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Author Topic: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?  (Read 9308 times)

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Offline hotdog

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Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« on: December 26, 2018, 11:44:49 AM »
Hey folks looking for any input on a set of mk3 / mk2 Omni caps pros / cons etc
Just thinking about grabbing a pair much thanks
Schoeps MK4/ MK41vs//active /Nbox
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Offline noahbickart

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Re: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« Reply #1 on: December 26, 2018, 11:46:31 AM »
I run the mk3 (now relabeled mk2xs). The HF boost works very well for "what we do."

I'll be running them (in addition to mk22, and mk41v pairs) at MSG for Phish this weekend, stay tuned for "tapes"
Recording:
Capsules: Schoeps mk41v (x2), mk22 (x2), mk3 (x2), mk21 & mk8
Cables: 2x nbob KCY, 1 pair nbob actives, GAKables 10' & 20' 6-channel snakes, Darktrain 2 & 4 channel KCY and mini xlr extensions:
Preamps:    Schoeps VMS 02iub, Naiant IPA, Sound Devices Mixpre6 I
Recorders: Sound Devices Mixpre6 I, Sony PCM m10

Home Playback: Mac Mini> Mytek Brooklyn+> McIntosh MC162> Eminent Tech LFT-16; Musical Fidelity xCan v2> Hifiman HE-4XX / Beyerdynamic DT880

Office Playback: iMac> Grace m903> AKG k701 / Hifiman HE-400

Offline hotdog

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Re: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2018, 12:05:56 PM »
Perfect perfect I'll be right next to you lol
Schoeps MK4/ MK41vs//active /Nbox
> 702> 744t

Offline H₂O

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Re: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2018, 12:41:14 PM »
mk2s and mk5 (in omni mode) are very nice sounding when running at a distance


the base mk2 is designed to be run close to the source and can sound kind of stark when run at a distance IMO
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Offline noahbickart

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Re: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« Reply #4 on: December 26, 2018, 02:48:18 PM »
Perfect perfect I'll be right next to you lol

If you’d like to borrow them one evening feel free.
Recording:
Capsules: Schoeps mk41v (x2), mk22 (x2), mk3 (x2), mk21 & mk8
Cables: 2x nbob KCY, 1 pair nbob actives, GAKables 10' & 20' 6-channel snakes, Darktrain 2 & 4 channel KCY and mini xlr extensions:
Preamps:    Schoeps VMS 02iub, Naiant IPA, Sound Devices Mixpre6 I
Recorders: Sound Devices Mixpre6 I, Sony PCM m10

Home Playback: Mac Mini> Mytek Brooklyn+> McIntosh MC162> Eminent Tech LFT-16; Musical Fidelity xCan v2> Hifiman HE-4XX / Beyerdynamic DT880

Office Playback: iMac> Grace m903> AKG k701 / Hifiman HE-400

Offline lsd2525

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Re: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« Reply #5 on: December 26, 2018, 03:07:17 PM »
You guys don't get a lot of hall boom running those in an arena?
Mics: SKM184's; ADK A51s; AT4041; Superlux S502; CK91 active w/homebrew BB; AT853; Naiant X-X; Nak 300's
Recorders: M10; DR-60D; DR-701D

Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« Reply #6 on: December 26, 2018, 03:13:06 PM »
As the others suggest:  MK3 (MK2xs) generally prefered for AUD with a diffuse-field response, MK2 on-stage with a free-field response.

I'm just posting to add something to consider in case you find a sweet deal on your less preferred variant and aren't averse to applying an EQ correction- The only difference between these is their native high-frequency response and its arguable that there are no two microphones which are otherwise more identical in this respect. One can be EQ'd to match the response of the other if you so choose. 
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Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Offline noahbickart

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Re: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« Reply #7 on: December 26, 2018, 06:15:18 PM »
You guys don't get a lot of hall boom running those in an arena?

You get more reflected sound than with more directional microphones, yes. They sound surprisingly good on their own, and, when mixed with a center m/s or x/y pair the result can be really fabulous.

Here's an example of the pure mk3 sound, spaced 60 cm AB, This is from Phish 12/28/17, "No Men in No Man's Land"
Schoeps mk3 (@ 60cm)> Nbob actives> Darktrain cables> Naiant PFA> Sound Devices Mixpre6 (mic in, Channels 1/2 @ 24bit/48 kHz)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rgCMKu7hvG5Pq_E4B1LFiEtDX4Wd4VEY
Recording:
Capsules: Schoeps mk41v (x2), mk22 (x2), mk3 (x2), mk21 & mk8
Cables: 2x nbob KCY, 1 pair nbob actives, GAKables 10' & 20' 6-channel snakes, Darktrain 2 & 4 channel KCY and mini xlr extensions:
Preamps:    Schoeps VMS 02iub, Naiant IPA, Sound Devices Mixpre6 I
Recorders: Sound Devices Mixpre6 I, Sony PCM m10

Home Playback: Mac Mini> Mytek Brooklyn+> McIntosh MC162> Eminent Tech LFT-16; Musical Fidelity xCan v2> Hifiman HE-4XX / Beyerdynamic DT880

Office Playback: iMac> Grace m903> AKG k701 / Hifiman HE-400

Offline DSatz

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Re: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« Reply #8 on: December 28, 2018, 08:27:36 PM »
Any microphone can only pick up sound from the sound field where it is. That's all it can do; it can't respond to whatever may be going on elsewhere. There's this mistaken idea that you "aim" a microphone at some sound source/sources a distance away, and it will respond to whatever's there; that's fine for cameras and telescopes since light travels in straight lines. But it's not a good way to think about sound and microphones in most practical situations, since sound spreads out in all directions from its source, and bounces around way more than you might think.

If you record in an anechoic chamber, in free air space far away from any sound-reflecting objects, or in the immediate area of a sound source, then that's a "free" sound field. In those rare cases the straight line/optical metaphor more or less applies, and the MK 2 (which has flat, i.e. accurate, response on axis) is the capsule for you.

Free sound fields don't occur in audience locations in concert halls or other public performance venues, however. At points that are a surprisingly short distance from the sound sources in three-dimensional space, the reflected sound energy of a space adds up to roughly the same net amount as the direct sound. (That distance is called the "reverberation radius".) Schoeps' MK 2 H and MK 2 S capsules are designed for placement around there, since their response averages out to be flat when the prevailing sound field is a rough balance like that.

Those two capsules outsell the MK 2 by a considerable margin; this "semi-distant" type of recording is a common application for omnidirectional microphones--plus if you use either capsule type for relatively close-up recording (as in a studio--German studios use omnidirectional microphones more than American studios do, but they don't always mike as closely), the few dB of gentle high-frequency boost is rather pleasant sounding.

When your microphones are out in the audience area, the acoustical energy at their position is composed mainly of sound that has already undergone reflection off of various room surfaces and people and objects in the room. Thus your microphones are in a mainly "diffuse" sound field, in which the directions of arrival of various sound components will tend toward being random. And each original sound component will arrive along a complex set of paths of different lengths, so the relative times of arrival will be spread over some interval, rather than being "one-time" and sharply defined. In addition, all that bouncing around tends to absorb some of the high frequency content, though the amount and kind of this absorption depends greatly on the materials and people involved.

When an omnidirectional microphone with a "diffuse field" capsule such as the Schoeps MK 2 XS (known as the "MK 3" until recently) is placed in a diffuse sound field, the ordinary kind of published frequency response curve becomes largely irrelevant, since by industry-wide agreement, such graphs show the response that would occur in a free sound field. A free-field graph for a diffuse-field omni will show a high-frequency, on-axis rise--but you won't hear that rise unless you misuse the microphone by placing it in a free sound field or something like it. In a mainly diffuse sound field, only a small fraction of sound energy will arrive within the narrow range of angles where that high-frequency rise is shown on the graph--and among that small fraction, the earliest-arriving sound components will be the direct and "most nearly direct" sound (assuming that the engineer is awake and has oriented the microphones generally toward the sound sources). So that characteristic helps give a clearer impression of the direct sound, such as it is at that distance, while the overall response of the capsule or microphone is essentially flat (i.e. accurate) given the type of sound field that it is placed in.

None of this discussion makes much sense if you use a camera or telescope (optical/visual) metaphor for the way you think about microphones. Instead, consider where the microphone is, and realize that at best, it can only record what's going on where it is.

--best regards
« Last Edit: December 29, 2018, 05:04:28 AM by DSatz »
music > microphones > a recorder of some sort

Offline kuba e

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Re: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« Reply #9 on: December 29, 2018, 01:52:34 PM »
Thank you DSatz. I have theoretical question, which I have already thought. In a case of recording PA music, does the house sound guy compensate the loss of high frequencies, as most of the audience are already in the diffuse field? If yes, should free-field microphone be suitable for audience PA recording?

Or sound guy don't need to compensate the loss of high frequencies because our brain can intuitively focus on direct sound and mute reverberate sounds in a real situation? And because our brain cannot handle this in a stereo playback, diffuse-field microphones are suitable for audience PA recording? (DSatz explained this here: http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=187714.msg2275788#msg2275788?

« Last Edit: December 29, 2018, 01:59:27 PM by kuba e »

Offline DSatz

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Re: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« Reply #10 on: December 31, 2018, 12:37:10 AM »
House sound is designed for human consumption--ears and brains with a coupla million years of evolution going for them. We can sit in a mostly diffuse sound field and still make aural sense of what's going on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedence_effect is a big part of it; the rest is experience.

The same trick doesn't work for a pair of microphones, because they don't have a brain attached. The exception, of course, is "dummy head" recordings that are played back through headphones--they basically pass along to your ears and brain what they would receive if they were in that same place in the room.

By the way, another very useful tool when you're recording from a distance with omni mikes is accessory spheres that fit over the capsules, with their fronts flush with the front edge of the capsules. See https://schoeps.de/en/products/accessories/filters-pads/ka-40.html .

As the page implies, these are most often used with the MK 2 S and MK 2 H capsules. But that's because omni capsules are mostly sold to recording engineers who can place microphones wherever they want, which is more often near the "reverberation radius" that I mentioned before. As a result, the general recording business buys many more MK 2 S and MK 2 H than MK 2 XS. But the spheres can definitely be used with the MK 2 XS if the treble balance is to your liking.

(This type of sphere also works with the Schoeps MK 5 two-pattern capsule in its omnidirectional setting.)

--best regards
« Last Edit: December 31, 2018, 09:39:07 PM by DSatz »
music > microphones > a recorder of some sort

Offline kuba e

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Re: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« Reply #11 on: December 31, 2018, 05:58:43 AM »
Many thanks for the explanation. I understand. The Wikipedia link is very good.
Sometimes it is good to remember that we are a million years evolution. When things do not work the way we want, like sometimes when recording.

Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« Reply #12 on: December 31, 2018, 10:34:30 AM »
Complicating the situation, consider the oddity (in the sense of traditional recording) of recording a PA-reinforced performance from an audience perspective.  This is the elephant in the room with regards to the kind of recording most folks at Taperssection are doing, not particularly well understood or defined beyond the collective practical experience of "concert tapers".

A PA has two primary roles: The first is providing increased sound level. The second is directing that sonic energy.  Directing it increases its "effective" critical radius toward audience locations, which I think represents the more significant achievement of PA tech and the important one to this discussion.  I say "effective" because the the critical radius of each of the primary sound-sources on stage does not change.  What changes is a secondary source is introduced (the PA speakers) designed to radiate its direct sound in a very specific and controlled way, which must correspondingly extend the critical radius of this source in the direction of the audience while reducing it in all other directions. 

A primary sound source located on stage and radiating more or less omnidirectionally, will have a certain critical-radius based upon the properties of the room (mostly its size).  An omnidirectional PA in the same room would have about the same critical-radius.  A highly directional PA will not.  Advancement of PA tech has provided both increased directionally in a global sense as well as specific management of that increased directionality.  In many modern installations, the directivity is multi-faceted and optimized separately for specific parts of the room. This is very well understood from the PA engineering side of things, but less well understood on the recording side of things because the only folks recording PA's for other than measurement purposes are concert tapers.  PA recording is an odd subset of recording.  The same basic aspects apply, while a whole new set of conditions are imposed upon it.

I'd love to hear more about this from those working in modern sound reinforcement design, specifically if critical-radius or some similar measure is used as a performance metric for the PA, and if so, how far can it be effectively extended in venues common to live music taping using PA setups of various complexity.
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Offline noahbickart

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Re: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« Reply #13 on: December 31, 2018, 10:40:08 AM »
Recording:
Capsules: Schoeps mk41v (x2), mk22 (x2), mk3 (x2), mk21 & mk8
Cables: 2x nbob KCY, 1 pair nbob actives, GAKables 10' & 20' 6-channel snakes, Darktrain 2 & 4 channel KCY and mini xlr extensions:
Preamps:    Schoeps VMS 02iub, Naiant IPA, Sound Devices Mixpre6 I
Recorders: Sound Devices Mixpre6 I, Sony PCM m10

Home Playback: Mac Mini> Mytek Brooklyn+> McIntosh MC162> Eminent Tech LFT-16; Musical Fidelity xCan v2> Hifiman HE-4XX / Beyerdynamic DT880

Office Playback: iMac> Grace m903> AKG k701 / Hifiman HE-400

Offline kuba e

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Re: Schoeps Omni caps which one ?
« Reply #14 on: January 01, 2019, 03:27:43 PM »
Gutbucket, thanks for adding. It is interesting what you write about PA. I am curious about PA critical-radius too. Not all PA recordings need to eq high end.

Psychoacoustic is interesting. I looked into the book about psychoacoustic. I wanted to read such book long ago. There is chart about how we perceive the sound in the free and diffuse field. Most probably know, but for someone like me it may be new. The chart x axis is frequency, the y is sound pressure level correction for diffuse field. The chart is saying how much we need to adjust the sound pressure level of the sound at given frequency in the diffuse field to hear it as loud as we hear it in the free field. The chart was measured for pure tones, the reality will be much more complicated. But it helped me to make an idea. The reason why we hear it this way is explained in previous DSatz post or you can read about it in details in the book Zwicker&Fastl, starting on page 205
https://books.google.cz/books?id=WLvtCAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=cs&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
By the way, it is nice that google offer big parts of books for free reading. I didn't know about it.

I was surprised that the capsule Schoeps MK 2XS for diffuse field adds up to 5db for high end. I don't have a good feel for the eq, I have always been careful. This is a good reason that I should not be afraid to add high end(my microphones are intended for free field).
« Last Edit: January 01, 2019, 03:38:54 PM by kuba e »

 

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