Disney In Concert, a series of musical events in arenas in Germany, Switzerland and Austria over a period of four weeks, utilized DPA d:vote 4099 instrument microphones for the strings in the orchestra as part of a sound design intended to deliver quality reinforcement of renditions of classic songs from Disney animated films such as The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, Aladdin and Frozen.
The live orchestral music was performed live by the Hollywood Sound Orchestra and interspersed with movie clips to create the experience. Tonmeister for the tour, Carsten Kummel, specified the 45 DPA d:vote 4099 instrument microphones for the strings that were supplied by equipment hire company Soundhouse.
“I used d:vote 4099s as close up mics for the strings, in conjunction with an overhead system,” says Kummel. “All other instruments were miked from a distance. In my opinion, there is no other choice than the d:vote 4099 because it is the only close-up microphone where you don’t have to touch the equalizer.”
For Disney in Concert, Kummel had various issues to overcome, including a very loud PA behind the orchestra along with a band on stage supporting the orchestra because it was a crossover show.
“I had to get close to the instruments to avoid crosstalk,” Kummel explains. “As far as I know there is no other microphone that works as well as the d:vote 4099 without using the equalizer. These microphones make my job much easier because they deliver such good sound that I can make adjustments prior to the soundcheck and that really speeds things up. In total, we had about 120 channels from the stage, but we were able to complete the soundcheck in less than 10 minutes.”
Jürgen Erhard, system engineer for the Disney tour, adds: “The Main PA (L-Acoustics 12 x K1, plus 6 x K2) was flown eight meters behind the front of the stage, as otherwise the audience would have had line-of-sight obstruction to the big screen. Even with a very large amount of condenser microphones, Carsten was able to work without feedbacks, due to the length of the PA, which reached a directivity up to 50 Hz.”
