Top recording engineer/producer Al Schmitt has been utilizing the d:vote 4099P instrument microphone from DPA Microphones in his work with piano.
Over the last five decades, the 23-time Grammy Award winner has collaborated closely with a lengthy list of top artists, including Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Paul McCartney and Michael Bublé, among many others, with equipment selection a critical component to the success of his projects.
“I received my first DPA microphones as a gift from someone who was in my ‘Mix with the Masters’ class in France,” Schmitt explains. “The ‘Mix with the Masters’ program is a week-long music production seminar held in the south of France and conducted by A-list producers. We were talking about microphones and I said I would love to try DPA’s d:vote 4099P sometime and the next thing I know, my student gave me a set. They sounded great and I’ve been using them ever since.”
He recently used DPA mics for recording albums with major artists: “The artists sit down at the piano and have no idea there are microphones hidden inside of it. The d:vote 4099Ps have a small footprint, are easily hidden and are perfect for studio recording. The fact that they’re so small means it helps with our isolation when we’re recording.”
Schmitt does not use EQ in his recordings, so the sound of the mics he uses takes on added importance. “The 4099 instrument microphone is an excellent, beautiful high-end microphone,” he concludes. “It has the quality of a large-diaphragm microphone, yet you can put it in out-of-the-way places where it can’t be seen and still get an incredible sound out of them. I plan on using DPA on future projects, and am planning on trying them out on tom toms next.”
