Schoeps SuperCMIT 2U Super Shotgun Microphone with DSP

Description

The SuperCMIT can be a problem-solver wherever diffuse sources of noise (such as street noise, wind noise, room sound, or audience and passers-by) might interfere with a recording. Unwanted noise is greatly reduced in level – even at low frequencies–without altering the tone color of front-arriving direct sound. Even a shotgun with a long tube can’t do that. This makes the SuperCMIT ideal for complex film sound applications and for sports events. The Super CMIT also increases the “reach” of indoor recordings.

Digital signal processing in the SuperCMIT recognizes sound energy arriving from various directions, and determines whether that sound has a discrete, persistent direction of arrival or not. It uses this information to suppress diffuse sound and to focus on discrete sound. This allows the “reach” of the shotgun microphone to be increased significantly, without causing the usual sound-coloring artifacts. The Super CMIT is the first microphone in the world to combine such high directivity with high sound quality.

The SuperCMIT has three pushbuttons which control the filters and presets of the microphone. The two filters are identical to those of Schoeps’ CMIT 5 analog shotgun microphone:

• High-frequency boost (+5 dB at 10 kHz) compensates for losses due to windscreens.
• Steep low-cut (18 dB/oct. below 80 Hz) suppresses low-frequency wind and boom noise.

The second output channel always carries the signal of the regular shotgun. The “Preset” button controls the directivity for the signal on the first output channel (SuperCMIT). Two settings are available:

– Preset 1: moderate directivity increase (green LED); ca. 11 dB reduction in diffuse sound (5 dB greater than a Schoeps CMIT or channel 2 of the SuperCMIT)
– Preset 2: strong directivity increase (red LED); ca. 15 dB diffuse sound reduction. This setting is reserved for special applications since sonic artifacts can occasionally be heard.

The SuperCMIT microphone uses exclusive technology from ILLUSONIC (patent pending). In addition to the capsule behind the interference tube, it contains a second, rear-facing microphone capsule. Digital signal processing (DSP) can analyze both signals and thereby distinguish discrete versus diffuse sound energy. The two signals are then combined in a time- and frequency-dependent manner such that the directional effect for discrete sound energy is increased while the level of diffuse sound is reduced.

At high frequencies (above 6 kHz) only the signal from the front-facing capsule is used, since the interference tube already offers optimal effectiveness in that range.

AES42 Interface

The SuperCMIT is a digital microphone. Its output signal format is AES42, Mode 1. This means that it runs on its own clock (48 kHz) and must be driven by an AES42 input with a sample rate converter (SRC). With the optional PSD 2U powering adapter, it can also be used with a conventional AES3 input having built-in SRC.
The AES42 standard defines the interface for digital microphones. In the simplest case AES42 requires only an AES-3 interface plus 10-Volt digital phantom powering (DPP). AES42 interfaces are available in some equipment such as the RME DMC-842 8-channel interface and the Sound Devices 788T portable 8-channel recorder.

Input device options for the SuperCMIT are described in the Connections Options pdf listed below.

Features

• – new type of digital shotgun microphone with increased directivity, based on SCHOEPS’ extremely successful analog model CMIT 5
• – diffuse sound is suppressed to an extraordinary degree
• – completely new operating principle with two transducers
• – uses digital signal processing algorithms from ILLUSONIC (patent pending)
• – two-channel output, with SuperCMIT signal in ch. 1 and (direct, single-transducer) CMIT signal in ch. 2
• – SCHOEPS sound quality: transparent sound