Figure 8

C

capnreverb

New member
I know how it works. But, I am curious to know what applications you have used this patern in, both sucessful and not. What are some situations where it really excelled in a situation where you thought it might not. What kind of recording situation would you immediatly think "figure 8" ?
 
capnreverb said:
I know how it works. But, I am curious to know what applications you have used this patern in, both sucessful and not. What are some situations where it really excelled in a situation where you thought it might not. What kind of recording situation would you immediatly think "figure 8" ?
Click to expand...

When I use ribbon mics of course, but the most common aplication for me is part of an M-S (Mid-side) stereo pair.

Situations when I will use just one are recording two vocalist together on one mic.
 
capnreverb said:
I know how it works. But, I am curious to know what applications you have used this patern in, both sucessful and not. What are some situations where it really excelled in a situation where you thought it might not. What kind of recording situation would you immediatly think "figure 8" ?
Click to expand...

MS, also Blumein pair.
 
Well, I use my AEA mics quite a bit. Live, I use an R84 whenever I sing live as a solo performer. It picks up both my voice and my acoustic guitar pretty nicely. Any time you have either no monitors, or monitors to the sides, it will work great, as the cancellation to the sides is excellent.

I've recorded choirs with a Blumlein pair of R84s. Very nice.

And, in the studio, I recorded group vocals with one R44; half the singers on one side, and half on the other, relative distances to taste. I've also used it as a room mic in a live recording situation.
 
Bottom line:

You think about a figure 8 when there are two seperate sources you want to record with one mic.

You think about a figure 8 when there are other sounds you want to avoid hearing by using the null.

You think about a figure 8 when smooth off axis response is important.

You think about a figure 8 when you need a longer reach for the proximity effect.

You think about a figure 8 when there is excessive high end you want to tame.
 
I have used figure 8 with great results on acoustic guitar about 18" striaght out from the neck joint, with one lobe picking up the sound from the neck and the other lobe picking up the lower end from the bout--at least that's what I think I hear. I do know I did a lot of experimenting with my multi-pattern tube mic and really liked the figure 8 for solo acoustic recordings.
 
Harvey Gerst said:
Bottom line:
You think about a figure 8 when there are two seperate sources you want to record with one mic.
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Harvey-

What's the advantage to recording two sources with one mic?

With everyone's mic lockers being so big, it would seem to me that you'd have more flexibility using multiple mics. Even if you used two Figure 8 mics to get the other advantages you listed. That way, you could still record simultaneously, but Pan/EQ/Effects differently.

Am I missing something fundamentally about how the source gets down on tape from a Figure 8 mic vs. using two mics?
 
A different Acoustic guitar app.....

..... I used to use my CAD E200 in fig 8 all time for recording acoustic guitar.

I would sit the guitarist (mostly me) in front of a wooden door (or other reflective surface) and place the mic inbetween the guitar and door (usuallly just inside the neck joint) and the Fig 8 pattern would catch the direct and reflected sounds.

It would be slightly phasy depending on the positioning and give a pseudo-stereo effect on a mono track.

It just sounded a little bigger.

Also...... like Harvey mentioned ......... the null point can be useful ......for instance, if you have two people laying down a rythm guitar track and have to monitor through an amp ......... a not-so-uncommon 4-tracking situation for me .......... and dont want to use more than one available track or bounce down ............ face the two guitarists and place the amp in the null.

Takes some experimenting but works fairly well.

Or face two amps toward each other with a single guitar split to both and put the fig-8 inbetween ...... you can get some cool efects.

-mike
 
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