PETER PAN LIVE! SOARS WITH DPA MICROPHONES

Peter Pan Live!, NBC’s live primetime television production of the classic Broadway musical, aired last week with audio support from Firehouse Productions and DPA Microphones. The live TV ‘film,’ which followed the success of the network’s 2013 depiction of the Sound of Music, raked in over nine million viewers. With a live show of this magnitude, Firehouse needed an audio solution that would provide pristine audio quality expected with HD television while still giving audiences the feel of a grand theater production. To accomplish this, the sound reinforcement company called on 48 d:screet™ 4061 Miniature Microphones to support the entire cast, which included Christopher Walken as Captain Hook and Allison Williams as Peter Pan.

With each lead and principal actor double-miked, and a single mic on each member of the ensemble, DPA’s d:screet™ 4061 was the exclusive microphone used for the production. Having gained familiarity with the DPA d:screet™ 4061s from years of Tony Awards productions, Mark Dittmar, audio producer for Peter Pan Live! and lead design and integration engineer for Firehouse Productions, credited both the sound and the size of the mics for highlighting the show’s top level performers.

“DPA d:screet™ 4061s have become our premier high-end microphone,” says Dittmar. “We used them on the Sound of Music last year, which was the first big NBC live musical, and even knowing where the microphones are hidden, you cannot see a single one. It’s the combination of size and sound quality that makes the d:screet™ 4061 the perfect choice for this application; it was the same thing this year. Most of the cast members were wearing two microphones, so we were even able to hide two on one person. From my experience, the sound quality of the microphones is spectacular and that is especially evident when miking an actor who has a very dynamic vocal range.”