Microphone Polar Pattern Chart

The null angle column is the one to act on. It is measured from the front of the microphone, so 180 degrees means directly behind and 126 degrees means two directions, each 54 degrees either side of directly behind.

This is the practical payoff. Point the null at the loudest loudspeaker the microphone can see, and the free decibels arrive. Point it anywhere else and you have bought a directional microphone and used it as an omni.

The microphones a church is most likely to own, sorted by pattern, so the wedge placement table above can be applied directly.

A polar pattern is frequency dependent. The neat heart shape printed on a data sheet is the pattern at one frequency, usually around 1 kHz. Almost every directional microphone becomes progressively closer to omnidirectional as frequency falls, because the capsule is small compared with the wavelength. Below about 200 Hz a cardioid rejects very little, which is why low frequency feedback and stage rumble are so much harder to control than the midrange ring the pattern handles well.

Proximity effect comes with directionality. Every pattern except omnidirectional boosts low frequencies as the source gets closer, and the effect is stronger on tighter patterns. A hypercardioid an inch from a singer’s mouth can add 10 dB or more below 200 Hz. That is why a vocalist who eats the microphone sounds boomy and a vocalist who backs off sounds thin, and why a high pass filter on every vocal channel is standard practice rather than a repair.

Off-axis sound is coloured, not just quieter. The rejection figure describes level, not tone. Sound arriving from 90 degrees on a typical cardioid is not simply 6 dB down, it is 6 dB down and noticeably duller, because the high frequencies fall off faster than the midrange. This is what makes a choir sound distant and muffled when the microphones are aimed badly, and it is why an inexpensive microphone with a smooth off-axis response often outperforms an expensive one with a ragged one on a busy platform.

Handling noise and wind sensitivity rise with directionality. A directional capsule works by letting sound reach both sides of the diaphragm through rear ports, and those ports also admit breath blasts and handling vibration. An omnidirectional capsule is sealed and is dramatically better in both respects, which is the genuine reason omnidirectional lavaliers remain common despite their feedback disadvantage.

It assumes a diffuse, reverberant field. The gain before feedback figures are theoretical advantages in a room where reflected energy arrives from all directions equally. Real sanctuaries are not diffuse, and a microphone that happens to be pointed at a hard rear wall can perform worse than the table suggests while one in a treated room performs better.

Placement beats pattern, every time. Halving the distance from a source to a microphone gains 6 dB, which equals or exceeds the entire advantage of moving from omnidirectional to hypercardioid. A cardioid two inches from a mouth outperforms a hypercardioid a foot away in every respect. Pattern is the last refinement, not the first fix. See how to eliminate feedback in a church.

It does not describe boundary microphones fully. A half-cardioid on a hard surface gains about 6 dB from the surface itself, because direct and reflected sound arrive in phase, and it avoids the comb filtering a conventional microphone suffers near a boundary. That gain is in addition to the pattern advantage and is why a boundary microphone can outperform its polar plot.

Tighter is not automatically better. A hypercardioid has a live rear lobe only 6 dB down, so pointing one straight at a rear wall behind the platform can be worse than a cardioid. Very tight patterns also demand consistent technique, which volunteer vocalists and guest speakers do not reliably have.

It says nothing about in-ear monitoring. Once the wedges are gone, the pattern argument largely evaporates and the choice returns to tone and handling. That is the strongest practical case for in-ear monitors over floor wedges on a crowded platform.