Roll-off filter on Sennheiser mic

[JoeLouw]

I am new to this industry and don’t understand the roll-off filter function 100%.The manual’s instuction is verry little. It states the following: “the bass roll-off filter effectively rejects rumble, handling, pop and wind noise as well as reducing the proximity effect when used in closed mixing situations.”

Can somebody please give me more info on what it does and in which mode is it on or of as the indication on the mic only have:

a solid line

and

a solid line with stripe pointing down

Thank you

[Rob]

i believe bass roll off is when the mic rejects bass frequencies. It’s similar to the high pass filter in an NLE which allows frequencies higher than a set point to pass through.

Think of the solid line as a representative to all the frequencies in the human’s audible spectrum with bass frequencies on the left and the high frequencies on the right.

If the line dips down on the left, the bass is being cut. if it dips down on the right, the high frequencies are being cut. if the center of the line were to dip, the mid range frequencies would be cut.

Make sense?

[jeff92k7]

As Rob said, it’s basically cutting down on the bass fequencies. It’s not cutting them completely out though. That would sound very unnatural. The reason for this is to reduce things that you mentioned like rumble, handling, pop and wind noise which are mainly found in the low frequencies.

Unless you are recording outside in a pretty strong wind, you should probably leave the roll-off switch set to “flat”.

I have used the ME66 and find that the roll-off does almost nothing for handling noise since the chassis of this mic is so thin. Because of that, the resonance of handling noise is a much higher frequency than most mics and isn’t reduced by the roll-off. BTW, I wouldn’t suggest using that mic as a handheld mic at all because of the amount of handling noise it has. It works fine on a handheld boom or camera as long as it has a good shockmount or a stationary boom without a shock-mount but don’t even try to hold it.

Jeff

[JoeLouw]

Thanks for this it makes a little more sense now, but the mic’s “Roll-off switch” has 2 modes (choices)
1: A solid line
2: A solid line with another running down on the leftNow which one should I be using and when the other?

Thank you
Joe Louw

[jeff92k7]

The flat line is the setting to disengage the roll-off circuitry. This means the output of the mic will be flat and unaltered.

The sloped line is to turn the roll-off circuitry on and will alter the sound by reducing the low frequencies.

I would suggest to leave it switched to the “flat” setting unless you specifically need the reduced bass response (I.E. for wind).

Jeff

[Forthaney]

Im using the K6 with a ME67 and an ME64.

I was just testing my ME67 with my new Lightwave EQ-108 Equalizer Windscreen. The Me67 is not a good mic to put on a camera since it is so sensitive; however, with the roll-off switched on the k6 (switch on the slanted line), the mic can be easily used on the camera. I noticed a great improvment in handling noise reduction.

Also, Outside in a strong wind or even a strong breeze, the K6 roll-off does a great job of cleaning the audio even with a windscreen. I recorder outside in the wind and turned on and off the roll-off.In sony Vegas Pro, I tried to doa manual roll-off to the audio that was recorder flat with no K6 roll-off.I found that I liked theend product of the K6 roll-off much better.I have read that the K6 roll-off starts at 500hz which some find to harsh. Perrhaps it is my personal setup but I like to roll with the Roll-off on. If I am recording a conversation and one of the people has a deep voice andmy audio gets clipped by wind, Im not goind to be able to clean up the audio in post and get the conversationto a good audio level.

[Author]

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