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Gear / Technical Help => Microphones & Setup => Topic started by: acidjack on November 22, 2010, 10:43:40 AM
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Is there any "correct" or agreed-upon way to describe a multi-cap mic setup?
For say, the AKG 480, is it AKG 480/ck1, AKG 481, or something else?
Same with Schoeps - is there any "right" or "preferred" way to do it - Schoeps CMC64 vs. Schoeps CMC6/mk4?
Or I guess, in a very technical sense, it'd be mk4>CMC6>cables>etc. but I don't think I've seen that done commonly.
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Yeah, there doesn't seem to be any real standard.
This is what I do:
Source (AUD): AKG C 480 B comb/ CK61-ULS > Tascam DR-680
Microphone configuration: NOS, ceiling mount, FOB & center
But, I'm a stickler for the details...
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Is there any "correct" or agreed-upon way to describe a multi-cap mic setup?
For say, the AKG 480, is it AKG 480/ck1, AKG 481, or something else?
Same with Schoeps - is there any "right" or "preferred" way to do it - Schoeps CMC64 vs. Schoeps CMC6/mk4?
Or I guess, in a very technical sense, it'd be mk4>CMC6>cables>etc. but I don't think I've seen that done commonly.
You're right, it's uncommon to see it as cap > body when there isn't a cable. I went with what I'd seen as the traditional neumann method of listing everything outside of generic cables in the mix (so caps > special lemo cables > km100 bodies > other). So I end up with caps > bodies > other since the cables are generic in my setup. When I did the mix for a show recently with AKGs which don't run remotely, I noted it as body/cap (480/ck63) instead of cap > body which would (in my mind) allude to a cable being between the two (e.g. mk4 > nbox).
One other thing I've tried to do is any permenant modifications I note after the object in [] and any settings noted in (), e.g. ck930 (17cm, 100deg) > cv900 > FR2-LE [Busman T-mod] (24/44.1). Others may not do this, but I find it a helpful way of organizing stuff. My 2 cents. :-\
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It does seem that bodies/caps is the more common and accurate method. I also do list any deck mods. Your distinction between brackets and parentheses is a useful one, too, I think.
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AKG ck1> c460b Is usually how I list.
Cap first.
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Is there any "correct" or agreed-upon way to describe a multi-cap mic setup?
For say, the AKG 480, is it AKG 480/ck1, AKG 481, or something else?
It looks like Etree suggests AKG 481, but I think any of those descriptions are easy enough to figure out.
http://wiki.etree.org/index.php?page=SourceAbbreviations
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Is there any "correct" or agreed-upon way to describe a multi-cap mic setup?
For say, the AKG 480, is it AKG 480/ck1, AKG 481, or something else?
It looks like Etree suggests AKG 481, but I think any of those descriptions are easy enough to figure out.
http://wiki.etree.org/index.php?page=SourceAbbreviations
I prefer the ck1/480, mk4/cmc6 format personally. For Schoeps, I rarely see anyone use the CMC64 format, I guess primarily because CMC64 also refers to a retail/manufacturer stereo set, that includes other stuff technically (windscreens, shockmount, etc.). When using Schoeps actives I typically left out the 'KC5' part because it just looked too long.
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Well with the 460's it's actually broken down for me because they take the vintage ck1's or the still made CK61-ULS.
Most that I know of with the 480's use CK61-ULS
Also the caps get hit first with the grooves then it goes from there.
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mk4 (ORTF)>kc5>cmc 6>722
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it's probably not that important. Just do whatever you prefer. I bet 4/5 of people that see it won't know the difference (they just know it's an AUD) 1/10 of people only care about the brand name of the mic and the other 1/3 of people are taper dorks and will understand it either way.
also 5/4 people have trouble with fractions.
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I really am inconsistent when it comes to listing those types of chains. I just type and go from there.
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What about mics with switchable patterns?
AKG C414 XLS (hypers, DIN) > V3 > DR-680
I think I'm glad that they are no hard rules on this, I'd probably screw it up most of the time. I can't remember ever listing which caps I used on my Nakamichis.
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What about mics with switchable patterns?
AKG C414 XLS (hypers, DIN) > V3 > DR-680
exactly; the parenthesis for settings used on that recording, braces for fixed modifications. ;D
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I have the reducer ring in my sig but I usually don't put it in on a txt file.
And Just for correct order I put the caps first.
Just like the post processing, I wouldn't put Flac then cdwave.
Just little pet peeves I'm sure.
AKG ck1~> a60m~> c460b~>
If people care enough whether it's a card/hyper/omni, or even know what they are,
they will ask or google. That's what I did all those years on etree.
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Source 1:
AKG C460B/ck63s(DIN/FOB 25 ft away/1ft LOC/8.5ft) >
Lunatec V3 (SPDIF) > Tascam DR-680 @ 24/48
Source 2:
AKG C480B/ck61s(DIN/FOB 25 ft away/1ft LOC/9ft) >
Naiant Littlebox (RCA out > 1/4" in) > Tascam DR-680 @ 24/48
Well with the 460's it's actually broken down for me because they take the vintage ck1's or the still made CK61-ULS.
Most that I know of with the 480's use CK61-ULS
Also the caps get hit first with the grooves then it goes from there.
for vintage caps: AKG C460B/a60/ck1s
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(Folks, I set out to shorten this article but ended up making it about three times the original size. Hmmm ...)
I think Schoeps, Neumann and AKG are the most interesting cases. They have all offered a range of different microphone types. After World War II when it became feasible to build small condenser microphones with full professional quality, Schoeps went in that direction exclusively while Neumann and AKG kept a foot in both camps. Then in the mid-1950s when it became feasible to build small condenser microphones with interchangeable capsules, all three companies offered them but none of the three offered them exclusively, i.e. all three companies also sold complete microphones which did not have interchangeable capsules.
To understand the manufacturers' dilemma, let's try to roll back some of the self-selecting nature of this forum. The kind of recording that most of us do most of the time is "location" recording--which is an important segment of the market for some audio equipment manufacturers, but it's a specialty segment, and we are typically individuals who lack multi-million-dollar equipment budgets, alas. Some of the (capitalistically) largest areas of the audio equipment market don't sell to location recordists at all, or hardly at all. Even microphones, viewed "from above" as a business, are sold in far larger quantities for use in fixed installations and for recording/broadcast studios.
The thing is, some people just don't "get" modularity--and it seems that that group includes many of the people who buy equipment for U.S. recording and broadcast studios. They don't want to hear about separate capsules and amplifiers; they feel that the manufacturer should put the microphone together. They know what a "57" is and what an "87" is, they imagine that they know what a "414" is, and they like things that way. (Never mind that the U 87 has three directional patterns--to a typical studio guy all professional microphones are cardioids, and the pattern switch is at best a kind of tone control. Never mind that there have been over a dozen models of "C 414" with three very different, and different-sounding, capsules that the company calls by the same name.)
So this is a tricky situation for the manufacturers. Marketing-wise they need a very clear identity for their microphones--but where they have versatility to offer, they want that to be clear as well, and those two aims clash. The greater the versatility, the greater the potential for confusion.
Going back to my three companies as examples: Neumann had their KM 83/84/85 (omni/standard cardioid/speech cardioid), with interchangeable capsules sharing the same electronics, and the KM 84 way outsold the other two models combined; for most users your purposes would pretty much dictate which capsule you chose. But some interchanging did occur, and as a result, you might see a microphone engraved as a "KM 83", but if it had a KK 84 cardioid capsule head on it, it was functionally a KM 84. Eventually Neumann decided to let the Wookiee win, and stopped engraving specific model numbers on that series of microphone bodies--instead they just said "KM 80" while the capsules were given clearer markings so that people could easily tell which one was on a given body.
AKG had their C 451 series, which (unlike the modern "re-issue") was modular, had more different capsules than Neumann, and had alternate bodies for the same capsules--one optimized for 48-Volt phantom powering, and another one with pad and low-cut switches built in. But AKG didn't have any particular names for complete microphones that were made up of these parts. So again you still find people (especially in studios) referring to "a 451" as if that really identified the mike, even though that name fails to identify the part which really determines the sound of the microphone.
In the 1960s Schoeps' best-known microphones were the M 221 B series, which had interchangeable capsules, but the microphones were engraved and sold as M 221 B "with" a certain capsule. "M 221 B/M 934 B" was thus one of the more common types--a name that hardly rolls off the tongue. In the early 1970s Schoeps' main series was the CMT 30/40/50 series, which supported three different powering methods (phantom 12 Volts, parallel 12 Volts and phantom 48 Volts). There were seven or eight capsule types available, and the two 12-Volt microphone series could interchange capsules with one another. Capsules for the 48-Volt microphones were built in a subtly different way but could be physically placed on the 12-Volt amplifiers and vice versa, and they would work although not in an ideal way. The thing is, the company didn't emphasize the interchangeability of capsules or amplifiers (although if done properly, it worked very well), and the microphones were still being engraved and sold as complete microphones with capsule-specific markings (e.g. my original pair of Schoeps mikes say "CMT 56U").
When Schoeps' present-day Colette series was introduced in 1973-74, one of its leading points was the wide selection of "combinable" capsules and amplifiers. But Schoeps also wanted the users of their existing CMT 30/40/50 series to think of the Colette microphones as a kind of continuation of the CMT series with improvements (an early version of "friends with benefits," I suppose). So for a few more years, Schoeps continued the practice of concatenating the amplifier and capsule names. For example, a CMC 3-- amplifier with an MK 41 capsule on it would be ordered and sold as a "CMC 341", at least on paper.
The attached picture file shows part of a 1970s brochure for the Colette series in which this approach was still being used. However, the whole essence of an interchangeable capsule system is that the microphone isn't defined by the capsule that it happens to be using at the moment; it's defined more by its potential to have any of (for Schoeps by now) over 20 different capsule types on it. So the engraving on the amplifier said "CMC 3--" or "CMC 4--" or "CMC 5--" with the dashes meaning "fill in the blanks" with the capsule's designation. Eventually the whole name-concatenation approach fell by the wayside, and Schoeps stopped pushing it.
--best regards