figure 8 mic

I’d like to make recordings of our group of musicians who play irish music. We get together every week and sit in a circle, in a private space (not a bar), and play Irish tunes. I’d like to avoid interfering with the group dynamic in our small circle and not be intrusive, so here’s my thought, let me know what you think. I could put two figure-eight mics in the center of the circle, head to head (one upside down above the other, at 90 degrees, similar to blumlein but we’re around all sides) and hopefully get a decent stereo recording.

I'd read a few internet posts over the past few weeks about ribbons, and they pulled up the old advice about destroying them with phantom power, so I did a little Googling and also noted many newcomers to recording really didn't ever come across fig-8 pattern mics at all - so I've been doing a few videos and did one featuring just a bit of chat about fig-8 patterns and a little demo of how they actually sound when you move the mic - then I figured I'd plug up a ribbon in place of the condenser and see if it broke - as the usual tales of doom decree they do.

Hi guys,

Not sure how it really happened, but I've never added a figure 8 capable mic to my locker. Still love my original At4033a and my original NT2 RODE . Now I've another RODE , NT2a. Looking forward to testing this as a room mic for acoustic guitar.

Anyone have any frequency response curves of a Figure 8 mic? I believe that they should exhibit a 6 dB/octave slope, but I haven't seen any data.

I am going to record a church choir and wanted to capture the ambiance of the room. I gathered from other posts that a Blumlein setup would work well for this, as I do not want a complicated setup with lots of mics placed all over the place. Does anybody have a recommendation for a good bi directional mic?

Some names that I have come across are

Neumann AK 20
Schoeps MK 8
AKG CK 94
Royer SF 12 and SF 24

How do these dedicated figure 8 mics compare to variable pattern mics such as the Neumann U 87 or KSM 44?

Hey guys, I'm new here I hope this question isn't too dumb. When using a mic like the 414s in figure of eight on toms, how does the signal get split, or does it at all? Is there a "matrix" box involved? I will be using a Mackie 8bus and Pro Tools. Again please forgive my ignorance on the subject, I am a neophite when it comes to Micing drums in a real live studio, but very eager to learn. Thanks.