Mic Arrays

OctaThingy Layouts

The OctaThingy layout, originally proposed by Eric Benjamin, consists of four capsules pointing up and four pointing down, with the p and down sections offset by 45 degrees. The result is a mixed order microphone generating 2nd order horizontal and 1st order vertical. While this gives up the perfect spherical symmetry of the tetrahedron and others, it gains better localization while still fitting in the eight channels of common field recorders. These variations have the elevation angle change from 30 degrees to 53 degrees, the later being the angle of a regular octahedron.

Other Layouts

Here are a few other layouts based on platonic solids. The dodecahedron seems to work particularly well. The tetrahedron simulates the original SoundField microphone.