Harti Küffner, film sound engineer

Film productions have become smaller in recent years, moving faster than they have been 15 years ago. Harti Küffner, who has worked on major productions such as the German "Tatort" series, relies on Sennheiser for his daily business. Sennheiser's wide range of professional audio products provide him with the precise tools he needs, perfectly suited for each application.

With more than 17 years of experience in the film audio industry, Harti Küffner has learned the tricks and tweaks to make it through strenuous production days. Küffner has been in the business since 2003, forming a team with Vladimir Polak as a sound assistant since 2012. The switch from analog to digital transmission has been the logical consequence for Küffner; increasing quality and expanding flexibility even on the most challenging film sets.

SK 6212 is reliable and compact


"The SK 6212 is small, lightweight and lasts forever. The battery runtime of roughly 15 hours helps to keep all workflows relaxed,“ says Küffner. Annoying battery changes inbetween the recording of scenes became history. SK 6212 is the latest addition to Sennheiser's Digital 6000 series and quickly formed a new benchmark for digital transmission within modern audio productions. For both actors and directors, the SK 6212 neither adds weight, nor visibility. The transmitter is discreet, lightweight, without disturbing edges and easy to attach. Together with the mobile receiver EK 6042, the minitransmitter SK 6212 goes into action not only on movie sets.

The classical pickup of sound via microphone boom is made wirelessly as well, says Küffner. "Sennheiser goes out of one's way regarding special solutions. They provided us with a special 48 V adapter to run the SK 6212 in combination with the MKH 8050. Every gram counts on the microphone boom."

MKH 8050 and SK 6212 together form an ultralight and super compact solution for every movie set while providing a great frequency range between 30 and 50,000 Hz.

«Sennheiser gear is just reliable»


On top of that, Digital 6000 delivers a drastic improvement in quality with its increased dynamic range in comparison to analog systems. His equipment rider today only requires SK 6212 which the 46 year-old loves to use in combination with the MKE 1 lavalier microphone. The microphone lasts longer than other lavaliers especially in movie productions. This is due to its sweat resistance.

Küffner says: "In my whole movie and broadcast sound career, Sennheiser was covering my back with its products. The relationship began in the year of 2002 with the SK 50, developed further with SK 5212 and arrived in the present with SK 6212"

You can see recent excerpts of Harti Küffner's work on "Crew United". In addition, a new Amazon Prime series where Küffner and Polak took care of the audio will be launching in fall 2020.