Q: How has the versatility of DPA helped on your various projects?
A: It’s no secret that many actors tend to deliver lines quietly to pull the audience in. So quiet that, sometimes, they don’t even know when the other person is done speaking and they start stepping on each other. I always think “they’re going to have a tough time editing this together in post.” But, they are able to bring up the audio because of how clean the DPA mics sound. The problem with that is, now, we’ve got to turn the mics up really loud. If you don’t have good mics, you’ll hear a lot of the background noises as well. The way mics are mounted also affects the sound. That’s where DPA really shines. It’s mics are clear, coherent and great for the voice.
Though many actors are now soft-spoken, I’ve also been fortunate to record people like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Lance Riddick and Titus Welliver, who all have these wonderful, booming voices. There’s nothing like a great mic on a great voice. You just sit there and bliss out. With DPA’s ability to capture a very natural quality of sound, they’re wonderful for those situations.
Many of the shows I work on, like
Bosch, are in extremely loud urban environments, and the rejection on the
4017 has been a huge asset. With prior microphones, even those that have excellent sound rejection capabilities, I would often find that they were over-directional or that the sound was too colored due to the nature of narrowing a pickup pattern. DPA managed to make its mics sound wonderful and have great rejection, and that’s quite a feat. I think everybody could use DPA mics, from big to little productions. I am truly impressed by the mic, which is why I lead with DPA mics 98 percent of the time.