Owners Manual

11
The MK300 is a great microphone choice for many instrument miking situations. Below is a brief guide on using the
MK300 in some typical applications. But as a general rule of thumb, before you use a typical placement, carefully listen
to what you are miking by having the artist play a practice track. Take a walk around the artist as they are playing and
listen to what the instrument sounds like from different positions. Move left and right. Listen over the artist’s shoulders.
Place your head up high and close to the floor. Imagine your ears are the microphones. What do you hear that you like?
Then, once you choose your spot, monitor the signal through a set of good quality closed-back headphones and take
notice to how just a slight adjustment can make a huge change in frequency response. However, before you get into
experimenting, the following basic examples are a good place to start.
Vocals
When using the MK300 on vocals, position the microphone in front of the artist so that the microphone grill is
approximating 4 to 10 inches away. To avoid unwanted p-popping, use of an external pop filter is strongly recommended.
If no pop filter is available try to set the microphone at a slight angle, which will also help reduce p-pops. When the
MK300’s pattern switch is set to Figure eight, you can record a vocal duet by positioning one vocalist directly in front
of the mic and one directly facing the rear of the microphone. Just remember that the extreme sides of the microphone
pick up almost nothing due to the bidirectional pick up pattern. You can record a group of vocalists by positioning them
in a circle around the MK300 with the pattern switch set to Omni. The linear response will pickup up all the vocalists in
a 360 degree pattern, evenly. Try to set the balance by having the talent use natural dynamics to blend, or position each
singer at different distances to the mic to create a different balance.
Applications Guide