Microphone polar patterns explained: how to choose the right one for every recordingMicrophone polar response patterns are simpler than they seem. The polar pattern of a microphone dictates where around the microphone it will pick up and capture sound, affecting the way you should and shouldn’t point the microphone at sources to get the best out of it, allowing you to control bleed from other sources and focus in on what you’re trying to record. You can use polar patterns to great effect to both capture sound when a source is within the polar pattern or reject sound when it’s not.

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Thanks to the joys of physics and the phase polarity of a sound wave, different microphones offer distinct polar patterns, meaning different areas of rejection, which in turn assign them to different roles on the stage and in the studio.
There are three main microphone polar patterns: cardioid, figure-of-eight and omnidirectional. An omnidirectional pattern captures sound in a spherical shape around the whole microphone capsule front to back, left to right, up and down, and does so with equal pressure on all sides. A figure-of-eight microphone, however, captures sound from both front and back, but at opposite polarities to each other. Combining these two patterns leads to areas of the original omnidirectional pattern being cancelled where the opposite polarity in the figure-of-eight pattern overlaps, and results in the cardioid pattern.
Cardioid
Cardioid polar response pattern. Image: MusicTech
Best for: Capturing sources in detail and reducing bleed.
Cardioid patterns are widely available on dynamic and condenser microphones, and selected for sources that need isolation from the world around them. For this reason, cardioid mics are widely used in live settings as they’ll pick up a singer’s voice but reject the screaming crowd in front of them, or for a snare drum to pick up the snare’s crack but not the washy hi-hat above it. The (in)famous Shure SM57 and SM58 microphones are dynamic cardioid mics and are widely used live.
Hypercardioid is another common polar pattern, offering more capture behind the mic, but superior rejection to the sides.
Hypercardioid polar response pattern. Image: MusicTech
Varying the level of each pattern causes both more and less cancellation in areas of overlap, creating both supercardioid and hypercardioid patterns. These are as helpful for rejecting sound as they are for capturing it.
Many condenser microphones offer variable polar patterns in this way, allowing you to switch between cardioid, omni and figure-of-eight, some even offering patterns between the patterns for fine tuning. A famous example of this is the AKG C414, trusted for its clear, detailed, dynamic and rich sound. On the other hand, some condensers offer everything you need in a simple, cardioid package, like the Neumann TLM 103.
Despite the original discovery of the cardioid pattern via an omni and figure-of-eight design, many variable microphones use dual cardioid patterns to switch between the polar patterns for a more consistent, reliable and accurate result.
Ultra-directional
Supercardioid polar response pattern. Image: MusicTech
Best for: Detailed sources where mic placement is paramount, such as speaker cabinet cones, rooms, live vocals.
While technically supercardioid and hypercardioid polar patterns fall under this category, they deserve their own recognition. Much like a subcardioid removes a little of the figure-of-eight’s influence and allows a little more rear information, hypercardioid and super cardioid polar patterns feature a little less information at the expense of a little more rear information; mostly ambience and room sound, adding to the natural quality of the resulting sound! Some nicer condensers feature continuously adjustable polar patterns, like those from Lewitt, that’ll slip into and out of super and hyper cardioid as you shift from cardioid to figure-of-eight shapes.
Workhorse live mics like the Sennheiser e906 are supercardioid, not quite as extreme as hypercardioid, but are used for their directionality and rejection to the sides. This is especially helpful on a stage where guitar amps are facing forward, and the rest of the band lies to the left and right.
Figure-of-eight
Figure-of-eight polar response pattern. Image: MusicTech
Best for: Ambience, roominess, natural-sounding recordings where a little bleed isn’t an issue.
The original figure-of-eight microphone captures sound at the front and back of its capsule, but offers superior rejection to the sides than a cardioid, and of course, an omni. This makes it an ideal option for capturing a source and a bit of room sound — a vocal in an isolated space, for example. Another use is for a singer-songwriter style performance, where you can nestle a mic around chest height, with the capsules pointed at the singer’s voice and the other at the guitar, with superior rejection outside of those sources.
Ribbon mics, like the Royer 121 and sE VR1, are almost exclusively figure-of-eight because of their ribbon design. The capsule requires less pressure from both sides so the delicate ribbon can capture detailed sound.
Figure-of-eight can also be combined powerfully with other microphones with different polar patterns, which we’ll discuss later.
Omnidirectional
Omnidirectional polar response pattern. Image: MusicTech
Best for: Capturing space as well as a source, or capturing multiple sources from the centre of a room.
Omnidirectional microphones are one of the best ways to capture the general ambience of a room, and as a dedicated room microphone for drums, orchestras and more. They’re also routinely reliable for speaking and broadcasting, as long as the environment isn’t too noisy.
Because of their ability to capture sound at all angles, omni microphones offer a natural result that helps to put the listener in an acoustic space. There’s always a little noise beneath the main source when using an omni microphone, either the ambience of the room or, depending on how tightly mic’d your sources are, bleed from other instruments.
Omni mics are best used when bleed isn’t an issue, and they’re especially useful for connecting spot mics together on drums or larger bands. Tread carefully when using omnidirectional in a live setting; you’ll get a whole lot of everything. But hey, no risk, no reward.
Subcardioid
Best for: Natural sounds in isolated environments; subcardioid can allow more spill and bleed into the mic.
Subcardioid is just what its name suggests. It’s less, uh… cardioid than cardioid. The influence of the pressure of the figure-of-eight shape is refined to reduce how much cancellation is happening to the initial omni shape. This makes the subcardioid like an off-kilter omni, picking up plenty of sound from the front and side, without as much rejection at the back of the mic. This offers more natural ambience, without capturing as much as an omni mic, offering more direction than an omni mic but less than a cardioid.
You’ll find subcardioid mics commonly in the broadcast world, sometimes attached to the end of goosenecks to easily manoeuvre them towards their source. They’ll capture the full frequency of a voice and the ambience that surrounds it. This makes them effective for acoustic instruments in a nice space, as long as there’s not too much bleed from other instruments to contend with! Subcardioid mics, like the Shure KSM9HS or mics with switchable polar patterns, like the Josephson Engineering C725, are perfect for capturing that blend of focus and ambience. For more focus, though, you’ll want a shotgun mic…
Shotgun
Shotgun polar response pattern. Image: MusicTech
Best for: Film, TV and broadcast. Shotgun mics are also great for pinpointing sources like percussion, hi-hats, ride cymbals and so on.
Shotgun mics combine tight, directional polar patterns, like hypercardioid, and add more directionality with an interference tube. An interference tube acts like the aforementioned vents to shape the polar pattern, instead being a mostly acoustically transparent tube that filters sound more heavily on the sides than the front, allowing the polar pattern to be more directional. The open end of the tube allows in more sound, whereas the tube’s walls filter enough sound for directionality, but not so much that sound is blocked or bounced around entirely.
Shotgun mics work so well that they’re used most often in film, radio and broadcast as they can be positioned above a source at a distance and still have very little bleed and interference with sounds around it — when capturing an actor’s voice, for example.
The small amount that these mics capture from the rear and sides of the mic gives it a little natural ambience and prevents the sound from being too clinical.
While not used as often in music, shotgun mics can absolutely find a place in the studio and on the stage. The Aston Starlight is a small diaphragm condenser with incredibly focused sound, so much so that it features a laser for pinpointing your source. Additionally, RØDE produce some industry-standard shotgun mics for those dipping their toes in.
Combining polar patterns
Combo
Some more complex stereo mic arrangements can yield polished-sounding results with some know-how. As discussed earlier with the polarity relationships between microphones, you can expand on this with both polar pattern and polarity relationship in mind.
Mid-side micing is one of the more intriguing patterns, combining a figure-of-eight microphone and a cardioid mic for one supremely wide yet focused recording. Using a cardioid mic pointed directly at your source, add a figure-of-eight mic positioned sideways with the source at a null point.
In your DAW or on your console, multiply the figure-of-eight mic (console) or duplicate the track (DAW) and flip the phase of one of them. Flipping the polarity cancels out the shared sound, leaving only the difference that creates an extra-wide sound. This leaves you with a Mid track via the cardioid mic, and a Side track to blend to taste.

Blumlein Pair
Continuing with our figure-of-eight friends, the Blumlein mic technique uses two mics off-axis with each other. As opposed to omnidirectional, which captures sound at every angle, the Blumlein technique is two figure-of-eight mics used to fill in the main null points of each mic. The advantage here is that there are still four null points, providing a more focused, but still natural-sounding result. These mics can be aimed at your source or placed off-axis for more diffuse results.
AB, XY and ORTF
AB, XY and ORTF are commonplace stereo micing techniques that expand on the humble cardioid pattern.
AB
AB micing uses two cardioid mics spaced apart but pointed straight ahead, usually placed on either side of an object and delivers a wide stereo spread because of how directional the mics are. For example, AB micing with drum overheads usually has your mics placed somewhere over the top of the hi-hat, with the other mic placed near the ride. AB micing a choir would have mics on either side of the choir but pointed straight ahead.
XY
XY uses left and right mics again, but the mics are placed closer together and crossed over each other. The resulting sound is an equally strong stereo image, but less focus on the centre, making way for a spot mic or two to fill the gap/s.
Two condenser microphones set up in XY recording mode in the studio. Image: Getty/ dejanksrmanovic
ORTF
ORTF uses mics that face away from one another, as opposed to crossing over. The result has more width and retains a more consistent centre and stereo image overall.
Further experimenting
The best way to understand micing techniques is to experiment and see what you like. The classic polar patterns being cardioid, omni and figure-of-eight can get you very far, but a handful of specialist mics, whether intended for use in your field or not, can not only help elevate productions but also make for an easier mix with less bleed, or alternatively, enough life and ambience left in the recordings to leave them be!
There’s no right or wrong in recording, but there’s definitely right-er and wrong-er, so a little know-how goes a long way.
The post Microphone polar patterns explained: how to choose the right one for every recording appeared first on MusicTech.

Beat Magazine releases Sound of Berlin, a FREE 4GB field recording sample pack
Beat, the German music production magazine, has released Sound of Berlin, a free sample pack containing 4GB of field recordings captured around Berlin. The pack was created in collaboration with Zoom using the Zoom H5 field recorder. The cool thing is that sign-up isn’t required in any shape or form. Just click the download link [...]
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Spotify prevents AI music and incorrect releases from appearing on your artist profile with this new featureSpotify is rolling out a feature that lets artists review music releases before they go live on their profile in response to tracks landing on the wrong pages.
Spotify says the rise of easy-to-produce AI tracks has made this problem worse, and that it is making the protection of artist identity a “top priority for 2026”. The new feature, called Artist Profile Protection, is optional, and is now in limited beta.

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This tool is a complete first for any music streaming service, Spotify claims, and that gives musicians the ability to approve or decline releases delivered to Spotify from most music distribution providers. Artist Profile Protection prevents errors such as metadata mix-ups, music going to another artist with the same name, or someone maliciously attaching their music to your profile.
It’s important that artists who do activate this new feature remember they’ll need to actively review all releases before they go live, meaning some legitimate releases may be delayed or blocked if you forget to take action, so you’ll need to be comfortable with actively managing your catalogue.
So, how does it actually work? If you’re included in the beta, you’ll see the feature available in your Spotify for Artists settings.  Artist Team Admins and Editors also have the ability to manage the settings. If you turn Artist Profile Protection on, you’ll receive an email notification when music is delivered to Spotify with your name attached. From there, you can review eligible releases and decide whether to approve or decline them.
To help legitimate releases move smoothly, you’ll also be assigned an artist key: a unique code you can share with trusted providers. When music delivered to Spotify includes your artist key at delivery, the release is automatically pre-approved and goes live as normal.
To find out more, go to the Spotify Newsroom. 
The post Spotify prevents AI music and incorrect releases from appearing on your artist profile with this new feature appeared first on MusicTech.

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Kentucky woman rejects $26M offer to turn her farm into a data centerA "major artificial intelligence company" reportedly offered a Kentucky family $26 million to build a data center on their farm.

4TH ANNUAL WOMEN'S DAY CELEBRATION AT THE HOTEL CAFEOn a night that felt both passionately celebratory and quietly poignant, the Hotel Café hosted its Fourth Annual Women’s Day Celebration, bringing together a beautifully diverse lineup of female singer-songwriters whose music reflected the spirit of International Women’s Day: creativity, resilience, vulnerability and strength.

The evening also carried an undercurrent of nostalgia. With the recent news that the beloved Hollywood venue will soon close this location, many of the artists acknowledged the space’s importance in the Los Angeles singer-songwriter community. For decades, the Hotel Café has been a place where artists share songs in their most intimate form—voice, guitar or piano, and a roomful of listeners ready to lean in.

That reality lent the evening additional emotional weight. The celebration became not only a tribute to women in music, but also a reminder of the vital role the Hotel Café has played in nurturing emerging artists and songwriting culture in Los Angeles.

That sense of shared musical purpose was palpable throughout the night. Performers lingered to watch each other’s sets, harmonized together onstage, and cheered each other on from the wings. It felt less like a conventional showcase and more like a gathering of artists united by the simple joy of making music.

Presented in conjunction with International Women’s Day, the annual showcase highlights female singer-songwriters from across the Los Angeles music community and beyond. The evening featured a stylistically diverse lineup spanning acoustic folk, blues, indie pop and alternative sounds, each sharing original material in the intimate listening-room environment the Hotel Café is known for.

As the lights softened and the room gradually settled into attentive silence, the evening’s celebration of women’s voices began. One by one, the performers took the stage, each introduced by emcee Lex Aguilar with a brief, colorful bio that offered a glimpse into the stories behind the songs.

The evening began on a lighter note with comedian Nthenya, whose quick wit and relaxed stage presence immediately put the room at ease. Her humor felt conversational rather than performative, like a friend sharing sharp observations with the audience. The ripples of laughter helped break the ice and set a welcoming tone for the night’s deeper musical expressions—reminding everyone that community, connection and a little levity are all part of what makes nights like this special.

The opening performer, Juliet, made an immediate impact, as if to signal that the evening would be both emotional and provocative. She brought her husky, impassioned vocal style and bold sonic palette to songs including the feminist anthem “Love or Die,” which pulsed with urgency and conviction, and “Liberté,” a confident declaration of independence propelled by a thumping groove and fuzzy guitar textures.

Next, Lucy Clearwater’s soothing voice and gentle acoustic style set a more reflective tone. Her song “Love a Friend” unfolded with soulful calm that drew the audience inward, while a preview of her upcoming folk tune “One of Those Things” showcased her gift for intimate storytelling. Another standout, “Liar,” explored the emotional fallout of a relationship with a narcissist, adding a deeply introspective dimension to her set.

Singer-songwriter Mary Scholz offered a slightly gentler but no less powerful presence. With her warm acoustic approach and emotionally direct lyrics, she recalled the storytelling intimacy of artists like Ed Sheeran. During one reflective moment, she observed that the word woman can sometimes feel complicated—but only because people choose to make it so. She also debuted one of the evening’s most visceral moments, a raw and emotionally charged song responding to the recent deaths of 165 Iranian schoolgirls following U.S. and Israeli bombings.

With swagger and attitude to spare—and backed by a delirious swirl of funky pre-recorded retro techno rhythms—husky-voiced teen powerhouse Ava James brought an immediate stylistic contrast to the evening’s largely acoustic flow. Her set demonstrated the wide stylistic range of the lineup, and she clearly relished the moment, duetting on a defiant “FU” jam with her friend, the equally gifted singer Layne Olivia.

After a playful interlude by Nthenya, a special highlight of the night was the appearance of Maisy Owen, who had been flown in for the event. With a gentle swaying stage presence and an angelic vocal tone, Owen captivated the room with “All For You,” a tender acoustic piece that showcased her delicate phrasing. She followed with the soon-to-be-released “On My Way Down,” maintaining a soft, emotionally sensitive atmosphere that perfectly suited the intimate setting.

A personal favorite of the night was multi-talented singer, songwriter and virtuosic guitar picker Abby Posner, who immediately owned the stage sporting an effortlessly cool alt-Americana look—wide-brim hat, casual jacket and acoustic guitar slung comfortably across her shoulder. Delivering one of the evening’s most dynamic and socially engaged sets, her blues-tinged tune “Night Train” carried a lively rhythmic pulse, while “Till We Heal” addressed the slow, often frustrating process of social progress. Reflecting on her work supporting California’s Proposition 8 marriage equality campaign, Posner noted that change can sometimes feel like “five steps forward and three steps back.” Her hopeful anthem “I Do Believe in Love” transformed that sentiment into an uplifting audience clap-along moment, while her closing song “Darkest Hours” featured rich harmonies shared with Scholz and her harmony singer Paula Fong.

Kate Grahn followed with a soulfully grounded yet energetic set suggesting a young Sara Bareilles in the making. Her song “Scot Free” blended melodic charm with lyrical wit, delivered with a confident vocal presence. Perhaps the most atmospheric voice of the evening belonged to closing performer Sofia Gomez, whose airy tone and emotional phrasing evoked the moody intimacy of Billie Eilish. At moments her voice rose into a soaring register, giving her performance a cinematic sense of emotional release that brought the evening to a graceful close.

Throughout the night, what stood out most was the unmistakable camaraderie among the performers. These were not artists competing for attention, but musicians celebrating each other’s voices and stories. In honoring International Women’s Day, the showcase became a reminder that music remains one of the most powerful ways to share experiences, amplify voices and build community.

As the final notes faded, the night felt like a fitting tribute not only to the women who took the stage but also to the venue itself—a space where countless artists have found their voice over the years. For one evening at least, the Hotel Café once again lived up to its reputation as one of Los Angeles’ most cherished listening rooms, filled with songs, stories and the unmistakable feeling of artists supporting artists.The post 4TH ANNUAL WOMEN'S DAY CELEBRATION AT THE HOTEL CAFE first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Elektra Magika Phonk DrivePush loudness without compression and sculpt harmonics with our unique soft-clipper. Designed for modern electronic music, Phonk Drive lets you hit harder. Use it as a gentle dynamics tool or absolutely crush your drums, bass and mixes. • Compressionless loudness algorithm. • Musical saturation with soft clipping. • Zero-latency, CPU-efficient DSP. • 2 clipping modes. Read More

Get free dry acoustic drums for Splice INSTRUMENT
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Spotify launches SongDNA in beta for Premium subscribers, tracing how songs connect through shared producers, samples and coversSongDNA lets subscribers trace how one song connects to another through shared producers, samples and covers.
Source

US FCC Prohibits Approval of New Foreign-Made Consumer RoutersThe US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is tasked with regulating both wired and wireless communications, which also includes a national security component. This is how previously the FCC tossed networking gear made by Huawei and foreign-manufactured drones onto its Covered List, effectively banning it from sale in the US. Now foreign-made consumer routers have been added to this list, barring explicit conditional approval on said list that would exempt them during a ‘transition phase’.
As per the FCC fact sheet, this follows after determination by an interagency body that such routers “pose unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States [..]”. This document points us to the National Security Determination PDF, which attempts to lay out the reasoning. In it is noted that routers are an integral part of every day life, and compromised routers are a major risk factor, ergo it follows that only US-manufactured routers are to be trusted.
These – so far fictional – US-manufactured consumer routers would have to feature ‘trusted supply chains’, which would seem to imply onshoring a large industrial base, though without specifying how deep this would have to go it’s hard to say what would be involved. The ‘supporting evidence’ section also only talks about firmware-related vulnerabilities, which would imply that US firmware developers do not produce CVEs.

Currently there do not appear to be any specific details on what router manufacturers are supposed to do about this whole issue, though they can continue to sell previously FCC-approved routers in the US.
Although hardware backdoors are definitely a possibility, this requires a fair bit of effort within the supply chain that should generally also fairly easily to detect. Yet after for example Bloomberg claimed in 2018 that Supermicro gear had been infested with hardware backdoors, this started a years-long controversy.
Meanwhile actually verified issues with Supermicro hardware are boringly due to software CVEs. In that particular issue from 2024 two CVEs were discovered involving a lack of validation of a newly uploaded firmware image.
All of which is reminiscent of an early 2024 White House ‘memory safety appeal’ that smelled very strongly of red herring. Although it’s easy to point at compromised hardware with scary backdoors and sneaky software backdoors hidden deep inside firmware of servers and networking devices, the truth of the matter is that sloppy input validation is still by far the #1 cause of fresh CVEs each year, especially if you look at the CVEs that are actually being actively exploited.
As for this de-facto ban on new routers being sold in the US, this will correspondingly not change much here. The best defense against issues with networking equipment is still to practice network hygiene by keeping tabs on what is being sent on the LAN and WAN sides, while a government could e.g. force consumer routers to pass a strict independent hardware and software audit paid for by the manufacturer.
Speaking as someone who used to run DIY routers for the longest time built around FreeSCO and Smoothwall Linux, there’s also always the option of turning any old PC into a router by putting a bunch of NICs and WNICs into it and run SmoothWall, OpenWRT, etc.. A router is after all just a specialized computer, regardless of what the government feels that it identifies as.

Audio Damage releases Evil Otto, a free OTT multiband compressor plugin
Audio Damage has released Evil Otto, a free OTT-style multiband compressor for desktop. The iOS version is a separate $2.99 purchase in the App Store. To download the desktop version, you just need to join the Audio Damage mailing list (or log in if you are already a member), and you will receive a download [...]
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Electro-Harmonix release Oceans Abyss editor Previously limited to preset management only, EHXport App now presents all of the Oceans Abyss' controls and settings in a dedicated software editor with a user-friendly GUI.

Akai Pro unveil the MPC Sample The MPC Sample draws its inspiration from the likes of the MPC60, and allows users to sample, chop and arrange beats anywhere with no computer required. 

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UVI Sparkverb algorithmic reverb plugin is FREE on KVR until April 12th
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