Filter
Top Products
Tutorial—Glossary
32 — Tutorial
❒ Directional Microphone
A microphone which primarily picks up sound from only one general direction is
a “directional” microphone. This can be handy in maximizing separation in the
studio (and in reducing feedback on stage), because you can simply aim the
microphone away from sources of sound you don’t want to pick up.
❒ Cardioid Pattern
This refers to a widely-used type of response pattern for directional microphones.
It’s called a “cardioid” pattern because the graph representing this type of
response sort of resembles a heart shape. Sort of.
❒ Omni-directional Microphone
A microphone which will pick up sound equally from all directions. Not often
used in studio recording or live sound, but this type of microphone can be useful
when you want to capture the main source as well as it’s environment (room
ambience, for example) in one go.
❒ Overheads
Microphones that are placed “overhead”, sometimes as a stereo pair, to pick up
the overall sound of an instrument or group of instruments. Overheads are often
used in addition to close-miking when recording drums. Microphones set up this
way are also sometimes called “showers” for, well, obvious reasons.
❒ Closed Headphones
This is the type of headphone that completely covers your ears rather than fitting
in you ears or simply pressing against your ears. This is definitely the type of
headphones you want to use for monitoring while recording, because they pre-
vent the headphone sound from leaking out to any microphones in the room, and
well as preventing extraneous sound from leaking in.