NORAH JONES FINDS NEUMANN KMS 105 VOCAL MIC ON HER PATH TO STARDOM

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Norah Jones on performing on tour with the Neumann KMS 105. (PHOTO CREDIT: Image Direct)

OLD LYME, CONNECTICUT: Two-thousand two was a whirlwind year for Norah Jones culminating in five 2003 Grammy Award nominations in the following categories: Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Best New Artist, Best Pop Female Vocal Performance, and Best Pop Vocal Album. With the extraordinary success of her debut full-length album, "Come Away With Me" (Blue Note), that the young singer/pianist, used to playing tiny jazz clubs, now finds herself selling-out major venues in the U.S. and Europe.

To meet the challenge of playing larger venues for an ever-growing throng of adoring fans, Jones has quickly learned the benefit of using the best possible equipment, exclusively adopting Neumann and Sennheiser microphones and Sennheiser wireless ear monitors during the middle of last year.

According to Lee Moro, who joined Jones and her band as front of house engineer and production manager earlier this year, changing over to Neumann and Sennheiser microphones in June made a world of difference to her sound. Moro singles out the Neumann KMS 105 vocal microphone for particular praise. "It's real sounding and not incredibly colored," he observes. "It's a really wide-open mic. For Norah, and for what we're doing with it, it's perfect."

Jones has been classified as a jazz performer but her music transcends genres, also venturing into soul, country and folk-pop. Her soft vocal delivery benefits greatly from the 105, says Moro. "For her style of stuff it works really well. You can hear everything she does. You can hear her breathe through it. And the top end is really, really nice. You can't beat it."

The difference between the Neumann and other microphones, says Moro, "is like night and day. She has a couple of positions where she sings at during the show. We had a show where one of the channels that I had one of her vocals on went down. We threw a different mic up just to make sure we were covered and every time she went to that position I just cringed. It was so different."

With the huge success of Jones' album, which earlier this year sold over a million copies worldwide in just three months, the current promotional tour looks set to continue for the foreseeable future. Regardless of the venue, says Moro, Jones will be using the KMS 105. "We use it for everything, from big shows to little clubs to TV shows. We used it recently for 'Saturday Night Live' and it sounded great."

Jones also recently performed at the "VH1 Big in 2002 Awards" show, an irreverent review of the last 12 months in music, movies, TV and pop personalities. She even took away an award, winning the "Lolita Ford" award: "They're young, they're women, they rock."

For his part, Moro has taken the move to larger gigs in stride, having joined Jones' from a tour with Canadian band the Tea Party, opening for Ozzy Osbourne. The engineer also lists Alannah Miles, English folkie Roy Harper, Canadian flamenco guitarist Jesse Cook and some early shows with the then little known band Creed on his resume.

As Moro notes, Jones' band, comprising drums, bass, guitar and backing singers, has also made a complete change to Neumann and Sennheiser. "That's all we're using," he says. "We're using Neumann 184s on hi-hat and the large-diaphragm TLM 193 for drum overheads. There's a Sennheiser 602 in the kick drum, 604s on the toms, and a 609 on the guitar." The backing vocalists are using Sennheiser e 865s, he adds: "They're great, they sound amazing."

Jones plays both acoustic and Wurlitzer electric piano during the show. "We're using Neumann KM 184s with the swivel capsule on the acoustic piano," reveals Moro. "They sound amazing. That's all we used on the piano at 'Saturday Night Live.' It sounded so good."

With three of the musicians, including Jones, now using Sennheiser ew 300 Series wireless ear monitors and Ultimate Ears personal earphones, his job has become a little easier, says Moro. "Previously, Norah would have her monitors so loud with vocals onstage that all I would hear through the piano mikes was vocal, and I'd get all this weird phasing going on. The way she had the wedge setup it was in front of her and shot straight into the bottom of the piano, so it went through the soundboard and into the piano -that was my vocal sound! Now she's on in-ears I get this clean piano sound. We shut the lid and it's great."

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