Already DPA Microphones enthusiasts for the ability of its mics to reproduce the natural beauty of a Steinway, the music staff at Southwestern Baptist knew it wanted to equip all 17 pianos with three d:vote 4099 Instrument Mics each, for a total of 51 mics. A clear, pristine sound was the school's primary requirement when searching for a mic, and it was obvious that the DPA d:vote was the only choice.
"The Steinway instruments have a very beautiful, very unique sound that other instruments can't touch, so we didn't want to recreate the sound, but rather amplify it for the audience to hear in this very large hall," says Luke Byford, assistant director of musical productions for the school. "We had experimented for a while with how to mic the piano in this hall and we knew it had to be the DPA d:votes. We previously tried a pickup system, but it just didn't provide the live sound of the piano. It actually sounded pretty dead. Then we tried a variety of other mics and positions. Nothing seemed right, until our sound techs presented the idea to try the d:votes we had for string instruments in the piano. We were very pleased with the natural reproduction of the DPA mics as they gave us a much more accurate picture of how the pianos sound and the beauty that they put out."
While this is the second year of the event, the school's 2012 performance was held in a smaller, more acoustically tuned venue, so the staff did not require microphones. For this year's Keyboards at Christmas, the school increased the number of pianos. To ensure that audience members had a clear view of every musician, the stage had three elevated platforms, which allowed them to place five pianos at the top, six in the centre and six in the front.
"For a great deal of the program, all of the pianos were played at the same time," says Jerry Aultman, Professor of Music Theory, who worked with Byford on the event. "Sometimes there were two pianists per piano, so a total of 34 pianists playing simultaneously. Bottom line, it was imperative in this hall, as you can imagine with this many instruments and musicians, for the artists to hear each other separately and without delay. From an audience perspective, I noticed that the DPA d:votes just made the Steinways sound the way they are supposed to sound. It was a true representation of the pianos. They don't need improvement, they're wonderful the way they are, we just wanted to amplify them and reproduce an accurate sound. With a program of this magnitude, using this many pianos in a hall this large, it is impossible to overemphasize the importance of this requirement."
(Jim Evans)
