SuperCMIT 2U Shotgun Microphone

The SuperCMIT 2U is a digital shotgun microphone (AES42 standard) with directivity well beyond that of conventional shotguns, even those with long interference tubes. The AES42 standard is supported by many present-day mobile recorders as well as some mixing boards.

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, combining high directivity with high sound quality.

The SuperCMIT 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 5U:

• 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.

The SuperCMIT ouputs the processed signal on channel 1 and the unprocessed signal on channel 2.

A preset button selects directivity:

• Preset 1: Moderate increase of the directivity and attenuation of the diffuse sound by 11dB (5dB more than the 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 and artifacts are possible in some cases.

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

The SuperCMIT is available with either of two power supply options; these are needed if the recording device doesn't support AES42.

• PSD 2U: digital 10V phantom power, AES3 output
• MiniDA42: digital 10V phantom power, AES3 output, 2 analog outputs