Morten Lindberg gets immersive with DPA
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The music captured by 2L features Norwegian composers and performers and an international repertoire reflected in the Nordic atmosphere. 2L began as a production company, but is now also a record label, releasing 10 to 15 recordings a year, all on Hybrid SACD, Pure Audio Blu-ray and distributed as HiRes files.
Until 2020, Lindberg held the record for the most Grammy nominations without a win - 36 in total, with 28 of them in craft categories such as Best Engineered Album, Best Surround Sound Album and Producer of the Year. Finally, at this year’s Grammys, Lindberg carried off the award for Best Immersive Audio with the album LUX.
“I believe our recordings make an impact because they come from the heart and soul of everyone involved,” Lindberg says. “We don’t speculate on what a commercial market might want - we make what we would like to experience ourselves, and that makes it personal.”
2L usually records in spacious acoustic venues such as large concert halls, churches and cathedrals. Lindberg believes the openness of these spaces actually deliver the most intimate recordings thanks to the absence of close reflecting walls. However, capturing the sound he wants, especially for immersive audio projects, requires careful microphone choices and positioning, which is where DPA comes in.
“Our ‘2L-cube’ microphone array is really a consequence of the speaker configuration in the Auro-3D playback system,” Lindberg explains. “Time of arrival, SPL and on-axis HF texture is directly preserved in our 7.1.4 microphone configuration. Proportions are cubical and the dimensions could vary from 120cm for a large orchestral array down to 40cm in an intimate chamber musical context.”
The 2L-cube is usually configured with seven matched DPA 4041S Omnidirectional Microphones and four matched DPA 4003 microphones in the upper layer.
“I always use DPA omnidirectional microphones in the main array, but depending on the room, the music and the instruments, I alternate between my DPA 4003 and the 4041. The latter has a larger membrane and provides a more focused on-axis texture,” he adds.
