Checking mic polar patterns using augmented reality technology.

[efksound]

Probably more oriented/useful to music recording , but could be also interesting for students and teaching purposes !

The mic database could be intesting too
 

[Patrick Southern]

I'm not sure how much practical use this will have in our field, but it's definitely really cool.  Nothing compares to real world experience, of course, but this could be a fantastic teaching tool.  Thanks for sharing!

[Jay Rose]

Well, that's kind of scary. 

 

The main view reinforces a weird idea that a lot of people have:

 

If something's inside the pickup pattern, you'll hear it. If it's outside the pattern, you won't.

 

The red, orange, and blue blobs sort of suggest that anything inside is covered; anything outside isn't. And that furthermore, there's a clear demarcation between each of these zones.

 

 

Remember: a lot of people will remember just the video, or the very convincing graphics on the iPad itself… not anything additional they might have learned in a class or a book or the manufacturer's literature.

 

Yeah, there is also a view with a bunch of + signs around the mic. That could be taken as more representative of reality… or not; the video doesn't say what they mean. But probably the plus signs will just be ignored as more confusing than those sharp colored blobs.

 

 

Furthermore, as near as I can tell from the video, this app's idea of a pickup pattern is a flat plane bisecting the mic. Rotate the iPad, and the plane rotates with it. Gosh… does this mean I can turn that short gun ninety degrees, and it won't hear reflections from the ceiling?

 

 

Some of us spend a lot of time trying to teach producers that this mic is only (slightly) more sensitive in one direction than in another, but everything will get picked up to some degree… and that the differences in sensitivity change with frequency. 

 

Not to mention, of course, that the differences exist in three-dimensional space.

 

--

 

I had to deal with this in a black-and-white, non-animated way in my books. Ended up using both variations in size and shadings of light to demonstrate where mics are more sensitive… plus posterization to illustrate the differences in timbre, plus an extreme wide view to show that everything gets covered.

 

So it's possible to express mic patterns graphically, with some caveats and explanations. They just didn't seem to bother with this app.

[Christian Spaeth]

I think I roughly understand what the thing is about, but that video surely didn't help much! What's with the hectic cuts? And the annoying loops?

[Ze Frias]

The red, orange, and blue blobs sort of suggest that anything inside is covered; anything outside isn't. And that furthermore, there's a clear demarcation between each of these zones.

 

**I THINK** that the different shades of colors relate to how the mic pick-up patterns behave at different frequencies. This is however, an assumption.

 

IMO, as you stated, I think the biggest flaw with this app is that it represents the pick-up patterns in a two-dimensional plane, when in reality it should be in 3D.

 

Interesting concept though

[Jay Rose]

**I THINK** that the different shades of colors relate to how the mic pick-up patterns behave at different frequencies

 

That could be...

 

which would be even worse, if it suggests "in the pattern, things get heard; outside the pattern they don't"...

 

I don't know anything about graphics programming, but based on the weather app on my iPad, it couldn't have been too hard to have an overlay with different colors AND different levels of transparency, so it could fade out gradually but extend over the whole screen. Which would say "anything in the room is going to be heard by this mic; it's just that some things that are close and in a particular direction will be stronger, and some others will be softer and have odd timbral shifts."

[Ze Frias]

That could be...

 

which would be even worse, if it suggests "in the pattern, things get heard; outside the pattern they don't"...

 

I don't know anything about graphics programming, but based on the weather app on my iPad, it couldn't have been too hard to have an overlay with different colors AND different levels of transparency, so it could fade out gradually but extend over the whole screen. Which would say "anything in the room is going to be heard by this mic; it's just that some things that are close and in a particular direction will be stronger, and some others will be softer and have odd timbral shifts."

 

Agreed.

[Brandon Pert]

Whatever happened to using your ears?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jay Rose]

Ears are a good way... But unless you're using them in an anechoic space, it'll take an awful lot of setups before you hear the pattern well enough to generalize how it works: is what you're hearing the mic, or the room, or both? And unless you know that, you can't place or move the mic efficiently.

How about theory plus ears?

And leave the iPad graphics home.

[RPSharman]

Seems pretty useless, except for all the mic data from various manufactures available all in one place.

If you need the App to place a mic, you're not equipped with enough knowledge to be placing mics in the first place.

[studiomprd]

[Jay Rose]

Microphone-data.com.

A lot more info, on a lot more mics, totally free... Thanks to Rycote IIRC, but I couldn't find their name on the site, and don't feel like doing a Whois form my iOS device.