by Catherine Nelson, The Strad October 2008, reprinted by permission
Cellist Matthew Barley’s DPA pick-up has changed the way he thinks about amplification
'I refused to do anything amplified for years, as each time I tried I was so dissatisfied with the resulting sound that I just didn’t accept any engagements that required it.'
'Then six or seven years ago I tried a lot of different pick-ups and contact microphones in a live situation. One of these was the DPA compact cardioid. It has a clever mechanism that folds over the strings between the bridge and the tailpiece – it’s mounted in a very precise way. It produces a fabulous sound and I’ve been using it ever since.'
'Since I got this mic I’ve gone out of my way to get amplified engagements. As string players we spend all our lives trying to make a good sound. When you’ve spent a fortune on your instrument, you might as well spend a little extra on getting the amplification right. The basic sound is as close as possible to the acoustic sound, and I can put on various effects if I want to. In the bass register the sound can be like an enormous bass guitar. I love seeing the sound engineer’s face light up when I play because they’ve never heard such a fantastic bass sound coming from a miked-up cello.'
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