Rejection

No ... not rejection by that really hot Hooter's chick you hollered at. :D Mic pattern sound rejection. It just occurred to me that among the many things that have been discussed here related to recording with microphones nobody ever really mentions rejection. It's one of the first things I learned in engineering, learning and using the microphone patterns including rejection. That little piece of paper that comes in the box with the mic? Keep it, study it, learn the pickup patterns (and rejection areas, angles and levels) of your mics. Often in multi-micing, a mic is chosen or switched (or placed in a particular location or a certain angle) as much for rejection as anything else. Use it and place your sources (and/or mics) to take advantage of it. I'll let someone else explain what this tells you... Uh... to the newbies... don't toss that funny looking paper in the trash. ;) You'll need it one day. Short version: Focus on pointing the angle(s) of rejection at whatever you don't want to record as much as you focus on pointing the other part at what you do want. Adjust yourself, or the talent/instrument and the mic(s) accordingly. Long version:

Yeah Lawrence, this is a thing that's often under-estimated if not forgotten. If you have a room with unfavorable conditions, you can even have unwanted frequency notches or peaks, of witch the cause can hardly be determined. But being aware of the characteristic of mics can sometimes help in these circustances. And the charts are not that hard to read. -Data

Great topic and link. Read the article and I never realized how greatly the polar pattern could change for a given frequency range. Cool and a good thing to keep in mind. Though, I suppose most average users are typically working with cardioid mics.