A ribbon microphone is a type of dynamic microphone that uses a thin strip of metal, usually aluminum, suspended in a strong magnetic field to pick up sound waves. The ribbon acts as both the diaphragm and the transducer element, providing sensitivity and transient response similar to a condenser microphone but with a different character. Ribbon microphones are typically bidirectional, meaning they pick up sounds equally well from either side of the microphone. They are often regarded as the warmest and most natural-sounding microphones, providing an accurate representation of the sound without coloring it. Ribbon microphones are ideal for miking guitar cabinets, choirs in large spaces, woodwinds, trumpet, trombone, and recording sizable string sections in smaller rooms. They are also useful for capturing the natural sound of an instrument, a voice, and even the ambience of a room. Ribbon microphones are fundamentally figure-8 mics, meaning they pick up sound from the front and back and reject sound from the sides. One important advantage of ribbon microphones is that their very lightweight ribbon, which is under very little tension, has a resonant frequency lower than 20 Hz, in contrast to the typical resonant frequency of the diaphragms in contemporary high-quality microphones which used other technologies.