Los Angeles, CA (May 26, 2011)–American Idol winner Scotty McCreery crooned into Telefunken Elektroakustic AR-51 tube mics when recording on the show with producer Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins.
Jerkins, an eight-time Grammy Award winner, has worked in the past with Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga and Britney Spears, and has been one of this year’s top producers working alongside the American Idol contestants throughout the season.
“During my time on Idol, I used the AR-51s,” stated Jerkins. “It helped being able to have one microphone to handle 20 different style of voices, with the ability of having 9 polar patterns at my disposal. I take these microphones with me when I travel to work with A-list artists around the world.” Celebrating his 14th year in the music industry, Jerkins is responsible, through his numerous hit productions, for over 160 million in record sales worldwide.
“Rodney is working with the Idol artists to develop their studio chops as well as their stage performances,” explained Jerkins’ recording supervisor, Brandon Kadell, who worked closely with Telefunken artist liaison Jason Scheuner on the choice of mics. “Telefunken AR-51s have a variety of pickup patterns and their reliability throughout the season has been tremendous. We recently used this mic for Kelly Clarkson’s upcoming album, too.”
On Fridays during the season, Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M Records, met with the contestants to go over the song possibilities and each pick a song. Over the weekend, they tracked with top producers, including Rodney Jerkins, Jim Johnson, Ron Fair, Tricky, Rock Mafia, Don Was, Toby Gad, Dallas Austin, Harvey Mason, Jr. and Ryan Tedder.
“We’ve tried a number of top microphones with different vocalists,” continued Kadell, “but when we fired up the Telefunken, it complemented each vocalist best overall. We have to work so quickly, so instead of setting up three or four mics to find the best texture, we just go with Telefunken and it takes care of all of them.”
Telefunken Elektroakustik
www.t-funk.com
