A million years ago when I was studying marine navigation (It was interesting - no other reason) that's how they taught us to remember which color marker buoy should be passed on which side of the boat when entering a harbor..

So here's the dumb question - when a mic has a red dot on one side, should the red dot be on the right or the left as you look from behind the mic?

In which case I guess it would be Red Right Recording.

I'm not aware of red dots being specific to orientation.

Red dots on schoeps mics mean they are hotter than those without.

A red dot on a Beyer m160 ribbon mic means you store it that way to keep the ribbon from sagging.

Regards,

Ty Ford

I believe the Sanken CUB-01 has a red dot on the capsule pointing towards front and center of its cardioid pattern. This is probably due to its unique shape. Not sure what other mics have this indicator.

.. when a mic has a red dot on one side, should the red dot be on the right or the left as you look from behind the mic?...

A red dot on a mic could also mean that the phase is reversed in that pin 2 is now negative and pin 3 is hot.

An additional thought - if the mic is a side address mic they may have a dot to indicate the front. For instance, my Rode NT1A side-address cardioid has a gold dot to indicate the side that should be facing the sound source. It can also indicate the polarity of a figure-8 mic, with the dot indicating the side from which an increasing pressure wave will cause the output voltage to go positive.

Steve - thanks. This is exactly the source of my question.

I'm looking at a figure 8 mic and there is a red dot on one side and a black dot on the other. There's also a 0 degree mark on the end that would align with the red dot.

I think my real question then would be, when using a figure 8 mic in an m/s configuration, is there a convention as to which lobe should be on the right vs left

Steve - thanks. This is exactly the source of my question.

I'm looking at a figure 8 mic and there is a red dot on one side and a black dot on the other. There's also a 0 degree mark on the end that would align with the red dot.

I think my real question then would be, when using a figure 8 mic in an m/s configuration, is there a convention as to which lobe should be on the right vs left

In a cardioid/figure-8 M/S array, the positive side of the figure-8 points 90 degrees left by convention with the cardioid pointing to stage centre. The matirx therefore is L=M+S and R=M-S

Sometimes it's an indication that someone was sloppy with red paint near the mic.

Regards,

Ty Ford