Unidirectional Microphones vs Omnidirectional Microphones

What are Unidirectional Microphones?

Unidirectional Microphones are microphones that only pick up sound with high gain from a specific side or direction of the microphone. Thus, if a user is speaking into a unidirectional microphone, he must speak into correct side, normally called the voice side, of the microphone in order to get good gain on the recording.

Unidirectional Microphones

What are Omnidirectional Microphones?

Omnidirectional microphones are microphones that pick up sound with equal gain from all sides or directions of the microphone. This means that whether a user speaks into the microphone from the front, back, left or right side, the microphone will record the signals all with equal gain

Omnidirectional Microphones

Most microphones today use electromagnetic induction (dynamic microphones), capacitance change (condenser microphones) or piezoelectricity (piezoelectric microphones) to produce an electrical signal from air pressure variations. Microphones typically need to be connected to a preamplifier before the signal can be amplified with an audio power amplifier and a speaker or recorded.

Microphone Polar Patterns Compared

microphone patterns

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