Topic: CCM8 alternative for MS - Ambient Recording ATE 208 Emesser

[midside]

Emesser had a similar mic that was called ATE 108 that was supposedly noisy.

Looks like this is a new condenser version that is much quieter:

http://www.ambient.de/produkte/mikrofone/emesser/emesser_e.html

I recently sold all my Schoeps gear to replace it with a CCM / MS setup for simplicity 'in the field' and have everything I need except for my figure-8.  I am very curious how this friendly priced mic will sound coupled with a CCM5.  The Schoeps compact figure-8 is $2425 while this one can be had for only $661.50 shipped leaving me with almost $1800 left over to throw at one of those credit card bills!

http://www.pro-sound.com/BrandAmb/SAMBATE208.html

The one thing that scares me from trying it out is that the low end starts dropping off pretty fast at 200 and they mention this in their description.  They say this is to reduce bass phasing issues as the intended purpose of this mic is an easy way to convert your shotgun to a stereo option...mainly for film.  MS (and other coincident techniques) already has a reduced bass image versus split configurations....I really wish they had another version with less bass attenuation.  (why didn't they just add a low cut switch?)

Anyhow, this is tempting!

[Todd R]

Not compact, but the Audio-Technica AT4081 looks interesting.  The low end response of the Ambient is kind of disappointing as you mention.

[midside]

yep...I definitely need compact for what I do.....

[DSatz]

Figure-8 capsules have an inherent low-frequency rolloff of 6 dB/octave below "some frequency"--what that frequency is, depends on the overall design. By increasing the capsule's damping, that frequency can be pushed lower, but then the sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio also become less. Any given commercial design is a compromise among those concerns.

Of course not all designs are optimal (or anywhere near), so it's also quite possible to have a capsule with poor low-frequency response AND a poor signal-to-noise ratio. Most lower-cost capsules are like that. No comment on this particular one, which I'm not familiar with.

The net effect of recording M/S stereo with a figure-8 capsule that has a severe low-frequency rolloff will be that the resulting L/R stereo version will tend toward a mono pickup at low frequencies, due to the relative lack of output from the side-facing capsule. Back in the LP era that was arguably a desirable characteristic (it led to less skipping when records were played by cheap phono cartridges). Otherwise it's a highly undesirable characteristic for music recording in general, but arguably it can be a good one for dialog recording--even better if the forward-facing "M" microphone is filtered so that its low-frequency profile is fairly similar.

--best regards