Topic: DPA Cardioids (or, Nirvana)

[BC]

I sense that words such as "coloration" and "transparent" are being lent special meanings here so that DPA's statements will seem to make sense. But other manufacturers proved long ago that a super- or hyper-cardioid microphone can be transparent and uncolored sounding. It isn't only small condenser microphones such as Schoeps; the Beyer M 160 ribbon microphone is a very transparent sounding hypercardioid, for example. For that matter, the super- or hypercardioid setting of a Neumann TLM 170 is rather neutral sounding; I've made some very nice vocal recordings with it. Its minor shortcomings in the upper midrange are just as evident in the microphone's other settings, so there's no special curse on the one pattern.

I think one needs to consider the application also, when recording using a stereo pair in the far-field (concert field recording situations which is what most of the people here are doing) IMHO hypercardioid and shotguns sound brighter/thinner and tend to feel "tunnel-ly", for lack of a better term. I would think for near-field recording with spot mics this would not be an issue. I have not heard recordings using figure 8 capsules or blumlein so I can't comment on the bass response in that case.

[Church-Audio]

I sense that words such as "coloration" and "transparent" are being lent special meanings here so that DPA's statements will seem to make sense. But other manufacturers proved long ago that a super- or hyper-cardioid microphone can be transparent and uncolored sounding. It isn't only small condenser microphones such as Schoeps; the Beyer M 160 ribbon microphone is a very transparent sounding hypercardioid, for example. For that matter, the super- or hypercardioid setting of a Neumann TLM 170 is rather neutral sounding; I've made some very nice vocal recordings with it. Its minor shortcomings in the upper midrange are just as evident in the microphone's other settings, so there's no special curse on the one pattern.

I think one needs to consider the application also, when recording in the far-field (concert field recording situations which is what most of the people here are doing) IMHO hypercardioid and shotguns sound brighter/thinner and tend to feel "tunnel-ly", for lack of a better term. I have not heard recordings using figure 8 capsules or blumlein so I can't comment on the bass response in that case.

figure 8 does sound great when your directly in front or directly behind the front capsule.. its when you get between the two capsules that things start to change.. So even figure 8 has its off axis coloration. To a lesser degree then cardioid but its still there.

[DSatz]

freelunch, watch out--you've got the curves there for the MK 4 axial cardioid, but your supercardioid curves are those of the MK 41 V, which is a side-addressed capsule. The curves aren't the same as the ones for the normal MK 41.

Your point is still evident, but not quite as clearly as it would be if you compared either two axial capsules or two radial capsules.

--best regards

[edited later to add:] Excellent, you fixed it.

As an even more clear-cut example, attached are polar diagrams for the three pattern settings of a Neumann U 87A, scanned from Catalog 140 (published in 1991). The 16 kHz graphs of all three patterns are almost identically narrow, but apart from that the figure-8 has essentially the same polar pattern at all frequencies, while the cardioid is distinctly wider on the bottom and narrower on the top than it is at, say, 1 kHz.

Problems in the pattern of an omnidirectional microphone generally show up at high frequencies. This one has that odd "propellor-shaped" response which large dual-diaphragm microphones so often show when synthesizing an omni pattern, plus at 90 degrees (and presumably 270 as well) it has a distinct 2 kHz bump. This is definitely not a nice, small pressure transducer.