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Schwartz Makes Billions with Sanken

The Showtime series, Billions, that is.

New York, NY (May 29, 2019)—Production sound mixer Dave Schwartz, who recently completed work on John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and the fourth season of Showtime’s hit series Billions, purchased his first Sanken microphone over a decade ago and now owns more than a dozen.

“First of all, I like the universality of Sanken’s lavalier mic because it sounds great on everyone,” says Schwartz, who owns 10 COS-11D lavaliers and three of Sanken’s triple-capsule CS-3e shotgun mics. “I know that when I’m wiring up different actors with varying tonal qualities that the COS-11 will make all of them sound good, and by that, I mean ‘natural’.”

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One of the virtues of Sanken’s lavalier mic is the vertical diaphragm in an ultra-miniature body. “This mic works for me as much in a tie as it does further away from the source in a shirt placket or in a dress,” he says. “Before the COS-11, I dreaded wiring up ties as they were a puzzle I just could not solve. But once I got my hands on a COS-11, the tie became one of the easier items of clothing to mic up. Another characteristic is the quality of the build. I rarely have a COS-11 fail on me at the connector or at the mic head. We all dread ‘dead at the head’ and I rarely get that with a COS-11.”

Schwartz purchased his first Sanken shotgun microphone in 2007 for his work on the feature film, The Maiden Heist. The CS-3e was Sanken’s original flagship shotgun mic, featuring three directional capsules arranged in a front-back array, resulting in targeted supercardioid directivity.

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“Every mixer has their preferred mic for a myriad of reasons,” Schwartz explains. “At the end of the day, it is not about how fancy or expensive the mic or mixer or recorder is, it is about how it is used and how it can make us better at our jobs. The CS-3e gives me a degree of comfort when I’m presented with simultaneous shots with varying headroom. No mic is a miracle cure, but the CS3e really ‘pulls’ the voice out and can help match a close-up to a simultaneous wider shot. For me, the CS-3e has great reach. I appreciate its use of three capsules to help reject off-axis in order to really pull in what is on-axis.”

Sanken Microphones • www.sankenmicrophones.com

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