Remaining in control on a microphone is one of the most important duties of the P. A. announcer. It’s just like driving a car, the faster you go, the more out of control you can be, but a good announcer can still remain in control for a while.  But just like race car drivers, even the best slip, spin and crash.  It’s maintaining a proper pace and volume with your voice that is just as important as maintaining a safe speed and following distance while driving a car.

Yelling into a microphone means you’re starting to push the limits of being heard clearly, while screaming makes it extremely difficult and uncomfortable to listen to.

It’s just like the RPMs on a car, if you’re pushing the needle into the red, you can do some damage to the car.  On a sound system, you can cause distortion, blow speakers, and even hurt yourself by straining vocal chords and hurting your throat.

Maintaining a proper level is important.  Elevate your voice to encourage the fans, they will respond because they will be able to understand you and go with what you are saying.  Screaming irritates the ears and causes fans to respond negatively.  They may continue to cheer because those around them are cheering, however once the screaming is over people will quiet quickly and the energy you tried to bring to the event has now gone back to where it was before your attempt, or even lower.

The meter shows green, yellow and red lights to indicate volume level and to warn the user if they’re getting too close to distortion.

If you have a mixer, you can clearly see how loud you’re getting, even if you can’t properly hear the sound.  The visual cues are simple, green is good, yellow is warning you that you’re getting too loud, and red indicated you are clipping or distorting the sound.  This is standard industry wide.  The aim is to keep the sound at the top of the green with short flashes of yellow.  However, if you need more sound, you still have headroom to work with.  If you are causing the red lights to illuminate, you’re getting distortion however if you’re barely lighting the lights, just tapping them you’re still ok.  You want to avoid having a solid red light on your board.

This goes true with the analog meters like above.  The key point is 0 (zero), above that you risk distortion.  At the same time, if you’re screaming and the sound operator lowers your volume, it will not sound good either which is why you want to maintain control in your voice, pull from your diaphragm and not over drive the sound system or yourself.

This can be easily practiced.  Call someone on the phone, scream at them and ask them what you just said.  Then talk calmly to show the other end of the spectrum.  They’ll hear you clearly.  Then slowly elevate your voice while staying in control of your voice (still speaking from your diaphragm, and not your throat).  Have that person tell you when to stop.  To hear it, have your friend do the same thing back to you.