R/P 2: Polar patterns of microphones

Omnidirectional microphones are microphones that can pick up sound from almost any direction. Such microphones are useful in picking up ambient sound or in an environment where sources of sound are moving , but not moving with the microphone.

Advantages of using omnidirectional microphones:

·      They are easy to set up and use, even by inexperienced people who may have never used omnidirectional microphones before.

·      Due to broad pick up abilities of omnidirectional microphones, they can be used in environments where large coverage of sound is needed, or if the sound source is not yet known.  For example, in wildlife, omnidirectional microphones may be used to pick up general background sounds, as the person recording may not be able to predict how the subject or the sound source might move.

·      There are high quality omnidirectional microphones with low costs.
  
   Disadvantages of using omnidirectional microphones:
   A major disadvantage would be the idea that you will not be able to discriminate between wanted and unwanted sounds using a omnidirectional microphone. Therefore, this makes omnidirectional microphones not ideal for presenting radio news in the studio.

Unidirectional microphones are microphones that can only pick up sound from a source that is directed towards the microphone. For this reason unidirectional microphones are useful, when it comes to narration, as it will only be sensitive to the sound coming directly from the narrator.

Advantages of unidirectional microphones:
 Using a unidirectional microphone unwanted ambient sound will most likely be eliminated, as the source of the ambient sound will not be the target source for the microphone to pick up. This makes unidirectional microphones ideal for presenting radio news in the studio.

Disadvantage of using unidirectional microphones:
 Due to the ability to pick up only target sources of sound, unidirectional microphones will not be suitable to used in outside broadcasts or VOX POP's because ambient sound is required in both the recordings of an outside broadcast and VOX POP, therefore the inability of unidirectional to pick up ambient sound will not allow the production of high quality outside broadcasts or VOX POP's.

Sources:
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-are-omnidirectional-microphones.htm

Design of microphones:  http://blogs.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/4-simple-tips-for-recording-high-quality-audio/