Microphone polar patterns are one of the most important features to look at when choosing your microphone. In this article, we will give a complete review of which are the most important, and which one we should choose for our computer. Let’s see it!
Index of contents
- What do we mean by microphone polar patterns?
- What polar patterns of microphones are the most important
- cardioid polar pattern
- Supercardioid, hypercardioid, and subcardioid polar pattern
- Omnidirectional polar pattern
- Bidirectional or figure 8 pattern
- Shotgun-type microphone and unidirectional pattern
- Conclusions and what polar patterns of microphones to choose
What do we mean by microphone polar patterns?
Polar patterns are one of the most important concepts when it comes to microphones. They help us to know the sensitivity of the microphone to signals coming from different directions.
In other words, the polar pattern of a microphone tells us which are the directions and angles from which it will pick up more sounds. Defines the directionality of the microphone.
In this way, we will be able to know where we have to point the microphone to capture the desired sounds, or to prevent it from capturing those sounds that we want to keep out of our recordings. It is something that applies to any microphone, regardless of the type and what we use it for: they all have a polar pattern. That is why it is very important to know the correct polar pattern for each use.
What polar patterns of microphones are the most important
The polar patterns of microphones are represented by a pie chart . In it, the environment around the microphone is understood as the entire circumference, and on it the polar pattern is represented to define which parts receive the greatest sensitivity and which should hardly pick up sound.
We have to understand, if we see that some region of the environment is not captured (for example we will see it now in the cardioid pattern), in practice some sound will always be captured from there, but it will be very faint compared to placing the sound where yes there is a large catchment area.
Images, unless otherwise noted, are taken from microphone manufacturer Lewitt Audio .
cardioid polar pattern
We begin this review of the polar patterns of microphones with the cardioid pattern, one of the most common and used by some classics such as the Shure SM58.
A cardioid microphone is named for the cardioid curve that its sensitivity pattern makes, as we see in the image above. This curve is characterized by maximizing audio pickup in front of the microphone, with reduced pickup to the sides and very little to the rear.
Cardioid mics are great for setups where we want to hear only the subject in front of the mic, and cancel out ambient noise, such as might occur at a live concert, or even streaming at home to avoid ambient sounds, the keyboard or the people around us. With a well-configured cardioid microphone, wonders can be achieved.
Supercardioid, hypercardioid, and subcardioid polar pattern
To the polar patterns of cardioid microphones must be added the supercardioid, hypercardioid and subcardioid patterns, which are basically small variations with respect to the cardioid. Of these three, perhaps the most common is the supercardioid.
In the supercardioid pattern, we reduced the side noise pickup seen in the cardioid, but at the cost of increased pickup just behind the mic. That is, we pick up much less noise on the sides of the microphone, but with a small secondary effect.
A supercardioid microphone is best if you want to further reduce background noise , for example nearby instruments at a concert, but be aware of the secondary effect of pickup right behind, and especially the speaker or vocalist should have a more consistent position in front of the microphone.
The hypercardioid pattern is more or less the same, but with a much more exaggerated rear pickup effect.
Finally, the subcardioid pattern is a whole different story: much more sound is picked up from all directions, there is still back and side attenuation, but it is much less exaggerated. The good thing is that when used with moving subjects, the sound is attenuated much more smoothly.
Omnidirectional polar pattern
The next polar pattern that we are going to analyze is perhaps the most widespread, it is an omnidirectional pattern. In it, the microphone receives sound from all directions in the same way: it will simply be more or less dim depending on the distance and the physical obstacles that prevent the arrival of the sound, but at the same distance it will not matter to be in front , behind, above, etc.
One of the great advantages of these microphones is that they will not distort sounds depending on their direction or location, which makes them excellent for those applications where you want to faithfully hear the entire environment.
Interestingly, these are perhaps the most widespread microphones in peripherals such as gaming headsets, despite the fact that in principle they are the worst for games and streaming, because the sound of our voice will always be added to the sounds of the keyboard, of people that we have around, etc.
Obviously, omnidirectional patterns are not perfect in all directions, for example behind a microphone where there is an obstacle such as a cable or the microphone handle.
Bidirectional or figure 8 pattern
As an alternative to the omnidirectional pattern we have the bidirectional pattern, which because it has an 8 shape is also often called figure-of-eight. This is a pattern that captures what is both in front of and behind the microphone. This is how the famous ribbon microphones tend to be, typical of recording studios, where this pattern makes a lot of sense.
Shotgun-type microphone and unidirectional pattern
We continue with another essential pattern, in this case we are talking about shotgun microphones, which is another way of talking about a unidirectional polar pattern.
These polar patterns are designed so that the microphones only pick up sound from exactly one direction, that is, only what is facing the microphone in a certain direction. We talk specifically about the shotgun because it is the most common type.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Again, it’s not a perfect pattern that isn’t going to pick up anything other than what’s in front of it, but it’s still usually very powerful. Sennheiser describes it this way: “ It’s like building a sonic tunnel where the sound is drawn into the microphone, shielding it from all other unwanted noise so it doesn’t get lost in the noise. ”
And it is that, indeed, these unidirectional shotgun microphones are very good at picking up things that are at a certain distance, as long as they are in front of the microphone. We see a lot of them mounted on cameras, when they point at people doing any kind of report, streaming, recording, etc.
Conclusions and what polar patterns of microphones to choose
As we have seen, the polar patterns of the microphones are not an issue that we should ignore when buying a microphone. If we have the wrong pattern, the results can be catastrophic.
Currently, among streamers the most popular pattern is cardioid: the SHURE SM7b microphone is the most used by far, Ibai is one of those who uses it among many other famous ones.
The pattern that will interest us the most when buying microphones for streaming or for any similar use is the cardioid, although the supercardioid and hypercardioid are also worth it.
It is very common to see omnidirectional microphones for these uses, which is not bad at all because if we choose a cardioid we will have to have the microphone close to this mouth, which is something that not everyone wants. The problem is that we will suffer more noise from the environment, in particular everyone will be able to hear our keyboard, if there is construction nearby or the people around us.
We recommend reading the best microphones on the market .
We also highlight a curiosity: that there are microphones with a variable pattern that allow us to choose the one we need. For example, the mythical Blue Yeti allows you to choose between bidirectional, cardioid, omnidirectional and “stereo”.
Without the correct interpretation of what the polar patterns of microphones are and which ones there are, it is impossible to make the right decision. Therefore, we hope that this article has helped you.
