DPA tours Asia with Yo-Yo Mas Silk Road Ensemble
Published: ASIA
ASIA: Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble tour relied on DPA microphones for a recent tour of Asia, which saw the ensemble play in locations throughout China and South Korea. Grammy award winning classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma utilised DPA’s 4061 and 4088 microphones for every performance.
Performers on the tour participate in different combinations from piece to piece, and there is a constantly rotating ensemble on stage. As such, providing each musician with a specific cabled-microphone was deemed impractical for a live show.
‘By using DPA miniature microphones on wireless systems, we are able to provide a very high quality solution that is also visually elegant,’ said Mr Elff, who has been the audio engineer for the tour for the past five years. ‘The mics simply attach to the instruments themselves and leave the stage when the piece is over. Additionally, the performance of the various DPA mics is exceptional. The frequency response and dynamic range are fantastic, and the mics reliably deliver an excellent picture of whatever instrument you have them attached to,’ he enthused.
The typical set up for the tour involves a combination of up to 14 DPA 4061s and 4088s, all on wireless belt packs to allow musicians to exit and enter the stage for different pieces throughout the performance.
‘The DPA mics are so small that they’re virtually invisible to the audience and the musicians,’ continued Mr Elff. ‘The musicians never have to worry about maintaining a consistent physical relationship to a stand-mounted mic while on stage, freeing them to just pay attention to making good music. Add to that the fact that the mic sounds fantastic and you’ve got a winning combination!’
Mr Elff stated that ‘my first consideration is to make the musicians feel absolutely comfortable on stage, so they feel free to perform as effortlessly as possible. If the musicians are comfortable, the audience gets a better show. The listening environment on stage in a typical performance could be chaotic due to the convergence of such a wide range of instrumental timbres. Carefully using the mics on each instrument to provide both on-stage reinforcement for the musicians via their stage monitors and selective reinforcement for the audience is literally essential to making this kind of contemporary ensemble possible,’ he concluded.