Topic: Anyone here use Schoeps' M/S extension tube (RCY ---)?

[DSatz]

I hope it doesn't seem too strange since I often answer people's questions about Schoeps microphones here, but: There's a setup that they offer that I've never tried and am thinking of trying. Could I just ask whether anyone else here has tried it, and if so, what were the pros and cons?

People here seem to be pretty familiar with active cables, but in concert recording, active extension tubes are at least as widely used, particularly in Europe  These are thin (~1/4" diameter), long, rigid, hollow Nextel-finish metal rods that have a fitting for a Colette capsule at one end, a fitting for a CMC microphone amplifier (body) at the other end, and a shielded cable inside. See the attached photo for one prominent example of their use. I use these sometimes in closely-spaced stereo pairs to record classical concerts.

Anyway, Schoeps also makes a tube for coincident stereo recording or for the "redundancy" (safety factor) of having two microphones in the same place. You can't adjust the angle between the capsules--there's an up/down pivot for angle adjustment of the two capsules as a pair, but they both face whichever way you turn the tube. If one of the capsules is a figure-8, you can make an M/S recording this way. And that would put even less "hardware" in sight between the audience and the stage and the performers than anything else I can think of.

So I might like to try it out. Has anyone else here done so already?

--best regards

[noahbickart]

I've never used one, but I do think it would be cool to mount one on top of a stand as a boom of sorts. Somehow the price of the tube make it prohibitive for me, given that the kcy can be snaked around a stand.

But it is the lowest profile m-s mount possible....

[H₂O]

I thought Schoeps offered "gaskets" so you could adjust capsule angle (I.e. such as too v style caps). But maybe I am reading the wrong angle?

[audBall]

Are they micing the Tenors with four MS pairs?  Or is that just for reference?

[DSatz]

No, the Three Tenors, and Mr. Pavarotti in his solo performances, were picked up in mono. The engineers used either a single Schoeps mike with a Colette extension tube as shown, or at times, two Schoeps mikes on extension tubes side-by-side, the latter as insurance in case of any technical difficulty, and also to have a better choice if the singer happened to step sideways a bit.

[H₂O]

Here's a pic of Danny DeVito talking into what looks like one - not the three tenors but

http://a57.foxnews.com/img.foxnews.com/static/managed/img/U.S./660/535/devitokardashian.gif

[DSatz]

Actually, I'd say that that isn't a Schoeps microphone or extension tube next to Mr. DeVito. For one thing, the tube has too large a diameter relative to the capsule (which I suspect is really the whole microphone, and the tube is just a kind of mike stand).

But it's clear that the visual design is entirely based on Schoeps--you could call it a tribute (cough, cough).

The Schoeps/Wuttke patent only covered microphones designed for use with electrically active accessories, i.e. with the FET first stage in the socket that the capsule connects to. Everyone else has always been free to build microphones with self-contained electronics and passive extension accessories, or to integrate the FET first stage into the capsule housing and then use passive extension devices. And since the patent has now run its course, there are knockoffs that you sometimes have to look at fairly closely to tell whose product they are or aren't.

--best regards