There's theory, then there's reality. In this podcast, part two of two on microphone polar patterns, I'm going to show you how some of the best mics in the world respond to sounds coming from different directions. The theory is mathematically neat and tidy. What happens in practice can be a bit more messy. I'm David Muller, course director of Audio Masterclass and I went to Abbey Road Studio 2 to investigate polar patterns, so that you don't have to. No, you do have to. Anyone who has a microphone should try this test for themselves. You'll learn a lot about how your microphone behaves, so that you can get better results from it in your work. What I'm going to do here is give you some comparisons to listen to. Single mic at various angles, then comparisons of the same angle with different mics. I'll be walking around the mics in a circle and reading you a little poem. When I play my examples, I'll tell you what to listen out for. I've been saying microphones in the plural. But actually, it is just one mic. The Scherps CMC 6 from their Colette series. That's the amplifier part, or the impedance converter if you want to be more technical. To get the different patterns, then we use different capsules from the Colette series. The MK 4 Cardioid, MK 41 Super Cardioid, MK 8 Figure of Eight, and the MK 2H Omni. There isn't a hypercardioid in the range. But the supercardioid is close enough for my purpose. So, as the young people in that popular video website, the name of which escapes me for the moment, as they say, let's get into it. I'm going to start with the cardioid. As we know from part one of my podcast series, the cardioid is most sensitive at the front, 6 dB down at 90 degrees and completely insensitive to the rear. That's the theory anyway. Here we go, front, then rear. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high our dale and hill, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high our dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. This is Abbey Road Studio 2. It's quite a big room with a wooden floor and some acoustic treatment. I say some, but obviously Abbey Road considers it the right amount for the room. It worked for the Beatles. So what you hear in the example is my voice and the reverberation from the room. I'm about three meters from the mic. When I'm standing to the rear of the mic, practically all that you hear is reverberation, which is what we expect. I'll play it again so you can tune your ears in. For the rest of the examples, I'll play them just once and you can repeat them as you wish. I wandered lowly as a cloud that floats on high o'er dale and hill, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lowly as a cloud that floats on high o'er dale and hill, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Now this is where I have to mention the mythical unidirectional quality of the cardioid mic. I say mythical because it's often said that the cardioid is only sensitive in one direction. In fact, it's only insensitive in one direction. Here's a comparison between zero degrees and ninety degrees, all the way to the side. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er dale and hill, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er dale and hill, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils. Yes, it's quieter and there is a greater proportion of reverberation, but you can still hear the direct sound of my voice clearly. This is interesting, but 90 degrees is really a long way out to the side, and in most recording scenarios, I'm thinking of ensembles particularly, then there would only be reverberation coming from that angle. But 45 degrees, that's an angle we commonly would need for an ensemble. Let's hear that. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud that o'er dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils. Beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. It's still pretty clear in that direction, but I do hear a difference between that and zero degrees. It's reality creeping in again, but not a problem in practice. But I could look, or listen, more closely. I'm going to give you examples using metallic percussion. Zero degrees and 45 degrees. What do you hear? I'm going to tell you what I think I hear, or what I might have heard when I was a few decades younger. I hear a difference in high frequency content. It's typical in any microphone that the polar pattern is tighter at high frequencies than mid, and looser at low frequencies. What did you hear? Did you hear less high frequency content at 45 degrees? That's the cardioid. I'll move on to the supercardioid. As we know from part one of this podcast, the hypercardioid and supercardioid have some sensitivity at the rear, and nulls somewhere between 90 degrees and 180. In theory, 110 for the hypercardioid, 127 for the supercardioid. And, of course, similar angles around the other side of the circle. So, Apollogius Maximus, I should have made a recording from the exact null of the supercardioid. But I didn't. Anyway, I can get close. Here's a comparison between 0 degrees and 135 degrees. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er dale and hill, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils. Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and Dancing in the Breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high on a dale and hill When all at once I saw proud A host of golden daffodils Beside the lake beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Well, it's pretty close to null at 135 degrees. I can hardly hear any direct sound. Let's compare 0 and 180. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Yes, there's definitely some rear pickup as we expect. And as we would expect with the Hypercardioid 2, which is tighter than the Supercardioid, and the rear response is more. Moving on again, we have the figure of eight pattern. What we expect here is full sensitivity at both front and rear, and complete nulls to the side. Here's my comparison between front and rear. I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er dale and hill When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o'er dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. The sound texture of my voice is absolutely identical, and the only differences I hear are in the acoustics of the room, not being exactly symmetrical. Is this the time that I should apologise to Mr Wordsworth for getting his words a bit wrong? I'm sorry. Very, very sorry. You want to hear what's going on at the sides. Here's zero degrees compared to 90. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high or dale and hill. When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high on a dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. As we expect, there's no direct pickup at the sides. I'm going to throw something in here that will be relevant if you use two figure of eights as a coincident crossed pair to record in stereo. The front and rear of the diaphragm in each mic are in opposite polarity. This means recording sound from the front of the pair is fine, from the back is fine, but from the sides, well, no. No, no, because the channels will be out of phase. Inverted with respect to each other is a better way of putting it, but out of phase is the common expression, and I'm sure we all know what we mean. It sounds like this. I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er valent hill When all at once I saw a crowd A host of golden daffodils Beside the lake beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze Transcribed Ouch, that's horrible, which is why we don't do it. I've kept the omni for last because it is perhaps the most interesting in terms of theory versus reality. What we expect from theory is that the omnidirectional mic is equally sensitive at all angles at all frequencies. Here's zero versus 45 degrees. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er dale and hill. When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er dale and hill, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Zero versus ninety. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. In the breeze, zero versus 1, 3, 5. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high or Dale and Hill. When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as cloud that floats on high or Dale and Hill. When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of Golden daffodils. Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Zero versus 180 all the way to the rear. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high or Dale and Hill. When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of Golden Dils beside the lake, beneath the trees, flushing and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Sounds good? Well listen to this. Metallic percussion at 0 and 180. It's definitely quieter and very definitely there's less high frequency. Even I can hear that. The difference in level and high frequency between front and back is in the microphone. It's an Omni, just not quite a perfect Omni in the real world. And don't forget, this is a very high quality, very well respected microphone. And outside of an acoustics laboratory, it's probably the best, or at least close to the best, omni response you're going to get. So according to my golden rule number one of microphone placement, point the microphone at the sound source, you're still going to have to point your omni. What I'm going to do now is compare the different capsules at the same angles. So, for instance, all the mics at 45 degrees. What we have to bear in mind, though, is that even though these are all capsules from the Scherps Collette series, they will have at least some intrinsic sound texture differences. Reality strikes again. So, here they are at zero degrees. I'll do all my comparisons in the same order, cardioid, supercardioid, figure of eight, and omni. Listen for the texture of the direct sound, the texture of the reverb, and the proportion of direct to reverberant sound. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high our dale and hill, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high our dale and hill, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o'er dale and hill. When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils. Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o'er dale and hill. When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. So, yes, the capsules do sound different on the direct sound of my voice, perhaps not as much as I thought they would. And, although directional microphones have an increased low frequency response when the sound source is close to, I'm easily far enough away for this not to be an issue. The obvious differences, however, are in the proportion of direct to reflected sound. Let's try it again at 45 degrees. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er dale and hill. When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high our dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high our dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high our dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. What you should notice here is that the supercardioid among these patterns is the most pointy. Slightly less so than hypercardioid would be. Let's try 90 degrees. I wandered only as a cloud, that floats on high o'er dale and hill, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils. Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o'er dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o'er dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high over dale and hill, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils. Beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Again we hear what we expect, no direct sound from the figure of eight. The ombly pretty much as at the front. Cardioid, less reverb. Supercardioid, less reverb again. I'll do one more at 180 degrees. I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o'er dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o'er dale and hill, When all at once I saw a crowd. A host of golden daffodils, beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o'er dale and hill, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o'er dale and hill, You When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils, beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Yes, the Omni, on speech, pretty much the same as the front. The Figure of Eight, exactly the same, except for the reverb, which is slightly different in texture, due to the asymmetry of the acoustics of the studio, but the same in level. The Supercardioid has some rare pickup. The cardioid, nothing of the direct sound, only reverb. So, what we have here are real world sound textures for the real world of recording. I love theory. I love the mathematical equations that describe these polar patterns. But the math is only an approximation of the real world. And it's in the real world where we work and have to pay attention to how microphones sound. I'm David Mellor, and I hope that you'll try out this test for yourself with whatever pattern microphone you happen to have. You will learn things about your microphone that you didn't know before. And every bit of knowledge will help you make better recordings. See you soon. Thank you for listening, and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode, where you'll find further information, along with web links and details of all the other episodes. Oh, and just before you go, let me point you to the soundonsound.com/podcasts website page, where you can explore what's playing on our other channels.