Barry McCusker, Director of Armagh-based hire company McCusker Pro Audio, was the sound engineer for the event and was responsible for specifying the microphones.
“With the harps in particular, we were looking for a microphone that could be positioned close to the strings without giving us any feedback problems and also without interfering with the way the musicians played,” he explains. “DPA’s d:vote™ Instrument Microphones were ideally suited to this task because they deliver transparent sound without any colouration.”
To fit the microphones to the harps, McCusker used an
instrument clip that was originally designed to fit a
d:vote™ to a trumpet.
“A local harpist, Eimear Mallon, recommended this approach because she had seen it done before and it had worked well,” he says. “Like all musicians who play expensive instruments, harpists are very particular about clips – they won’t countenance anything that is likely to scratch or damage their harps. However, they were all thrilled with the DPA trumpet clips because they are rubberised and very gentle on the instrument. We taught the musicians how to fit the microphones themselves so that they could get the positioning absolutely right for their individual playing styles. All our monitor engineer, Diarmaid Rankin had to do was check them and they were ready to go.”