Chris Durfy

Hey guys, I'm upgrading to a 01v96i with a 600watt sine wave inverter on my cart and I'm wondering what people are currently using for additional DC power. My Meon V2 is my power distribution source. I know the yellow top Optima batts are popular... But I'm also wondering if anyone has had luck with using a lithium version of the deep cycle batteries with success and if they knew of any specific batteries in which the cost has come down to a manageable level (along with the savings in weight!) Thoughts or advice? Thanks! Chris

Sweet Todd!

Happs Jeff!

I have been considering the 742 for the SuperCmit. My question: Has anyone run a QRX100 through the antennas on a venue? Success or not? And Rich, how long does the battery last on the 742 in AES42 mode with the SuperCmit? I've also heard reports that the switchcraft connector on the 742 cones don't have the solid staying power of a Lectro plug-on while plugged into a boompole. Any experiences? Thanks! -C

FYI, the Soundcraft SI Expression Dante card won't be out until late summer. Nice mixer, but I wish it had a slate / talkback setup natively.

From Scott @ Redding: Hey guys, There are a couple of different screws used on the CMIT5U/SuperC body and furthermore they cannot be substituted for each other. The CMIT loose-screw problem is for the most part is a thing of the past related to earlier runs of the mic and of course solved by the adhesive screws. On more current models I see the scallop where the screw sits has been fine-tuned and the screw now sits more flush. Anyone still having problems should know this - Some details: Standard threading. Remove counter-clockwise. The screw is a Torx TX6 size. Not a common size driver and we bought some German made ones if somebody needs to buy one from us. There were a couple of variations of the original screw until they settled on the current one which does have an adhesive material. Screws don't come loose on later units. CMIT screw "Long" This screw is used for the bottom section that holds the body and XLR section together. This screw is the one that almost always would be the one getting loose. Probably from the pressure of the XLR weight. There are four of these at the base. We stock these - Here is a part number etc.. http://www.reddingaudiostore.com/catalog/item/8157888/8838867.htm IMPORTANT: When removing the existing screw hold pointing down so if the screw has adhesive material and it comes off it will come out rather than go inside body. When tightening new screw much care must be made not to over tighten the screw. It could damage the housing and the head could break off (Yikes!). Schoeps uses a special tool with a programed torque setting to get it exact. Since most won't have that just tighten nicely without too much force - the adhesive will set. CMIT screw "Short" This screw is used for the interference section that holds the capsule and body together. This screw will hardly ever be the one getting loose. If so we do have some available for the same price. They are not on the parts store as we do not want most people in the position of possibly removing the capsule etc... Yes, it has adhesive material as well. The above screws should never be swapped for each other. A new housing being needed is the most likely result! You will notice there are also two screws above and below the pushbutton section. NEITHER of the screws above with adhesive can be used for this. These never fall out anyway - if you need this please contact us. Hope this helps. Cheers Regards, Scott Boland President Redding Audio, LLC 101 N Plains Industrial Road, Building 4 Wallingford, CT 06492 Phone: (203) 269.1808 Fax: (203) 269.1810 Web: www.reddingaudio.com scott@reddingaudio.com Distribution of Premium Pro Audio Brands: SCHOEPS, Rycote, Voice Technologies, Audio Ltd., Cable Techniques, Ambient Recording, and Peter Engh Follow us on Twitter: @ReddingAudio ▶ Show quoted text

Are the screws on a CMIT5U reverse thread like the CMC6? Anyone know for sure? I'm replacing a few that are showing some tarnish. Thanks! -Chris

Does the Maxx have any kind of limiter for AES mics such as the SuperCmit?

We had a chance to try out my SuperCMIT in the real world on the set today. There was a couple of things I noticed tonight and wanted to add to this thread: 1) It is damn cool to be able to record the Super and regular CMIT mode on the mic at the same time...(the AES outputs both tracks) that way, if you do get some adlibs - you still have them as well as you would with a standard CMIT. That being said, you can only record them to channels 1(Super) and channel 2(CMIT) or on channel 3 and 4, likewise on the 788t. 2) With the SuperCMIT, be aware your limiters will NOT engage in digital mode (at least with the 788t). Tonight we had a scene where everyone was speaking at a normal level... then suddenly yelling. First take, I was seeing red and red on both tracks of the SuperCMIT. I found I had to aggressively tweak the gain to get good results in this situation. I'll keep on posting my findings. Cheers, -Chris

Simon, Thanks for the tip on your workflow! FYI, My SuperCMIT arrived today. I'll be putting it into play tomorrow on Zombieland: The Series. A question: Have you developed any way to switch between CMIT and SuperCMIT mode on the fly? (BTW, my wife is English... I may be moving across the pond one day soon! I'll be in the UK in the next couple of months with my wife and son to visit her family with our newly born daughter. Are you near Putney? I'd love to buy you and your boom a round or two!) Cheers, -Chris

So I want to go wireless with my SuperCmit. I know the Zaxcom TRX942 can do it, but I was told that the battery life is not too good. Anyone have any experiences to share? Other viable out of the box solutions? Currently, my BoomOp has been using his SD MM-1 and Lectro SMV transmitter (which is great for when he needs to boost to 250mw mode when he is a bit further away). If we were to continue down this road with his current boom kit, we'd have to introduce the Schoeps DA42 (Digital to Analog). Anyone tried this with a wireless boom? It sure would be great to have a switch that would seamlessly switch the output of the SuperCmit between CMIT and SuperCMIT mode. Has anyone explored this option? I'm thinking a mod to the DA with something like the Lectro mute switch for referees. I'd love to hear any other thoughts? Thanks! -Chris

UPDATE: I have drunk the Kool-aid. I just ordered my own Super-Cmit 2U. It will be here this weekend. I'm interested to use it in the next wide/tight and see how well the boom sounds over the lavs... but I am going to be very secretive about my new weapon on set... I don't want directors thinking they can get away shooting wide/tight too often! I'll keep everyone updated on how things go. Cheers, -Chris

2 Schoeps CMIT-5U 2 Schoeps CMC6-41 w/ GVCs Shure SM58 w/ PTT Switch Beyerdynamic M58 EV RE-50B Handheld Stick Mic Sennheiser E835 Cardioid Handheld Stick Mic 2 Sanken CUB-01 Cardioid Boundary "Plant" Mics 10+ Sanken COS-11 Lavs 6+ Countryman B6 Edit - Just added: Schoeps SuperCMIT-2U =)

Right so! Changed.

Hi all, Last Saturday morning a bunch of local Atlanta mixers, boom-ops & utilities met over breakfast at Whit's house to field test the Super CMIT. We had all heard how successful the Super CMIT had been used by Simon Hayes on “Les Misérables” in studio conditions. We wanted to test the practical applications of using the Super CMIT in the field. (Note: I am writing this from memory a week later, so I encourage any involved to correct me or add more details to our findings!) The Gear -788t / CL-8 Bag rig -Neumann KMR82i on a 22' Ambient Boompole -Schoeps Super CMIT 2U on a 22' K-Tek Boompole Note 1: To use the 788t in AES mode, you have to enable “AES Power” in the menu and also on the individual tracks (in same place you select phantom power). Hook up your AES Cable to the back. The cable we had was set to put the DSP (super-CMIT) channel on channel one, the CMIT (non-dsp output) on 2 through a single XLR output. The cable also had a second XLR to hook up a second Super CMIT if desired. Note 2: There are two preset DSP modes. One is “standard” DSP and the other what we termed “extreme”. From the Schoeps website: -Preset 1 1: moderate directivity increase (green LED); ca. 11 dB reduction in diffuse sound (5 dB greater than a Schoeps CMIT 5 U or channel 2 of the SuperCMIT 2 U) Preset 2: strong directivity increase (red LED); ca. 15 dB diffuse sound reduction. This setting is reserved for special applications since sonic artifacts can occasionally be heard. In our tests, we did not tinker much with Preset 2 as it isn't very applicable to our purposes with the introduction of artifacts into our tracks. We also did not engage the filters on the CMIT and left them open. This kind of became a test of three, as we compared all results between the Super CMIT in DSP mode and in standard CMIT versus the Neumann KMR82i. The "Shooting Range" Whit's house has some good conditions for a proper field test. There is a good-sized waterfall and a busy road nearby. Also, there is a small airport nearby. At the back of Whit's house is fairly quiet (except for the occasional aircraft). Test 1: Waterfall While booming a single person near the waterfall we noticed that the Super CMIT had amazing background rejection and pulled the dialogue right out of the waterfall. The background could still be heard, but was diminished greatly. The standard CMIT and the 82 performed as expected and did a good job of bringing the dialogue forefront, leaving the sound of waterfall in the background. While booming between two people have a conversation, the CMIT and 82 sounded “natural” while cueing. The Super CMIT had some issues here. Some noticed artifacts while cueing as the processing tried to match the movement and change of position of the mic relative to the background. To fight this effect, a BoomOp would have to be careful to keep the mic on a the same plane of axis when cueing. Which is better? Well, I suppose the answer is “It depends”. If that waterfall was instead a generator, perhaps the directivity would be exactly what you want. The waterfall as part of the scene, perhaps not. Test 2: Running Diesel Truck in Background We experienced similar results with the rumble of the truck as with waterfall. Again, if the rumble was a generator you couldn't get turned off, perhaps the Super would be the way to go... If a picture car, the CMIT or 82i sounded more natural to most of us. Test 3: The Wide We conducted this test with stationary subjects with an imaginary frame above our “actors” of 10-12 feet. On pavement, we noticed a reverb effect on all mics that was added. When moved to the grass, this was removed. The 82 lost a lot of low end frequency at this height, but was still very legible. The Super and CMIT both kept more of the low end and sounded better to most of us, with Super CMIT having a slight edge in a controlled situation of two actors having a one to one conversation. Whit brought up a very valid point here though: The Ad-lib. What if there were other actors in the scene were known to adlib often. Would you want the more directional and less forgiving Super CMIT? Likely not. Test 4: The “Really” Tight We ALL agreed the Super CMIT sounded too present and “splattered” when used to close to the source. It needs some air in between to sound natural. Test 5: Walk & Talk We did walk & talks two ways: from above, and from below. From above, all mics sounded nice. Noted that the Super CMIT might be nice in mitigating the sound of gravel or crunchy footsteps if boomed from the proper angle, if so desired. From below, they also sounded good. Of course, all were in some form more susceptible to aircraft noise with the Super CMIT giving a few more moments of “acceptable” sound than the others by mitigating some of the off axis background noise. The Conclusion Someone in the group called this mic a “very expensive one trick pony”. While it may be useful in more than just one scenario, it certainly is a very specialized microphone and at $4,449US it is certainly very expensive. Is it something to have in the kit? As a wise man once said... “It depends”... While it certainly would be nice in certain situations to have, it is one of those items that might be difficult to recoup costs outside of your standard kit rental. It is an amazing piece of technology and if you can afford it, and it would be a nice microphone to have in the arsenal. That being said, I don't think any of us rushed out to get one after our testing. But time will tell! The Players Mixers: Whit Norris, Chris Durfy, Aron Siegal, Todd Weaver, David Terry Boom/Utility: Chris Harris, Matt Derber, Maaike Snoep, Dana Simmons ENG/Post: Michael Wynne Special thanks to: -Whit & Kathy Norris for hosting us at their house. -Trew Audio for arranging the Super-CMIT appointment. -Redding Audio for supplying the demonstration Microphone. -Michael Wynne for taking the pictures of the event. THANKS!!!

Aron, I made the same upgrade last year. You'll love the slide of the new magnetic faders. Dust covers are nice too! -C

I'd send the bleep back to bleep.

I know of a reality mixer that lost her baby while mixing late into her term. I don't know if that is what caused it, but be wary and try to work off of a cart!!!

Mike, I have a PEGZ-3 that hasn't seen much action lately. Shout out of you want to check it out.

Very nice! ... I'd be interested in a pair of these with three BNC and one audio xlr to send a feed back to playback.

Christian, I often use the external FW for DVD-Ram deliverables, but lately have been writing to an external drive to satisfy post's desire to maintain an external on-site backup in lieu of also sending in a DVD-Ram with the CF. The dailies folks have been burning DVDs for me. (Thank you baby Jesus!). The desire for a CF extender is merely a desirable convenience and not a necessity on the cart. =) -Chris

I don't think that would work. It is daisy chainable, but I'm pretty sure the 788t wouldn't write to both at the same time in that configuration.

Thanks Matt, but I need something that adapts into the CF Card reader with a cable that "extends" a reader... USB/Firewire isn't an option as I am running a external hardrive through the Firewire port.

It's been a couple years... has anyone found something a bit more weatherproofed that the sycard option (which is discontinued) to route my CF card slot of my 788t to something towards the front of my cart? I am using my FW for a external HD. Thanks! -Chris