‘Flawless and amazing’ – that is how Front of House engineer Niels Jensen described DPA’s d:facto™ Vocal Microphone after he deployed 18 of them to amplify the singers in a unique stage show entitled Ayreon Universe, which was performed over three nights at the 013 venue in Tilburg, Holland.
“I absolutely love these microphones,” Jensen says. “Even with so many singers in such close proximity to each other I had no issues at all with bleed. The phasing was out of this world and the sound was so clean, I couldn’t have wished for anything else.”
The progressive metal/rock opera known as Ayreon Universe is the invention of Dutch singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Arjen A. Lucassen. The performances in Tilburg marked the first time Lucassen had staged the rock opera live, and as a result there was huge anticipation amongst Ayreon fans with over 9,000 people from more than 54 countries going along to watch. The whole project took over a year to come to fruition and was masterminded by Lucassen and his musical director Joost van den Broek. At each performance, Lucassen was joined on stage by 17 original Ayreon singers (including backing vocalists) and a hand-picked band of eight instrumentalists.
Niels Jensen’s role was to coordinate and manage the audio team, which consisted of second FOH Jos Driessen, monitor engineer Gino Krishnadath, Freek de Greef, who looked after Wireless Systems, and recording engineer Dave Schinkel. Recognising the importance of these performances, Jensen chose DPA microphones for the task. Eighteen wireless d:facto 4018V Vocal Microphones were used for the singers. To pick up the sound of the drum as naturally as possible, Jensen close-miked the snare drum; using a d:facto 4018VL Linear capsule with a MMP-ES preamp mounted on a GSM4000 Gooseneck Mount and a d:vote™ drum clip. For the same reasons, he also used this solution on a high Leslie.
“With this capsule we had nil bleed from the hi-hat or cymbals, where usually this can be a big issue to deal with,” he explains.
He also specified DPA d:vote™ 4099 Instrument Microphones and a selection of d:dicate™ 2011 Twin Diaphragm Cardioid and 4015 Wide Cardioid microphones to capture a range of instruments including drums, Leslie, digeridoo, flute and percussion. All the microphones were supplied by Amptec, DPA’s distributor in the Netherlands.
“The d:dicate 2011 microphones were used for kick drum, hi-hat, ride, snare bottom and bottom Leslie because they deliver sound straight from the source and with great clarity,” he says. “For the rack toms and floor toms we used d:vote 4099 Instrument Microphones because they offer great linear response. They are honest and give you the true tone of the source. We also used d:dicate 4015s as overheads because their wide pick up perfectly captured the overall drum sound. We had 88 inputs in total with all the tracks and ambiances for recording included. Sound quality was the main reason why I chose DPA microphones for this project and I wasn’t disappointed. The microphones integrated flawlessly into the Ayreon Universe setup and they all sounded amazing with hardly any EQ going on.”
Jensen first started using DPA microphones a couple of years ago when he was introduced to the d:facto Vocal Microphone.
“I loved the d:facto from the first moment I came across it,” he says. “The sound was so good that I immediately bought one – as did Anneke van Giersbergen, the artist I was working with at the time. They are so defined, and you have no crazy proximity effect to deal with. The low handling noise is great, too – wind gets no chance! I also like the fact that no phasing ends up in your mix. This is something everyone struggles with and the d:facto solves that for me.”
It was Jensen’s satisfaction with d:facto that inspired him to also use DPA for the instrumentalists taking part in Ayreon Universe, particularly the drummer.
“We had an incredible drummer in the shape of Ed Warby on stage and I felt that his drums would sound great with DPA’s as well,” Jensen says. “From the first soundcheck I knew we had made the right choice because Ed’s drums sounded so lively and detailed. Overall it was like taking studio quality sound to a live show and that was really impressive.”
Whether Ayreon Universe will be returning to the live stage remains to be seen – all Jensen will say is that fans should keep a close eye on the Arjen Lucassen website.
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Celebrating 25 years in the industry, DPA Microphones is the leading Danish Professional Audio manufacturer of high-quality condenser microphone solutions for professional applications. Over the last two-and-a-half decades, DPA’s goal has been to always provide its customers with the absolute finest possible microphone solutions for all its markets, which include live sound, installation, recording, theatre and broadcast. When it comes to the design process, DPA takes no shortcuts. Nor does the company compromise on its manufacturing process, which is done at the DPA factory in Denmark. As a result, DPA’s products are globally praised for exceptional clarity and transparency, unparalleled specifications, supreme reliability and, above all, pure, uncolored and undistorted sound. DPA looks forward to the next 25 years and beyond.
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