intro to music production: assignment 1 (microphone types and polar patterns)
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Hi. Hope you find my presentation useful, with its information about microphone types and polar patterns. I've provided a couple of video clips to illustrate; hope they work on Slideshare as this is the first time I've used it!TRANSCRIPT
Microphone Types & Polar Patterns“Introduction to Music Production” assignment 1: by Janice Reid
Introduction
Explaining how to use the
radio automation software
Introduction
“Mother hen” – watching
progress!
Introduction
A “studio technician” learns
how to make station IDs with
Audacity – a simple freeware
audio editor
Microphone types
• Condenser
• Ribbon
• Piezo-electric
• Dynamic
Microphone types
(source: wikipedia)
Condenser microphones:
• Take power from the interface
(phantom power, or +48)
• Known for sound fidelity
• Often can be set to different
polar patterns
• Sensitive to room noise or
ambient noise
• Fragile
Microphone types
(source: sweetwater.com).
Dynamic microphones:
• Good general stage mic
• Rugged
• Polar pattern is better for
noisy environments or
where multiple
instruments are mic’d at
the same time
Microphone polar patterns
(source: eu.audio-technica.com)
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Each circle represents 5dB
of sensitivity, so you can see
where the microphone picks
sound more strongly or more
weakly at different points.
The further out, the better
the pickup.
The red line in the following
diagrams shows the
approximate pick-up or
“hearing” range of the
different microphones up to
a maximum of 1kHz.
Microphone polar patterns
Cardioid: an inverted
heart-shape
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Microphone polar patterns
Hyper-cardioid and
super-cardioid: the front
range of sensitivity is
similar to cardioid but is
slightly tighter at the sides.
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Microphone polar patterns
Omni-directional: equal
sensitivity in every
direction
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Microphone polar patterns
Bi-directional: also known as
“figure eight,” this type of
polar pattern allows a
microphone to hear equally
well from opposite sides
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Microphone polar patterns
Uni-directional: a
long, narrow area of
sensitivity
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So…which microphone?
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So…which microphone?
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So…which microphone?
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