From the course: Microphone Techniques: Essentials

Unlock the full course today

Join today to access over 22,600 courses taught by industry experts or purchase this course individually.

Physically shaping the pickup pattern

Physically shaping the pickup pattern

From the course: Microphone Techniques: Essentials

Start my 1-month free trial

Physically shaping the pickup pattern

“

- [Instructor] If the mike capsule were simply placed inside a solid mike body with the capsule at the end, it would be omnidirectional. However, almost all dynamic and mini condenser microphones have slots or ports in the side of the mike body. These ports let the sound from the back of the microphone arrive at the back of the capsule and they go around to the front of the capsule. Because they follow those two paths, they're out of phase at the mike capsule, so the sounds from behind the mike diminish greatly. So when you see ports on the side of a mike body, they're there to shape the mike's polar pattern. Covering those ports turns the cardioid microphone into a omnidirectional mike. Notice on this condenser mike that the cardioid version has ports around the capsule, but the omnidirectional version of the same mike is solid. On this Shure SM58, as on the Shure SM57, the lower part of the capsule has holes all the way around. And it's the same with the Blue Encore 200. The Shure…

Contents