DPA Joins The Jersey Boys

DPA Microphones recently became the latest member of the Jersey Boys, the musical set to hit cinemas this Friday 20 June. All audio was captured live without pre-recording and, as instrument miking was not available during the 1950s to 1970s era of the film, the production needed to conceal the mics on set.

Tim Boot, production music mixer for Jersey Boys, selected DPA's d:vote™ 4099 Instrument Microphones and d:screet™ 4061 Omnidirectional Miniature Microphones. Further keeping with the film's theme, the crew used vintage instruments, such as Fender guitars and Ludwig drums, to maintain a classic sound, while the mics allowed them to record discreetly.
"You always have to be prepared when you have live music on set," says Boot. "DPA was my hero when it came to miking the drums. I couldn't use prop mics, so I bought myself a kit of DPA d:vote 4099 and d:screet 4061 mics. Depending on the setup, we buried five to 12 microphones on the drum kit. You don't see the mics on camera, but each element of the kit was individually miked, just as you would do in the studio."
Boot achieved the studio-recording results by placing the d:screet 4061 under the cymbals and in other areas that were more challenging to conceal. "When you're looking to hide a microphone, you need a lot of options," he continues. "The d:vote's ability to handle the kick and snare drums is absolutely amazing. It has no distortion and is very natural. The type of sound we were looking for is not a produced rock sound; it's a natural sound. We were trying to capture the sound of the instrument, not over-produce it. The d:vote achieves that."
To achieve the big stage number, Boot placed a d:screet 4061 on the stand of every sax, trombone and reed instrument. The drum set posed an even bigger challenge for masking the mics, which included a combination of d:votes and d:screets.
"We pushed the limits of hiding the mics," explains Boot. "It just goes back to the d:vote and d:screet being such tiny mics with even tinier capsules and just being so amazingly musical sounding. You just don't get that with other brands. No one else can do it. I've used DPA for years and I think the d:screet 4061 is especially the most musical lavalier microphone ever made. I think it's the only lav mic I would ever feel comfortable putting on an instrument to get a musical sound. It was a no-brainer to put it on the musical instruments that required masked microphones."

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