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boom mic with wide pattern: mk4, 416,


Tom Morrow

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Senator, could you be more specific please? Right now I use CMC4U/MK41 combo (silver version, both capsule and body) I wonder if newer version of capsules or CMC body would help me achieve better 'reach' of the mic setup. I searched for some info, and found out that the red dot on the capsule appears with MK8, and not MK41. Also, that there was a 'blue dot' (CMC+5dB) version of the CMC4U. So my question is this, to achieve better sensivity with this MK41 capsule, i would need to switch the body to a blue dot version, or the newer CMC5/6 design am i right? Thank you for your attention, really appreciate the input. Especially if it's cold, harsh truth ;-) Merry Christmas!

 

CMC “+5dB”

(Formerly marked with a blue dot.)
The sensitivity of a microphone using this type of microphone amplifier is 5 dB higher. The signal-to-noise ratio of the microphone itself remains nearly unchanged. The maximum sound pressure level the microphone can then accept is reduced by 5 dB.
The risk of overloading the input of the following device when high sound pressure levels are encountered is also increased.

This version might be chosen in order to raise the microphone's signals above the noise level of the equipment to which it will be connected, and/or for working with sounds that occur mainly at low levels.

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It sounds like there is a lot of google research happening here and not a whole lot of actual real world experimentation.

 

It works the same as acoustic design.

 

Using computers, CAD, and simulations, you can create what might be a theoretically perfect acoustic environment, but I think you will find that theoretically acoustically perfect, is not acoustically pleasing.  There is a reason they call it computer AIDED design, as it doesn't take into account personal preferences and personal experience.

 

Do your microphone research the same way.  Just researching microphones and acoustics from google and wikipedia articles does not give you an educated, experienced opinion of what you want to be using.  you need to go out and listen for yourself.  If you don't understand what you are listening for (Which it seems is likely the case in this scenario) then go spend some time with people that can teach you rather than wasting your money.

 

It takes years of experience to get years of experience, and judging from the last few posts I have seen you make, you are trying to bypass that.  Slow down, learn, build yourself up.  If you don't, it's going to cost a lot of money. Even if you managed to pull all the information out of everybody on this group, you STILL will be lacking in this area.

 

Also, here is a quick point - This group is dedicated to the advancement of sound recording for picture.  This is a HIGHLY competitive career choice and getting information out of people is AND SHOULD BE a privilege.  A privilege you will never earn without focus to sound.

 

Do you want to do sound or do you want to be a gaffer? http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4996993/

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The only substitute for being an experienced professional is to hire one.

The problem I'm seeing more of these days is the misinformation being spread around based upon erroneous assumptions from newbies who mistake the internet research they've done for actual knowledge.

THIS

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I have a mk41 capsule with a cmc4 body. It is not the red dot version. Would i achieve better 'reach' with a red dot capsule or it just provides more gain, so i can compensate this with a pre-amp? Thanks

The pattern or "reach" is determined solely by the capsule (MK41). The "red dot" typically refers to the polarity of pins 2 and 3 with T-powered mics (the CMC4 is a T-powered body), which needs to match the polarity of the input's T-power supply. For some reason, Schoeps and Sennheiser T-powered mics chose opposite polarity schemes. This is why T-powered mics were almost always accompanied by a phase reverse cable that reversed pins 2 and 3.

 

There is a wiring configuration inside the CMC4 body that can add 5dB of gain (at the expense of lower SPL handling), and is referred to as "Blue Point". This option is usually preferred for booming dialogue work because it reduces system noise with very little increased risk of overload. When a CUT-1 filter is inserted between the MK capsule and standard CMC body, it automatically configures the mic as "Blue Point", adding 5dB of gain. Adding a CUT-1 to a CMC body already configured as "Blue Point" will have no affect on gain.

 

The 50 is very similar in terms of a pattern to the 641.

 

 

On paper the MKH-50 pattern looks to be similar to the MK41, and are both called "supercardioid" by their makers, but in actual use I've consistently found the character of the MKH-40 and MKH-8040 to be more like the MK41. The MKH-50 has a smaller on-axis area, and more quickly goes from on-axis to off-axis than the Schoeps MK41, and proximity effect (increased low freqs when close to the actor) is more apparent with the MKH50 than the MK41or MKH40.

 

gt

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Scanning this thread, my advice (over and above that which has been presented) is to get yourself on a bunch of pro sets

 

Agreed and I'm honored to hear it.   The biggest limitation of doing most gigs as a one man band is that I miss out on learning from others.  I seek out opportunities to work with sound people who have more experience.  Working on set lighting is also useful because I get to observe other sound people doing their thing.  I continue to take on work as an extra to get on the bigger sets like HBO Looking, NBC Trauma, and Moneyball so I can observe the soundies.

 

The wide-polar mics that I'm looking to test out are:  mk2 omni, mk4 cardioid, mk22 open cardioid, mk21 wide cardioid, and the MKH40.  Thanks folks.

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I suppose this is because the wider patterned mics are designed for close vocal use where the off axis sound is much further away so they didn't optimize the off axis frequency response for smoothness like the mk41 which is expressly designed for film work.

 

Hmm, I just looked at the Schoeps mk2 omni polar pattern and it actually looks worse than the cardioids in terms of off axis frequency coloration... I don't really understand why that would be so; I always thought an omni especially Schoeps wouldn't have such coloration.

 

Some basic microphone theory helps in understanding this.

Especially in an omni capsule, size does matter, as it determines the resonance frequency of the capsule. This resonance comes from a pressure build-up in front of the capsule - and this pressure build-up only affects wavelengths that roughly equal diaphragm size (or smaller), therefore the bump typically starts around 4 kHz and has its peak at around 8 or 10 kHz for a Schoeps or similar sized microphone. The amount of resonance also depends on the angle the sound waves are hitting the diaphragm at. At 90°, it will be flat (no pressure build-up), and anything from farther behind will be affected by the microphone's body - again size matters. DPA 4006, for example, has a smaller capsule and a smoother body shape, therefore less color.

A smaller capsule will be more linear, as resonance frequency is higher and a smaller body is less of an obstacle to sound. Unfortunately, it will also be less sensitive, therefore needing more gain, which adds more noise. Think of a lav.

 

Oh, and Schoeps mics are made for universal use, including motion picture sound, classical music, and speech. They are about as close to ideal as one can get. Same goes for Neumann KM series, Sennheiser MKH series, and DPA, amongst a few others.

 

Most of the situations you describe can easily be handled by wiring everybody. Wiring everybody (and charging for the additional kit!) is my usual response to many kinds of "unrealistic expectations", including overlapping dialogue, wide-n-tight shooting, shooting the "rehearsal" (then it's not a rehearsal!) and so on.

Handling these things successfully always boils down to having enough experience, and knowing our abilities and their limits.

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Agreed and I'm honored to hear it.   The biggest limitation of doing most gigs as a one man band is that I miss out on learning from others.  I seek out opportunities to work with sound people who have more experience.  Working on set lighting is also useful because I get to observe other sound people doing their thing.  I continue to take on work as an extra to get on the bigger sets like HBO Looking, NBC Trauma, and Moneyball so I can observe the soundies.

 

The wide-polar mics that I'm looking to test out are:  mk2 omni, mk4 cardioid, mk22 open cardioid, mk21 wide cardioid, and the MKH40.  Thanks folks.

 

Hi, Tom,

 

Everything you do may be turned to useful in doing this thing.

 

Take care that you don't get pigeon-holed and never emerge.

 

That said, see you're in SF: a relatively small market that requires looking good in many hats in order to survive. Most of the SF people I know do lots of different kinds of work, and their gear reflects that; the base investment in equipment is more deep and wide in order to serve that market.

 

Do you have a list of SF people that you contact monthly? Have you been to their workshops yet? Volunteered to help prep for a job or seven?

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Here are some of the uses I'd make of the mic:

 

- booming two people sitting across a largish table from each other and talking over each other

- wide shots where the actors are spaced far apart from each other and talking over each other

- doing close mic'd wild takes on set of two actors talking over each other (e.g. animated argument) when I want to get the mic as close as possible to avoid street noise outside the wide shot set, especially where I can't keep the actors still and close to each other because they want to move around to stay in character.

- doing on set wild background recordings of say a half dozen actors doing walla walla around a microphone.

- plant mic for situations where I can't aim well because the actor will move around.

 

That's a lot of different things. I'm not certain there is one mic that is ideal for all of these.

 

Don't overlook the fact that you can always work with the director and AD to just get you additional angles so that all of the dialogue will be captured in coverage. You might miss half of the conversation in the wide shot, then get it just fine on each individual actor's close-up. 

 

What I can tell you that I see done most often for American TV (and sometimes film) is: they use more than 1 boom op, or they have multiple wireless mics going on different actors. Each approach has pros and cons. When you see these ensemble shows like Community or Modern Family, particularly where there's 9 people in every scene, two or more cameras rolling, and the cameras are constantly moving around and everybody's doing overlapping dialogue, there's simply no way in hell to get them all with one boom. It's a miracle shows like this sound as good as they do, because the challenge is so great.

 

With no budget and not enough time, I'd say throw wires on everybody, record in multitrack, and get as much as you can on the boom and let the re-recording mixer sort it out.

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Jan, thanks for the advice.  I do need to work on networking.  And agreed that most of the sound mixers here in San Francisco I've worked with do other things in addition to narrative film work; a lot of corporate work and some live or studio sound, as well as other set work like the lighting that I do.  I wish there were something like the CAS here in Northern California; I'm considering joining and driving down to LA every now and then for things like the parade of carts or workshops.

 

Marc, good points.  Getting different actors in different shots and then slipping their dialog onto the wider shots does typically solve most of these issues, but as you well know there are always exceptions.  When I'm doing the one-man-band thing I usually can't effectively monitor multiple wires well enough to know for sure if we got a solid recording or whether we need to retake, which is why I tend towards the boom:  since it's all in one channel I can monitor if the recording is going well or not.  And the lower budget productions that I typically work on often don't have post sound people with the time, experience, and budget to sort out mulittrack multitake recordings as well as a dedicated dialog editing team would in Hollywood.  I totally get why having a dedicated mixer/boom/utility team is useful, but I'm usually not in that position yet.  Horses for courses as they say!

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Lots of good information here.  pkautzsch especially addressed the issue well:  It does look from the polar patterns (and everyone's experiences) as if the MK41 does in fact have an advantage over more wider patterned mics (mk21, mk22, mk4, MKH40) because the frequency response doesn't change off axis nearly as much.  I suppose this is because the wider patterned mics are designed for close vocal use where the off axis sound is much further away so they didn't optimize the off axis frequency response for smoothness like the mk41 which is expressly designed for film work.  And they just don't have the god-mojo of the mk41...

When deciding what mics do and don't do it is a must to weigh your listening tests more heavily that the pattern shown in a graph.

 

Case in point: the Sennheiser MKH-40 (and 8040), MKH-50 (and 8050), and Schoeps MK41 (641).

 

For those who like the sound and operational characteristics of the Schoeps MK41 (supercardioid element), but, for whatever reason, what to use the Sennheiser MKH series instead, the MKH-40 (and 8040) mics are a much closer match than the MKH50 (and 8050). Even though I've preached this countless times base on years of field use of all three, people are still drawn to the MKH-50 simply because of the higher model number and the lobe symbol printed on the side of the mic.

 

The temptation is just too great to think that there will be some benefit in having more "reach" with the 50 than the 40. While it is possible that a scenario will eventually arise that would favor the slightly narrower front of the 50 (at the expense of less low freq rejection from the rear), it will much more often happen that you experience the very noticeable problem of sounding off axis with the 50 than the 40. I have found that when more reach is needed than the 40, the next best move is to the MKH60 short shotgun, just like it is common practice to go from the Schoeps MK-41 to the Schoeps CMIT short shotgun.

My opinion, of course, is my opinion, and it may differ from your own. But before you make a decision, make sure it's based on your ears. Do blind comparisons, which is what my opinion is based on. In my kit I have two each of these: Scheops MK41 (often now called the 641), MKH-40, MKH50, MKH8040, and MKH8050, and MKH60. Like most, I am a big fan of the Schoeps sound, and will gladly use the Schoep MK41. However, when there is risk of induced buzzing or high humidity where the Sennheiser MKH line is known to be very robust, I go with the MKH40 or 8040 and am always happy with it. Just yesterday on an ABC series we used only the 8040 in an interior set all day (and most of the night) and it was great (very natural, and good reach for camera perspective), even though the set is fairly live and noisy. I've used the 8050 on the same set when a second boom is needed just so I can confirm my opinion with a direct A-B blind comparison, and the 8040 always wins, over and over again.

 

Glen Trew

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