Tim Boot, production music mixer for Jersey Boys, relied primarily on DPA's d:vote 4099 Instrument Microphones and d:screet 4061 Omnidirectional Miniature Microphones to capture the live instruments on set. Easy to conceal during filming, these mics provided a very natural sound quality and proved to be the perfect complement to the era of the film. Further keeping with the film's theme, the crew used vintage instruments, such as Fender guitars and Ludwig drums, to maintain a classic sound, while the mics allowed them to record discreetly.
"You always have to be prepared when you have live music on set," says Boot. "DPA was my hero when it came to miking the drums. I couldn't use prop mics, so I bought myself a kit of DPA d:vote 4099 and d:screet 4061 mics. Depending on the setup, we buried five to 12 microphones on the drum kit. You don't see the mics on camera, but each element of the kit was individually miked, just as you would do in the studio."
Boot achieved the studio-recording results by placing the d:screet 4061 under the cymbals and in other areas that were more challenging to conceal. He relied on the d:vote for the snare and kick drums. "When you're looking to hide a microphone, you need a lot of options," he continues. "The d:vote's ability to handle the kick and snare drums is absolutely amazing. It has no distortion and is very natural. The type of sound we were looking for is not a produced rock sound; it's a natural sound. We were trying to capture the sound of the instrument, not over-produce it. The d:vote achieves that."
(Jim Evans)
