I can remember being a lot younger than I am now, perhaps 13 or 14, and musing on h0w different polar patterns for microphones came about – why would anyone invent a figure-of-8 microphone? I asked my dad, and he replied simply: for interviews! This was such an obvious answer that I was frustrated that I didn’t think of it myself, and although I’ve since learnt that the invention of fig-8 mics was one of technological limitations rather than one of seeking the perfect mic for interviews, I’ve always been very eager to use a fig-8 mic for interviews as it seems like it would be perfect. I conducted two interviews for this project, one over the phone and one in person, and the in-person interview was superbly suited to using fig-8, but the telephone conversation was sliiightly uneven in the relative gain department – an oversight on my part with regards to volume of the phone speaker, nothing that a touch of compression can’t fix.

Overall, I was happy to finally use fig-8 for this purpose, and was very pleased with the results.