aren't waiting for a walk-thru to start. If you don't 100% trust the sound tech to give ample priority to caller intelligibility--and maybe even if you do--enlist a trusted friend who can offer feedback during your sound check and who can call problems to your attention while there's time to do something about them, instead of after the dance is over. I agree with those who have recommended speaking along the axis of the mic. While there are people who have learned to get good results with the ice-cream-cone style of mic hold, it's easier for most of us if we point our mouth at the mic and point the mic at our mouth. Keep the mic fairly close, but not to the point of "eating" it. As for overpowering the mic, I doubt that you would actually be speaking loudly enough to force the mic element to the extremes of its travel. It is possible that the first stage of amplification (usually controlled, on analog mixers, by a knob at the top of your mic channel labeled "sensitivity", "gain", or "trim") could be set too high, resulting in clipping, which could make you sound loud, horrible, and unintelligible all at once. A competent sound tech will know how to set the gain structure to avoid this. If the sound tech is a turf-conscious clown, then you have a problem, but you won't solve it by trying to offer advice based on stuff you read on an internet mailing list while you yourself are inexpert. You wrote: something ... If the sound board is near the stage, the sound tech can easily be unaware of a problem until (s)he stands up and walks to the middle or the back of the hall. Assuming the sound tech isn't a turf-conscious clown, a request to "please check that I'm intelligible in the back of the hall" can be part of the same kind of polite conversation as "my voice may be different from the main caller ...". Good luck. --Jim callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: completely blew the microphone part. Since then, I practiced holding the mic close to my mouth like was suggested to me. microphone, and I was overpowering it. It was suggested that I hold the microphone further away and project, which I tried, but again, not something I practiced. sound board. Although, the sound guy was sitting there and I'm sure would have done something if it would have helped. deep voices? Any techniques to practice? Sound guy/gal need to be on the ball? _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net