> The supercardioid pattern is the technical term for “shotgun” mic.
That is simply incorrect. Anyone who would say that doesn't know what he's talking about, even if he is a nice, intelligent person who works for a company that sells pretty good microphones.
The shotgun principle CAN'T be shrunken down or miniaturized, since the entire effect of the interference tube depends on the wavelengths of the sounds that are being picked up. A 6" interference tube is too short to have any audible effect on low or midrange frequencies. It can only begin to narrow the microphone's pattern at ~2 - 3 - 4 kHz and above. That's too high to have any useful effect at typical recording distances for music.
That doesn't stop people from making and selling these microphones, though--AKG has had one in their catalog for a very long time (C 747--see attached photo). It's actually a pretty nice little microphone, but it's not a shotgun microphone despite its shape.
Abraham Lincoln is said to have asked, "How many legs does a dog have if you call its tail a leg?" The answer is four--because calling its tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. Same thing here.
--best regards
I agree with all this - of course - but just one thing.
If the definition of a "shotgun" mic. is a microphone with an interference tube on the front (which is what I would say the definition is), then the AKG and other similar microphones *are* shotgun mics.
HOWEVER
As DSatz says - the interference tube is so short as to give no meaningful extra directivity at the frequencies that you really need and the microphone directivity will therefore be the directivity of the capsule itself without the interference tube. This normal capsule directivity is normally a hyper-cardioid or super-cardioid (though I know of one gun microphone that used an omni as the capsule).
So, in this instance, it would be better just to use a hyper-cardioid mic. as it will be smaller than these miniature "gun" microphones.
This is the polar-pattern of a small "gun" microphone.
You will see that at low frequencies it is a super-cardioid - at around 2-4 kHz I would say that is is worse than a super-cardioid and it only gets slightly more directional at the highest frequencies.