KFM 360

Common name: Schoeps KFM 360

Production Status: Discontinued / Vintage

The KFM 360 sphere microphone is the central unit of a surround system. The KFM 360 consists of two CCM8 L figure-of-eight microphones mounted beside the built-in pressure transducers of the 18 cm spherical microphone and a 24 bit processor unit, called DSP 4 KFM 360. If the unprocessed microphone signals are recorded (four channels), the effective directional settings can be chosen at a later stage during post-production .The centre channel signal is derived from the front channels by a matrix. An additional channel contains only a low-frequency signal up to 80 Hz, which is obtained by summing the pressure transducer outputs and reducing the total level by 6 dB. To prevent the disturbing effect of rear channel localisation of sound sources, the rear channel signals can be reduced in level, delayed and/or processed by an adjustable low-pass filter. The KFM 360 picks up both level and arrival-time differences between the left and right channels. However, the diameter of the KFM 360 is smaller than that of the sphere stereo microphone KFM 6 in order to increase the stereo pickup angle. This is because the surround KFM 360 will often be placed closer to the sound source than a stereo microphone. The rear-channel loudspeakers will reproduce parts of the diffuse sound field, reproducing the hall’s spatial character. The KFM 360 microphone will provide both a clear stereophonic image and also a good balance of direct and reverberant sound.