The performer's view of the microphone is a unique one. Invisible to the listener and a tool of the trade for the producer or engineer, the microphone is the representative of potentially countless future audiences. As such, the microphone confronts the performer as an inhuman critic.

The following addresses the recording situation from the performer's perspective. Throughout I will make reference to my own experience and draw upon that of others who have read and commented on earlier drafts, but I will also set those comments within a broader theoretical framework.

Though predominantly trained and employed in the classical field, I have corresponding experience on the lighter side of music (pop and musical theatre backing vocals, film sessions, etc.). It is here that I have met and worked with performers with a different, pop background who have become more general recording artists or ‘session singers’. I have no direct experience, then, of working as a pop musician, but a comparison (rather than a clear-cut opposition) between classical and pop musicians provides a useful methodological contrast and reveals much about different conceptions and attitudes towards recording and technology. It also underlines some of the organisational assumptions, attitudes to technology and working practices of both. Much of what I say will be true for instrumental musicians as well as for singers, but I will limit myself to specific observations about ensemble singers.