Room Echo rejection: Sennheiser MKH 50 vs Schoeps CMC/MK41 vs Sanken CS3E

[laddie.music2]

Hi there, as my title lists, i'd love any help regarding the problem of booming indoor shoots and room echo / roomy sounding vocals

I have a Senn. 416 and 816, both absolutely terrible for indoor booming so far, very very very echoey and roomey, e

I have read through a couple posts and i'm hoping it's come down to one of these 3

Sennheiser MKH 50 vs Schoeps CMC/MK41 vs Sanken CS3E

Does anyone know which of the 3 would have the best room echo rejection.

I've heard the sanken is both great indoor and outdoor, but right now i'm happy with the 416 for outdoor, so i'm just going for the best indoor least ammount of echo as possible. If that's the Sanken, then awesome, i'll have a good indoor / outdoor,

if it's the Schoeps or Senn MKH 50 then so be it.

Really appreciate any help

[marclop]

Originally Posted by laddie.music2

Hi there, as my title lists, i'd love any help regarding the problem of booming indoor shoots and room echo / roomy sounding vocals

I have a Senn. 416 and 816, both absolutely terrible for indoor booming so far, very very very echoey and roomey, e

I have read through a couple posts and i'm hoping it's come down to one of these 3

Sennheiser MKH 50 vs Schoeps CMC/MK41 vs Sanken CS3E

Does anyone know which of the 3 would have the best room echo rejection.

I've heard the sanken is both great indoor and outdoor, but right now i'm happy with the 416 for outdoor, so i'm just going for the best indoor least ammount of echo as possible. If that's the Sanken, then awesome, i'll have a good indoor / outdoor,

if it's the Schoeps or Senn MKH 50 then so be it.

Really appreciate any help

It's true that the shotguns due to their construction are not suitable for an echoy room. I own the 416 and I've experienced it before. I was able to compare it with the CMC/MK41, which is better in those conditions and also works great for outdoors. I wasn't able though to use the Sanken you mention, so I don't have any opinion about it.

Hope this helps you out,
Marco

[Jaymz]

I would add the MKH8040 as a contender. I use it as my indoor boom mic, sounds wonderful.

Glenn Trew's words,

This is why the Schoeps with an MK41 capsule (now sometimes called the CMC641), was embraced for so long. Generally speaking, the cardiod versions are more natural sounding than the shotgun.

Sometimes the Sennheiser versions are preferred, with the goal of having a Schoeps-like pattern and characteristics but with the Sennheiser's immunity to induced noise and humidity. However, when this is the goal, too often the MKH50 is chosen when the MKH40 is a much better match in terms of rejection, "reach", natural off-axis, and forgiving transition between off-axis and on-axis.

The following will help explain why the confusion exists: The Schoeps MK41 pattern is usually (and mistakenly) referred to as "hypercardioid", when it is actually categorized by Schoeps as "supercarioid". Sennheiser classifies the MKH50 as "hypercardioid", and the MKH40 as, simply, "cardioid". Adding to the confusion is the fact that the standard symbol (inverted apple with stem) stamped on the MK41 supercardioid to indicate it's pattern is the very same that Sennheiser stamped on the MKH50 (and MKH8050) hypercardioid to indicate it's pattern. The moral of this story is to ignore the symbol and listen to the mics.

The smaller version of the Sennheiser MKH line is the 8000 series, as in 8050 (called hypercardioid) and 8040 (called cardioid). Likewise, the 8040 is much more like the Schoeps MK41 than the 8050. This past fall I was the production mixer on a feature that I used the 8040 almost exclusively for interiors. Times when I supplemented it with a Schoeps MK41 supercardioid, there was no practical difference. However, times I've gone from the Sennheiser MKH50 to the Schoeps MK41, it was easy to tell that two different mics were being used.

In short, the answer is yes... When the situation allows a cardioid mic (and it's hyper and super versions) it is preferred over a shotgun. But keep in mind that when the goal is to have natural characteristics as close as possible to the beloved Schoeps MK41, but with the RF and humidity resistance of the Sennheiser MKH line, choose the MKH40 or the MKH8040.

Glen Trew

[Kardec]

I'm not an expert like many here on this site but as a user of a couple of these mic I'll chime in just a bit. It's my impression that none of these mics minimize echo so much as shotguns emphasize some of it's nastiness through the asymmetric frequency aspect of their pick up pattern. The "smoother" the pattern the better when it comes to the liveness of rooms. I tested both the MKH 40s and Schoeps years ago, loved the Schoeps but bought the Sennheiser MKH because I knew you could drive nails in the rainforest with it ... I have never looked back. I have 7 of the old style MKHs, nearly the full set. They are fantastic and VERY smooth in a bad room. And I very nearly have driven nails in the rainforest with them! They are a tough mic, some of mine have been abused for 25 years.

Over that time I have done quite a few interviews and recorded a lot of sound effects (in my various careers) in some very bad rooms with an MKH 40. They or their MKH 30, 40, 50 brothers have always delivered the goods. I've used 40s in the studio doing "radio dramas" and found them to have great reach, off pattern sound and smooth on to off pattern transitions. However, I can't say I've had this sort of wide experience with the Schoeps.

That said the new Gen Sennheisers (8000 series) and the Schoeps, where you can separate the capsule from the body are very useful on a film shoot (something I haven't done in years). I checked out the MKH8040 recently and liked it but bought the "old" solid body version because I already had a matching mic.

The Schoeps are expensive but, as I'm sure you know, you can save some money buying a selection of capsules for a limited set of bodies. The Schoeps mics induce lust but maybe that's because I have a pretty good set of Sennheisers!

I've never heard the Sanken.


Good Luck!

[philper]

They're all great mics, but none of them reduce the pickup of echo or room boominess. What a mic like the Schoeps does is make dialog in the room sound more natural than a cheap directional mic, partly because its off-axis frequency response is nearly the same as its on-axis response. The dialog seems more intelligible in spite of the unfavorable space. To make the space less live you have to treat the room physically--rugs, wall treatments, lots of people, etc etc.

phil p