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DPA Microphones Enhance Listening Pleasure in Historic Italian Setting
DPA mics are being used in a magical Italian setting for a series of summer events at La Mortella, a historic villa on the island of Ischia, close to Naples. The villa was home to English composer William Walton from the 1950s until his death in 1983, and is now used for classical performances which are all recorded via DPA microphones to CDs and DVDs which are available immediately after the event.
Salvatore Zocco, product manager for DPA’s Italian distributor M Casale Bauer, was called in to assist with mic placement for the first event of the summer. This was the Orchestra dei Ragazzi della Scuola di Musica di Fiesole, directed by Maestro Edoardo Rosadini and performed in the open-air Greek Theatre in the villa’s magnificent gardens. Zocco was asked by Dmitri Tereshchenko, who was responsible for the recordings, to supplement the orchestral miking system with a total of six 4006s and two 4011s.
“The orchestra was situated on a terrace in front of the audience, and the brief was me to keep the mics as invisible as possible,” says Zocco. “Between the audience and the terrace there is a kind of a ‘moat’ – or large ditch between the two areas, meaning there was no way to place anything between the audience and the terrace, especially as the orchestra extended to the very edge of the terrace.
“Therefore, I chose a central position within the audience for a ‘virtual listener’ and worked out the best mic placement for the 4006s throughout the orchestra, using a pair of 4011s to add a sense of distance and ambience.”
Two of the 4006s were fitted with UA0777 nose cones to give a perfect omindirectional response across the whole audio spectrum, and used in an A-B configuration at either side of the conductor. Mics three, four, five and six, all vertically polarised, were placed on an arc formation throughout the orchestra, with mics four and five (closest to the centre of the arc) also installed with UA0777s. Mics 7 and 8, both 4011s, were placed on the outside of the orchestra near the front and directed inwards towards the musicians.
“Mics 1, 3 and 7 were panned hard left and 2, 6 and 8 hard right, with 4 and 5 in the centre panned 30% left and right respectively. On the final setup, mics 3 and 6 were mixed about 4.5 dB lower, and mics 4 and 5 at about 6 dB lower, than the others.
“During rehearsals I noticed that the stereo image was satisfactory, but I had to compensate for noticeable wind noise, so I installed a windshield on all the mics,” says Zocco. “It was a little tricky for the mics with the UA0777 nose cones, but still worked out really well, and all concerned were happy with the results.”
Performances also take place within the villa, where a further four DPA mics – two 4006 ominidirectionals and two 4011 cardioids – have been installed in a double A-B configuration for recording the musical events. The entire programme is administered by the William Walton Foundation, set up in 1989 by Lady Walton to promote the work of aspiring young British and Italian musicians.
1st August 2007
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