Research page for phil on polar patterns and more

Polar Patterns:

The polar pattern of a microphone is the sensitivity to sound relative to the direction or angle from which the sound is captured / recorded from. There are four main types of polar pattern:

Cardioid = Picks up most of the sound from the front axis of the microphone. It reduces unwanted ambient sound from the sides and back and it and is much more resistant to feedback than other polar patterns.

Hyper Cardioid =Is a more frontwards directional pattern with minor rear spill. Hyper cardioid microphones offer a narrower pickup on the front axis than cardioids and a greater rejection of ambient sound from the sides. Hyper cardioids are most suitable for single sound sources that need to be picked up in loud environments.

Figure of 8 = Picks up sound equally from both the front and the back of the microphone. A microphone with a figure of eight polar pattern picks up the sound evenly from the front and rear of the microphone but not the side. Microphones with a Figure of Eight polar pattern are typically Large Diaphragm Microphones.

Omni Directional = Picks up sound equally from every direction of the microphone. An omnidirectional microphone picks up sounds from all directions evenly and can be useful when picking up the entire room ambience / performance.

Phase Cancellation:

Phase cancellation occurs when two signals of the same frequency are out of phase with each other resulting in a net reduction in the overall level of the combined signal. If two identical signals are 100% or 180 degrees out of phase they will completely cancel one another if combined.

Compression:

Compression decreases the dynamic range (loudness) of the music so that soft sounds don't get lost and loud sounds. However if a sound has been recorded distorted, no matter how much you try and hide it the distortion will still come through. They can also be used as noise gates to lower noise and hum.

Noise Gate:

The aim of a noise gate is to mute signals with low volume. Most gates are also able to close just partially, providing a set attenuation as opposed to muting the signal completely. An example would be if a track is recording heavy distorted guitar, and in between the notes there is a constant buzz form the distortion in the background, the noise gate will shut that out while allowing the guitar to play still.

Comp track/comping:

Comping is short for composite. It involves recording many takes of one instrument, whether it be a guitar solo or a vocal track, picking the best parts from each take and pasting them together.

Ambience:

Ambience is the space in which it was recorded in. Such as a large room, small cuboard etc.

Bouncing:

This is the process of mixing two or more recorded tracks and re-recording (the sum of the original tracks on to another track) these on to another track.

DAW:

This stands for digital audio workstation. Examples of these are nuendo, cubase, logic, pro tools, and fruity loops.

Automation:

The replacement of manual operations by computerised methods.Automation can take care of many boring tasks that used to be in place.It is also creative and allows us to capture certain performances within the mix as well as carrying out tasks that may not have been possible to do live by hand.

An example would be of a using faders. A DAW will allow an engineer to fade the volume of a track, and if later he decides he wants to remove it, he can simply using the DAW. Before automation this situation would be a lot harder, as if there was one wrong fade, the engineer would have to do the whole mix again, or splicing the best bits from differant mixes using razor blades and sticky tape.