Schoeps Recommendation?

W

wbrock001

Well-known member
Hi All,

I'm in the enviable (or dubious) position of having saved and now have the funds available to purchase a Schoeps microphone. I do general video production, more inside than outside and just recently acquired an NTG-3 (which should be a pretty decent outdoor mic)...so my question for all of you is which schoeps is a better investment if you can only have one for now, the CMIT or the 641 given that they cost the same? I know that the Sanken CS3e seems to be the darling for its rejection, if the shotgun is your recommendation and if you had the funds for either the CMIT or the Sanken, which would you rather have and why?

Any insight is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Bill
 
641 hands down. You already have a shotgun and they're best for outside work away from reflective walls. The 641 will do wonders inside. The best combo from your list is a 641 & the CS3e.
 
Grrreat! Thank you for your responses. The 641 it is. Just out of curiosity, do you guys have two 641's for stationary two person interview type situations or is there a reasonable way to have one mic cover two (great boom operator? have them sit in each other's lap?)? Thanks again!
 
Yup, the 641 is a Hollywood standard for interior dialog work.

On using one mic to cover two people, I asked MattinSTL about this a while ago as I was renting the mic for a production and he told me "and the Schoeps is the best "splitting the difference" mic in the world... just depends on how echoey the room is"

So in most situations you'd likely be fine.
 
wbrock001 said:
Grrreat! Thank you for your responses. The 641 it is. Just out of curiosity, do you guys have two 641's for stationary two person interview type situations or is there a reasonable way to have one mic cover two (great boom operator? have them sit in each other's lap?)? Thanks again!
Click to expand...

if the 2 people are sitting close enough together 1 schoeps is fine.
I do that all the time.
I do try to favor the quieter person just a hair though, just pay attention
prior to them sitting down, or when they just sit down..you can pretty much
tell who is going to speak more, and who is louder.
 
Great, thank you!

I learned some lessons on a project I did a couple years ago. I rented two 641's, being a reasonable audio novice, I had the mics on booms in small reflexion filters in front and just above the heads of each actor as they were facing each other seated. The room was an echo and a/c nightmare so I hung up about a dozen sound blankets hanging from the ceiling on the walls etc and it really helped, or so I thought (now I understand the value of really good isolating headphones, I had sennheisers but they weren't quite good enough). So the recording ended up being a bit low s/n, which was due to my inexperience so ended up using some of the wireless me2 that was on the facilitator between the two actors...

The actors were speaking a bit low, as is natural when you're in close proximity, but I neglected to direct them to enunciate and up their voice levels a bit because honestly I really didn't know what to expect from these mics or any mic for that purpose. Though I did get the mics as close as I could without them being in the frame...thanks to all of you experts here! Oh yeah, the last lesson learned from all of this, is I did all of this myself...so something had to suffer for it.

So to sum up, better location, mic close as possible, better headphones, better talent direction, and get more help! Oh, and get bigger budget next time to support all of the above!
 
wbrock001 said:
The actors were speaking a bit low, as is natural when you're in close proximity, but I neglected to direct them to enunciate and up their voice levels a bit...
Click to expand...

Doesn't work.
They will always answer the first few sentences of the next question a little louder..but will go back to their natural levels quickly.

Little tricks I have is if im in a less than friendly environment for an interview that
I know a louder voice will help is I move the producers chair farther away ;)


If 2 chairs are on top of each other they are going to speak quietly.
Start to move them apart..and wala...
louder voices ;)
 
Funny you say that...that has been exactly my experience come to think of it. The chair idea is a good idea, the problem was with the framing. Thanks again for your information, can't wait to put the 641 to some use!
 
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