Neumann KMR 81 i

Shotgun microphone static

OVERALL OPINION

I use it for 3 years to capture voices and noises on cinema shooting.
It is warm, harmonious, sometimes a bit sensitive to SIFL without being aggressive so far. It allows you to stamp indicating the votes while capturing a smooth transition to what comes out of the axis. It can isolate the sounds in a noisy environment, even a few meters from the source.
As a static one is not very sensitive to moisture which causes the to "warm up" a little taken an APRS in wet conditions (rain) under penalty of capture for some time to sputter LIGHT.
Apart from a, it is sublime.
I think it is expensive, but good value quality price.
Without denying the KMR 81, if I had to go buy another view of the cot in Shoeps, just to be able to play between different colors.

Shotgun microphone static

OVERALL OPINION

I use it for 3 years to capture voices and noises on cinema shooting.
It is warm, harmonious, sometimes a bit sensitive to SIFL without being aggressive so far. It allows you to stamp indicating the votes while capturing a smooth transition to what comes out of the axis. It can isolate the sounds in a noisy environment, even a few meters from the source.
As a static one is not very sensitive to moisture which causes the to "warm up" a little taken an APRS in wet conditions (rain) failing to capture a few moments of LIGHT sputter.
Apart from a, it is sublime.
I think it is expensive, but good value quality price.
Without denying the KMR 81, if I had to go buy another view of the cot in Shoeps, just to be able to play between different colors.

Famous microphone making his report, documentary and fiction.
Pole, shock mount and windscreen cage usually required.
Mainly used for the human voice (interviews), but it is very versatile and surprising!
Microphone "semi-canon" electrostatic mono directional "hypercardioid" interference tube.
48 volt power required.

OVERALL OPINION

A legendary gem. So, to use with the delicacy required.
I use it for 5 years professionally in documentary filmmaking.
I love the sound of this microphone, and ability to meet the stamps.
It is at once very "soft" and precise directional enough to ensure intelligibility in the middle "hostile" (noisy)
although the Sennheiser 416 is a little better in this area.

Do not approach it too close to a musical instrument: the interference tube does its job directivity, and the risk of distorting the "musicality" of the instrument, giving it a color from a little chilling, a little "surgery" (harmonics present too) and also a "narrow" field unsuitable.
It is not for that, not a studio microphone.
We must therefore find the right distance.

There is no report of 36 microphones, we always see the same since the 1980s: Schoeps "Colette" all directional, Sennheiser MKH 416, Neumann KMR 81, matter of taste, then some entry-level, most recently as Beyer MCE 86 or Sennheiser ME66 + K6, Rode NTG 1 ... etc, much less sensitive and less "hot"
but you have to 300 Euros ...

The new price is still high (1200 to 1400 Euros), but let us remember that 10 years ago, they were even more expensive!

I would take out a second, but this one does its job well.
Sennheiser Neumann who bought in 1999, provides very good diagnostics and maintenance in Ivry sur Seine.