Brauner Microphones VMX lite - Manual (Page 9)

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You can choose between two different pattern. The OMNI and the CARDIOID pattern.
Following now is a short description of the different pattern and their behaviour, for
people that have no further experience in using microphones yet. If you are a profes-
sional user, you might proceed to the next paragraph now. Please notice that the in-
formation on this subject given here can only be an introduction. You should refer to
dedicated literature for further and more detailed information. The best thing to gain
experience in working with microphones is being curious about what happens when
you change the microphone, its placement and pattern, as well as the whole recor-
ding environment or chain. It might help to think of a microphone as a camera.
A microphone in OMNI characteristics will pick up sonic information about equally
from either side. This pattern is ideal to get a very life impression of recorded mate-
rial and it contains a lot of sonic detail of the ambience in which the recording takes
place. In the early days, monaural recordings where often made with just a sing-
le omni mic in the right place. You should listen to the decent quality of such recor-
dings and their charming quality. With one or more microphones in omni placed at
the right spot, you can create recordings that have a distinct beauty and a very holis-
tic, detailed and natural feel. Omni microphones are ideal to capture the whole image
of a recording and its ambience. Also you can place omni microphones in the room as
ambience microphones to add their signal to the mix to make it come more alive. (Try
feeding the signal of the ambience microphones into an equalizer, effects unit or dis-
tortion unit to see what happens…)
Microphones in CARDIOID characteristics are the ones being used the most. The cha-
racterisstic is activated in the upper switch position presented by the cardioid sym-
bol that looks a bit like a kidney. Cardioid microphones are more directive than omni
microphones and have their highest sensitivity when the sound is coming from the
front. (While omni microphones have about the same sensitivity in any direction)
When the sound is coming from the side, i.e. 90° degrees from the front, the sensiti-
vity is only about half the front sensitivity. On the back of the microphone it is only
about one tenth of the sensitivity in the front of the microphone. This means that in-
formation is being dampened the more it is coming from the side and even more
from the back. Cardioid microphones can be used as spot or solo microphones to cap-
ture sources without being infl uenced too much by information coming from the
back or from the side.
3.2 The pattern switch