Lagos, Nigeria (March 16, 2015)—More than 700,000 people recently turned out for the ninth edition of The Experience, an interdenominational gospel concert held in Lagos. Performers onhand included Israel Houghton, Donnie McClurkin, Micah Stampley, and Don Moen alongside local Nigerian and African acts such as Frank Edwards, Freke, Onos and Sinach. Helping capture the drum sound behind the artists were a slew of DPA d:vote 4099 instrument microphones.
The DPA mics chosen for the occasion were specified by Steve Davies, managing director of London-based high-end event production specialist Subfrantic. He used his own stock of d:vote 4099s, which were originally supplied by DPA’s UK distributor, Sound Network.
“My involvement with The Experience began in 2013,” he explains. “I was brought in following a long professional relationship with House on the Rock, the church responsible for organizing the event. My initial role was to approve the specification of the FOH PA and supply a team to mix the stage and handle changeovers, but very quickly, looking after FOH was added to that job, too.”
Davies adds that the two main issues with sourcing equipment in Nigeria are reliability and supply. “Even if you’re lucky enough to find the equipment that you’re after, the hot and humid conditions that it is used and stored in means a lot of it will have suffered greatly before you get to use it,” he explains.
Experience 8 had seen Davies and his team short of a few key pieces of equipment, so for the latest event, they went prepared and took some crucial components out with them, including 10 d:vote 4099 Instrument Microphones, which were used to mic the main drum kit.
“The results spoke for themselves,” he enthuses. “The microphones worked perfectly and had no problem coping with the heat and humidity. They were also small enough to be easy to transport and we were very glad to have them on site. If we find ourselves out there again for The Experience 10, then we plan to take a lot more DPA kit with us,” he says, “especially d:facto Vocal Microphone heads to go on the main vocals.”
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