Stream It Loud, Stream It Strong
That wraps up the tests the cardioid mode’s quality, but there are three other modes to try out. With the help of chinchilla nightmares and a Yamaha FG180 Red Label guitar, the other modes were given a chance to show off what they could do. We recorded in the same tiny room you see in the podcast, with Chris roughly 3′ from the microphone. It’s not exactly a studio, but a proper studio mic won’t cost $100 and so this is more likely to be the usage scenario for the Sentry streaming microphone. They also wouldn’t be using Audacity to record either.
In stereo mode the left and right channels definitely meet in the middle, with some crossover but still maintaining a bit of separation. That is exactly as advertised and in most cases it is what you want in your recording, it positions your listeners right in front of the audio source as they would generally expect.
In omnidirectional mode you definitely get a feel of the room, and audio which is bouncing off the walls is captured nicely. If you have more than one instrument or want to make your listener feel like they are in an open space. It is also just generally a nice sound overall.
Bidirectional mode was tested with the microphone twisted so the active pickups were pointed vertically. That capture a sound much more separated than the stereo mode. That is not always the effect you are aiming for, but if it is then there is a definite difference between bidirectional and stereo modes. It would also obviously be useful in interview situations, as the same separation would be present during the discussion.
