Microphone Pick-Up Patterns

J. Gravett
Oct 3, 2017
2 min read

A polar pattern is the way in which a microphone picks up sound, essentially how well the microphone picks up sound from different directions. In this article, I'll go through different polar patterns and explain how each works.

Cardioid

The cardioid polar pattern is most sensitive at the front of the microphone and least sensitive at the back. This makes it very effective for live performances/recordings, as the instrumentalists can play their instruments clearly through the microphones, whilst not picking up any of the crowd opposite of them. This pattern is also a lot more resistant to feedback, which is another reason it is used on stage with amps and speakers.

Super-Cardioid

These microphones offer a narrower pickup than cardioids, but do offer more pickup at the back of the microphone. An important thing to remember with these microphones is that the monitors will need to be placed further away to avoid feedback due to the pickup at the rear. Super- Cardioid is best for picking up singular sound sources in a live environment, not however for bands as they'd probably end up picking up ones another instruments. Therefore, this microphone would be used in a situation where you have one instrumentalist playing with a loud, live audience, as it picks up the front end very well and wouldn't pickup the audience.

Omnidirectional

The omnidirectional microphone has input and equal sensitivity at all directions, meaning it picks up sounds from every angle making a circular polar pattern. This means that an instrumentalist can stand anywhere an ultimately pick up sound wherever. One of the only disadvantages of this microphone is that it tends to pick up undesired sound sources such as feedback from monitors. Therefore this mic would be best used for multiple instruments stood around a room or for radio host taking to guests.

Figure of Eight (Bi-Directional)

A microphone with a figure of eight polar pattern picks up the sound from in front of the microphone and from the rear but not the side (90 degree angle). Microphones that usually carry this polar pattern are ribbon or large diaphragm microphones.