Between the 4053 and the cmc641 (and mind you, I'm a BIG fan of AT mics) The selfnoise was obviously lower in the Schoeps. The 4053 had a little edge that I didn't like the sound of. The Schoeps was smooth, no edges.

The off axis sound was more natural with the Schoeps. And rememeber regardless of where you point the mic, there will always be sound coming in off axis from somewhere.

I THINK I recall the Schopes pattern was a little tighter. In the end I had no choce but to buy the Schoeps. I could plainly hear the differences. You might look at it as TWICE THE COST. I look at it as another $600- $700 for a mic that I'll use for years and will give me great sound for a long, long time.

BTW, spend the extra bucks for the more expensive tear drop foam filter. It's worth it. I now own two cmc641. I use them a lot, inside and out. They don't have the reach of a shotgun, but if you can get within two feet of a mouth, they sound really good.

I also use them as plant mics, rigging them on desks, in boxes, pencil holders and they are quite nice on acoustic guitar and as a vocal or V/O mic.

Regards,

TyFord

<<<And all this time, I've only had my Azden wireless lavs, and an ATR55 w/foam to work with. Never having to work with a dead cat, the foam has seemingly worked alright, inside or outside. Or is this just my untrained ear?>>>

Neither of these mics will have the crisper top end that you'll note the differences in by having or not having a foam screen indoors.

Regarding Jay's post, the key word is "actively." If the boom is held in place, and it's not a high movement shoot, you'll be better off without the windscreen. For those that have the "Now Hear This" vid, you can clearly hear, even in compressed audio, a substantial difference. But, if you are moving around a lot, a foam windscreen is helpful. I just use a silk sleeve instead.

Do you switch capsules or do you have complete setups for all your Schoeps and AT's?

AT and Schoeps are not interchangeable. I have Sennheiser 416, 816, Schoeps cmc641, AT 897, AT 4073, Rode VideoMic, NTG-1 and NTG-2.

(and other studio mics)

Regards,

Ty Ford

You have me really intrigued now Douglas. As I have no real working knowledge of windscreens, I'm soaking this all in. I can understand How some form of protection is needed outdoors, where wind can create an awful howl. Indoors, I would think the mic would have to be used like a light sabre, before producing the same anomaly.

So, what are the "standard situations" for using covers? Silk? Foam? Fuzzy? Zepplin? What are the construction differences between the last two?

PS... Sorry if I'm hitchhiking on your thread Brian ;)

Well wouldn't that be amazing!

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that they were interchangeable across manufacturers, what I was wondering was if you had multiple capsules that you used on one or more Schoeps handles, and multiple AT capsules that you used on one or more AT handles. ;-)

The Schoeps system does have many different capsules. I only use the mk41 hyper at present.

I don't think the AT have removable capsules.

Ty Ford

The AT4053 is indeed part of a modular system. There's also the AT4051 (cardiod) and AT4049 (omni) caps.

Keith... the atr55 is the first mic I bought... and I liked it so much I bought two... but I didn't know what I was missing until I sprung for an me66/k6. Wind is less of a problem for the 55 because it's a way, way less sensitive mic. You really need some first-hand experience with something else before you're going to realize that... There's no better way to appreciate the higher quality of a better mic then to use it side by side with something else.

I thought the 55 was great, but I often felt like I was missing details and lacking reach when I'd edit my footage... then I got an me66 and I couldn't believe the difference... and I thought that was the best mic in the world as I told myself that there were too many other tools that Hollywood had (and I didn't have) that allowed them to produce rich and natural dialog. It wasn't until a buddy of mine (Bryan Beasleigh) sent me some clips which compared my me66 to a Rode nt1a that I realized how night and day the differences in mics could be... and then I got a 4073a. Once again I couldn't believe what I had been missing... even going from the me66 to the 4073a opened up a whole new world of sound. When I realized that EACH time I thought I was hearing perfection... and then had that perception SMASHED by a better mic... I went nuts and bought a ton of mics over the course of the next year. Over and over again the "you get what you pay for" addage was reinforced.

Now I'm not saying that "you get what you pay for" is an absolute... because I also believe in the law of diminishing returns... but until you hear for yourself what you can do with an 897 or 4073a (or better) you won't know how much that 55 is limited.

Hey Matt, thanks for the word up on the me66, but... I do very little work as it is, and what I have done, the ATR55 has been unbelievable. I don't doubt you in the least, it's just that there are many other mics, lights, cameras that I could use, and no free scratch to cover it. I'm thinking since I have a good shotgun, my next mic should be a hypercardioid, as I don't have one. As I cover the other bases, I'll slowly upgrade the rest, a piece at a time. Just the way I built my kit. Maybe get a fuzzy condom for the shotgun?

Although... everytime I see an me or mk for sale, I start drooling ;)

In case my post wasn't clear... don't get an "me".

The point was that I thought an atr55 was great until I heard an "me"... and I thought an "me" was great until I heard an "AT".

If you can afford ME get AT. I don't want anybody to misunderstand me on that.