Polar Pattern Creator

A demonstration of how a virtual directional pattern can be created and controlled by the combination of 2 different mics…Or, how to roll-your-own polar patterns. I wrote an article I wrote on this for Electronic Musician magazine.

Select the type of audio source to use– Live mic inputs or an interleaved-stereo wave file. In either case, the omni (pressure) element should be in the L channel and the fig8 (gradient) element in the R channel.

Because you probably don’t have one of these files lying around, one is included to demonstrate– A flute/piano duet, recorded on opposite ends of a room with the mic array in the middle (see the picture).

The link downloads a 23 MB Zip file containing the Max patch as an application (Mac OS only), short audio file, and photo of the setup used for the audio file. If you take it for a spin, please leave a comment.