Term used to describe the position of a sound source in reference to the microphone recording the source. Generally, a microphone will record best when the source is directly in front of it, but since moving the microphone off-axis results in coloration of the signal, engineers sometimes use it to good effect.

hello there. i put another post similar to this one up before but this one is more specific.

if a handheld vocal mic has a polar chart like this one

http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/wired_mics/b8f2c39b7aa5fc9 c/index.html

(if the link doent work its the audio-technia ae6100)

At the moment it's sort of irrelevant for me, as I currently have only small diaphragm condensers at my disposal (and one large, which I tend to use as a vocal mic,) but in general, which do people prefer?