Topic: Public Service Announcement for Schoeps MK-5 users

[KLowe]

as usual I learn things the hard way...
So...the Schoeps manual says go with either the card setting or the omni....NOT IN BETWEEN b/c results are unreliable or something like that.  Well at langerado I decided to "out smart" the Schoeps boys and set my MK-5 to "subcard" (ie. in between the omni and card settings)...well.  I'd like to report that the recordings sound like crap.  Basically I found a way to completely roll off any bass that may have been present in the recording.

I posted the Roots and STS9 shows basically b/c I was one of if not the only taper.  Personally I hate they way the shows sound.

Just an FYI.

Lesson learned

K

[boojum]

Thanks for reinforcing the idea that the guys who write the manuals know something.  IBM manuals had the canned comment for dicey ideas, "Results are unpredictable."  That was their way of saying "Don't fucking do this."

Better luck next time.   

[DSatz]

I believe the word we used in English was "undefined." (I was the translator and co-writer of the manual.)

Schoeps' multi-pattern capsules (MK 5 and MK 6) vary their patterns by mechanical/acoustical means, not by varying the relative electrical output of two diaphragms. There are really two complementary principles of operation (omni = pressure, figure-8 = velocity) with the cardioid representing an equal mixture of the two. Unfortunately this mechanical approach doesn't lend itself to a "sliding scale" of patterns.

That can be achieved electronically, however, by putting up one omni and one figure-8 (coincident) per channel--then you can crossblend between the two of them for any first-order pattern you want. Back in the funky '50s, Schoeps used to sell a tube microphone called the M 201 which was switchable between omni and cardioid; it worked in just that way, with two capsules in its (in my opinion rather gorgeous-looking) capsule head. But as with the MK 5, the two patterns were set by a switch rather than by a continuous slider.

Continuously variable-pattern condenser microphones already existed by this time (Neumann M 49), but the demand for them was to have their patterns be remote controllable from the control room of a studio, where the pattern selector would be built into the mixing console. That and the later M 269, as well as the stereo SM 69 which was based on it, were all dual-diaphragm designs.

--best regards