Hi!, My name is Mathias Hernandez and I am from Lima, Peru. Glad to be in this class with all of you. The following is my assignment of week 2 on Polar patterns:

Microphone Basics:Polar Pattern

Everyone of us know that microphones pick up sound around them and are a major necessity for recording, preforming live or even practicing and training. Polar pattern is the term used to describe the area around the microphone where it picks up well and which area it rejects sound from.

This makes Polar pattern a very important factor when choosing the correct microphone for a specific application, and also it gives us information of how to place it to avoid bad things such as feedback and how to place it to make the mic work at its highest capabilities.

For example, if we think in stage applications, singers or even some instruments need to reject sound from the monitors because it can cause feedback, so the type of pattern we are looking for in the microphone is one that rejects sound from the bottom but picks up well in the front. In this case it will be the Cardioid patterned one, which is a directional microphone (No matter if its dynamic or condenser). the following image represent this mic.

image source: http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/microphone_characteristics_for_live_sound_reinforcement/P3/

Types of Pattern:

There are several types of polar patterns within all the different types of microphones, here are some types of patterns shown in their typical graphical presentation we found on their manuals or boxes: (All diagrams show to microphones pointing upwards)

Cardioid pattern (image source http://www.harmonycentral.com/articles/what-you-need-to-know-about-microphone-polar-patterns)

The are also different variations of this carodioid pattern which are:

Hypercardioid Supercardioid

image source ( http://www.lennonbus.org/index.php?/blog/posts/infoblog_-_microphone_pickup_patterns1/)

Omnidirectional (image source http://www.harmonycentral.com/articles/what-you-need-to-know-about-microphone-polar-patterns)

Figure 8 (Bi-directiona) (image source http://www.harmonycentral.com/articles/what-you-need-to-know-about-microphone-polar-patterns)

Shotgun (image source: http://www.lennonbus.org/index.php?/blog/posts/infoblog_-_microphone_pickup_patterns1/)

But, How to choose?

One important factor to remember when using a microphone is that you always will use a mic to record something within a space. Knowing how much of the space you want to get in the recording can help you decide which pattern to pick.

For example if you want to record two singers at the same time, you could use a figure 8, if you want a mic for live stage applications you can use a cardioid or if you want to record a cello but still get some background noise from the stage or studio (which I think it can be kind of cool) you could use a hypercardioid patterned mic.

Reflection

Referring to polar patterns, we can say that to us musicians, microphones are our tools, there is one kind for one specific reason, however we can also explore this tools in order to be creative when we play, practice or record.

Understanding what are you going to do, and what results you want, help you identify the correct tool, and therefore helps you to be creative at work!.