Los Angeles, CA (May 29, 2015)—Production sound mixer/supervisor Daniel McCoy, CAS, used DPA d:screet 4060 omnidirectional miniature and d:dicate 4017B shotgun microphones during the 20th anniversary season of Dancing With the Stars (DWTS).
Due to the physicality of the routines, whenever the celebrities and professional dancers were rehearsing off the lot, the audio equipment would frequently be handled by both the cast members and audio crew. “Throughout the entire season, which began in February, we had zero ‘loss and damage’ for any of the DPA 4060s,” reports McCoy. “Not a single record of any damage at all.”
For previous seasons, McCoy was provided with a competitor microphone for the production and can recall having mic heads pop off and connectors break, which ultimately led to audio cable failure. Often, the crew was left with up to 40 percent of the mics being destroyed.
McCoy says that wasn’t the case this year. “I thought that DWTS was a really good demonstration of the DPA d:screet 4060’s ability and consistency,” he explains. “There are often things that you can’t control. A lot of the time, I couldn’t personally be present for every contestant rehearsal, so I had producers and talent miking themselves. That’s always a red flag and prediction for disaster. In this case, with the steel housing jacket of the DPA 4060s, the production was flawless.”
In addition to the 28 d:screet 4060s, which were supplied direct from DPA’s Denmark HQ through collaboration with Location Sound Corporation, McCoy also used his DPA 4017B shotgun mics with CMB amplifiers to capture behind-the-scenes action and interviews. All materials were recorded using Sound Devices’ 633 and 688 Production Sound Mixers. “All of the rehearsals, packages and interviews were captured by lavs and a boom, so the 633s and DPA 4017s covered that amply,” he says.
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