Subcarioid versus Omni . . . Harvey? Anyone?

[Kelly Dueck]

Here's some stuff from Schoeps on their subcardioid capsule. It seems to offer the best characteristics of cardioids and omni's.

http://www.posthorn.com/S_mk21.html

MXL 603s is a subcardioid (though no schoeps, I'm sure) so in theory it should offer the same basic advantages as those described in the schoeps blurb above, but does it? (specifically least directionally dependent frequency response, warm sound, etc.)

Has anyone here ever tried the 603 on a large ensemble? How about compared to the ecm8000 omni? Or ... yikes! ... a Schoeps?

[Kelly Dueck]

Does anyone know of other mic models that are subcardioid?

[chessrock]

Originally posted by Kelly Dueck
Does anyone know of other mic models that are subcardioid?

Octava MC-012.

[Track Rat]

AKG C-3000B has a hyper-cardiod (same thing) pattern available on it too. C-1000's also have a little gizmo you can put over the capsule which takes it from cardiod to hyper-cardiod.

[JM350]

Originally posted by Track Rat
AKG C-3000B has a hyper-cardiod (same thing) pattern available on it too. C-1000's also have a little gizmo you can put over the capsule which takes it from cardiod to hyper-cardiod.

No not at all, hyper-cardioid and sub-cardioid are quite different.

Sub-cardioid is closer to omni, while hyper-cardioid is an even tighter pattern than cardioid.

[Track Rat]

My mistake. Then the Octava is off this list as the three capsules are omni, cardiod and hyper-cardiod.

[chessrock]

Actually, I think the Oktava's cardiod is closer to "sub" if I'm not mistaken.

[PinkStrat]

If I am not mistaken, I think CAD's new M-179 microphone has a sub-cardioid position somewhere on the rotary dial that adjusts the pattern's type? In addiiton, I would think that the Neumann U-89 or AKG C12VR would also feature a sub-cardioid pattern somewhere in the nine polar positions?

[PinkStrat]

If I am not mistaken, I think CAD's new M-179 microphone has a sub-cardioid position somewhere on the rotary dial that adjusts the pattern's type? In additon, I would think that the Neumann U-89 or AKG C12VR would also feature a sub-cardioid pattern somewhere in the nine polar positions?

[Kelly Dueck]

Originally posted by PinkStrat
If I am not mistaken, I think CAD's new M-179 microphone has a sub-cardioid position somewhere on the rotary dial that adjusts the pattern's type? cool:

Actually, the M-179 does have a subcardioid option -- (another reason why I love this mic) but it's a large diaphragm mic. The schoeps capsule and 603 are small diaphragm. Does this difference have a bearing like it would with omni, in terms of the "trueness" of it's subcardioid pattern?

I was mostly curious about wether anyone had used subcardioids much when recording entire groups and what techniques have worked best. The Schoeps blurb says the subcardioid pattern isn't very effective when using coincident pairs but it works with near coincident stereo arrangements. I've personally gotten good results using the 603's as an A/B pair in close (following the 3:1 Rule, of course ) but haven't had the opportunity to record a large group with them, yet.

Harvey might be helpful right about now . . .