Why Are There Two Types Of Mics In Kpop?

1st Official Post

    So I was watching Twice perform I Can't Stop Me( arguably the best Twice song that has ever existed) and I noticed something. You know the mics that are attached to idols. Well when I was watching the video Jihyo, Dahyun had this fancy mic thing while the rest seem to have this peach round tip mic that was right next to their faces.

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    At first I though it was just because Jihyo and Dahyun had more lines in the performance or something like that and JYP wanted to save some money.

    Then I was just scrolling through and watching videos and I found STAYC's Asap peformance and I watched it. I realized that all of the girls were wearing that peach round tip mic

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    I started to watch more performances and saw that some groups had the fancy mics while others had the seemingly normal mics

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    The only ones that I could find that had signicantly different mics were Gidle, Jeongyeon, Chaeyoungs' and their's looked like a combination of the two

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    So I was wondering why are there two(maybe three) different mics in kpop?

    • Official Post

    Possibly preference? Much like some preferring hand mics over headsets?


    The fancy mics as you call them stick out further and from what I've seen are only attached by an arm that goes behind their neck/head and hooks behind their ears. I've seen several idols accidently bump them out of place of their mouth or even dislodge them entirely while doing choreo. I've also sometimes seen necklaces/hair get caught in it.

    Here's an article that explains to some extent:

    https://www.kpopbehind.com/201…ol-stars-microphones.html


    I believe it to some extent as I believe the fancy headset is something like an AKG Crown which runs ~$450. I've played with condenser mics before and they are really nice for ignoring a lot of ambient noise--you have to play into it directly.


    A great mic is a double edged sword. It'll expose your weaknesses and strengths.


    I wonder if they only keep them on for an idol's lines to avoid any heavy breathing from choreo.

    Also, I don't think having these mics is necessarily an indicator that they're being used in what you hear in the YT recording.


    I can hear natural intonation variance in the Twice and Enhypen videos, consistent with live shows. It's not just the breaths you can hear, but also just notes going very slightly flat or sharp mostly from all the moving around.


    The StayC video sounds closer to studio but I also hear some breaths so maybe it's pre-recorded audio. Everglow also doesn't sound live to me despite all of them having fancy mics. But since none of us can observe the actual recording, it's also possible they took the live recording and processed it to correct pitch problems. The wonders of technology.

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