SuperCMIT - Directional Microphone w/ Digital Processing

The SuperCMIT defines a new type of shotgun microphone. Its directivity goes well beyond that of conventional shotguns, even those with long interference tubes. It offers completely new possibilities for the sound engineer.

The SuperCMIT is a digital microphone (AES42 standard). This standard is supported by many present-day mobile recorders as well as some mixing boards.

DESCRIPTION

The DSP in the SuperCMIT detects discrete sound from different directions and whether the sound has a discrete, permanent direction. The algorithm also detects diffuse sound from all directions. This information is used to suppress diffuse sound and to focus on discrete sound.

This allows the range of the microphone to be increased significantly - without the typical artifacts in sound color. The SuperCMIT is the world's first microphone that combines high directivity with high sound quality.

The SuperCMIT 2 U has three buttons that enable/disable the filters and presets of the microphone. The two filters are identical to those of the analog tube CMIT 5 U: high-frequency emphasis (+5 dB at 10 kHz) compensates the attenuation of wind shields; the steep low-cut (18 dB/octave from 80 Hz) suppresses low-frequency wind and boom noises.

While the unprocessed CMIT signal is always at the output on channel 2, channel 1 is the output of the SuperCMIT. A preset button determines its directivity. Two positions are possible:

Preset 1: Moderate increase of the directivity and attenuation of the diffuse sound by 11dB (5dB more than the SCHOEPS CMIT 5U or channel 2 of the SuperCMIT)

Preset 2: The attenuation of the diffuse sound is 15 dB. This position is reserved for special applications - in some cases artifacts are possible.

The gain can be raised by +30 dB by double-clicking on all three buttons.

For the SuperCMIT, two power supplies are available, which are needed if the recording device doesn't support AES42.

PRACTICE

Especially where diffuse noise like street noise, wind noise, audience noise or room noise interfere with the recording, the SuperCMIT is a problem solver. While the direct sound is recorded without colorations, the noise is eliminated, that is, its level is significantly reduced - down to the lowest frequencies! This cannot be achieved even by a long shotgun microphone. Therefore, the SuperCMIT is ideally suited e.g. for difficult film sound recordings or for sports applications. The SuperCMIT also increases the range of shooting in indoor areas.