[Bob Womack]

My standard position is based upon years of fighting pops. There is a cone of air that exits the mouth as a person forms his plosives or palatals ("T"s) that you need to keep the mic out of for most applications. To help in placement, I think in terms of the vocal talent having an old acoustic bullhorn attached to his mouth. I have the person stand as he intends to stand and perform as he intends to perform, and watch the way he points his face. I then extend this imaginary bullhorn out from the mouth, and place the mic just outside the cone of the bullhorn, facing the mouth. A typical location is upside down with the bottom of the grille in line with the nose and about 10-12" out. With this placement, you can avoid the majority of pops unless the vocalist tosses his/her head like a horse. This is great for a new or difficult vocalist who can't handle a lot of coaching without getting distracted, flustered, or angry.

That's a great starting technique. If you've got a real professional on your hands, you can do much more. If you are looking for an intimate sound, you can ask an experienced talent to "blow" his plosives and palatals to the side or down if you pull the mic right down to his/her mouth. For Enya-esque breathy stuff, find a cardioid that is bright and rejects more mids than highs when it is off-axis. Turn it 90 degrees off axis and sing across it. A Neumann U-47 is very nice for this. If you can get the talent to aim the plosives and palatals off-mic and sing quietly, you can draw in that off-axis mic extremely close so that you hear an unnatural amount of close lip and tongue sound. When you blend that with a long reverb and roll off the bass generated by the proximity effect, it has a interesting spacey-yet-very-intimate sound.

Bob