Recording - May 2015 - 23

pattern; blocking them changes the pattern,
usually to something less desirable.
Mind you, I also know people who put
gaffer tape around the vents on the SM57
on snare, to increase the tom leakage into
the snare mic. Why they don't just use an
Electro-Voice 635A, an omni dynamic mic,
is beyond me... but sometimes people do
weird things.
It's worth mentioning that multipattern
mics usually get those patterns by having
two diaphragms back to back, electrically
summing them in different amounts and
polarities to create the desired patterns, but
at least one mic (the Shure KSM141) switches patterns by opening/blocking ports.
Patterns vary with frequency
Here's where things get problematic.
That theoretically perfect pattern in the textbook doesn't happen in the real world.
With an omni, as the diaphragm gets
larger, the mic becomes more directional
at high frequencies, for reasons to do with
the effect of the diaphragm not moving as
a perfect piston. It's possible to make a
very omnidirectional omni if you make it
very small; that's the guiding principle
behind Earthworks mics. If you want to
make the capsule larger in order to reduce
noise, you have to live with a certain
"beaminess", where the high end falls off
a bit at the edges.
For a lot of applications, that beaminess
can be a useful tool. For example, the
whole Decca Tree stereo-miking configuration uses the off-axis response of the
Neumann M 50 mics to get stereo imaging at high frequencies. Try the Decca
Tree with a microphone that is very accurate off-axis, like the Earthworks, and
you'll find it doesn't work nearly as well. It
is very dependent on the mic pattern.
On the other hand, cardioid mics will tend
to become omnidirectional at lower frequencies, because when a wavelength is very
long, the side capsule vents aren't far
enough away from the diaphragm to make
the directionality work properly. This is a real
problem for spot miking; the cardioid will
reject higher-frequency sounds from off axis,
but there will still be low-frequency leakage.
Some of these effects can be changed by
the mic designer by altering the grille. DPA
Microphones sells a line of omnidirectional
mics with various gadgets that can be
attached to the capsule in order to make
the mic either more or less directional at
high frequencies, for stereo miking use.
In addition, the grille can cause irregularities in the response. For example,
Shure's SM57, SM58, and the newly reissued 55S all have the same element inside,
but the response off-axis is very different.
The grille on the SM57 causes the response
to become more spiky and irregular off-axis
than the SM58, and the huge cast grille on
the 55S causes severe response problems
off-axis. For PA applications this can cause

feedback issues; if there is a peak off-axis
that happens to be at the same frequency
as a room peak, you will have problems.
The flatter the off-axis response, the less
feedback you'll deal with.
Those same problems are an issue for
recording as well. Compare a high-grade
DPA cardioid mic to an SM57. They both
may sound good up close, but as you pull
back and get more of the room sound, the
difference in quality becomes dramatically
obvious. On-axis the response is good, but
the pattern on one mic is much less regular
than that on the other, so the room begins
to sound very colored.
There are some mics, especially largediaphragm condensers, where the
response changes very dramatically offaxis. With the Audio-Technica AT4047, for
instance, there are two spots in the back of
the mic where the low-end response is
greatly reduced, and sometimes turning the
mic so a vocalist's mouth is in that spot but
their chest is out of it can be a powerful tool
to control some baritone vocals. The real
popularity of the U 87 seems to be due to
the response irregularities; by turning the
mic around you can get a number of subtly
different tones from one mic.
Proximity
Proximity effect is caused by microphone
pattern. The more omnidirectional a mic is,
the less proximity effect it will have. The more
figure-8 it is, the more proximity effect it will
have. All of that bass boost when you get up
close is 100% a result of the mic pattern.
Anyone who tries to sell you a mic with
reduced proximity effect is selling you a less
directional microphone. The exception are
Electro-Voice's Variable-D mics, including the
RE20, RE320, and RE16, but that's a whole
other article. [For a good demonstration of
proximity effect, and of the way the EV mics
do not produce proximity effect, check out
our videos Recording Bass Guitar, Parts 1 +
2, at www.recordingmag.com.-MM]
Summary
Although you can group microphones
into rough categories by pattern, that doesn't guarantee uniformity of performance.
The pattern changes with frequency, and it's
not always a nice clean shape; sometimes
it's rough and spiky at certain frequencies.
A more accurate mic pattern can help
reduce feedback in PA applications, keep
leakage sounding better in spot-miking
applications, and keep room ambience
sounding good in far-field miking applications. Then again, a less accurate mic pattern can be a useful tool to provide acoustic
equalization in the studio. As always, know
the theory, but trust your ears.
Scott Dorsey (dorsey@recordingmag.com)
is dealing with the consequences of a long,
passionate, and expensive love affair with
microphones.
RECORDING May 2015

23


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Recording - May 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - May 2015

Contents
Recording - May 2015 - Cover1
Recording - May 2015 - Cover2
Recording - May 2015 - 1
Recording - May 2015 - 2
Recording - May 2015 - 3
Recording - May 2015 - 4
Recording - May 2015 - 5
Recording - May 2015 - Contents
Recording - May 2015 - 7
Recording - May 2015 - 8
Recording - May 2015 - 9
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Recording - May 2015 - Cover3
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