Press Release : Earlier in December 2014, indie
rock luminaries Bombay Bicycle Club
became the very last band to play London’s legendary Earl’s Court venue, which
is soon to be demolished. The band took to the stage as part of an epic world
tour, which not only highlighted the success of their So Long, See You Tomorrow album but also allowed them to use DPA Microphones extensively on the road
for the first time.
If delivering the last-ever gig at Earl’s Court
wasn’t enough of an honor, Bombay Bicycle Club also happily accepted a special
guest when Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour joined them on stage. Gilmour first played
steel lap guitar on the band’s song “Rinse Me Down,” before giving an emotional
rendition of “Wish You Were Here,” backed by Bombay Bicycle Club. As with all of the performances that night –
and during the entire tour – DPA microphones were on-hand to ensure exceptional
audio quality.
“Jon Burton, the previous front-of-house engineer,
brought the DPA d:facto™ Vocal Microphone to our attention while he was reviewing equipment for one of the pro
audio magazines,” says Tour
Manager Steven Down, who has been working with the band for five years. “Jack Steadman (lead vocals) was the first to try it during the warm up tour
we did at the start of this campaign, and he was very impressed with the
clarity compared to the dynamic mics we had been using previously. Shortly
after, we obtained a capsule to use on our existing
wireless system for Liz Lawrence, who does a lot of backing vocals
in the show. More recently, we started using d:dicate™ 2011C Twin Diaphragm Cardioid units on the kick and snare and some d:vote™ 4099 Instrument
Microphones on the toms, all with great
results.”
Downs
adds that the Bombay Bicycle Club show moves
from songs with loud distorted guitars and heavy drums to quiet and intimate
piano and vocal solos. “I think the dynamic range and
the frequency response of the d:facto
really allows Jack to perform with confidence in all situations,” he says.
Steadman
himself is
certainly a fan of the d:facto Vocal Microphone. “The wonderfully clear, bright sound of the mic means I don’t have to mess around endlessly with EQ to get the results I want,” he says.
Also happily not messing around with EQ too much is Simon Lutkin, freelance sound engineer and
production manager who first took over monitors for the band during their Different
Kind of Fix tour in 2012. “We have
drums, bass, guitars, keys, percussion, backing vocals and a brass section
onstage during the show — it can get pretty busy,” he says of the current
set-up. “Currently, the show is around 40 channels, but both Tom [Wiggans,FoH] and myself try to keep the channel count down
as much as we can. A lot of the shows we do are festivals and rolling in with
too much can be a problem for broadcast and patch.”
Everyone has in-ear mics, but Lutkin also uses wedges on the downstage
edge and side-fills to add feeling. Add to that up to nine people at any one set, and
the stage can get pretty full.
“With that many lines
on stage, any help I can get through
technology is great,” Lutkin says. “I use scenes for each
song to make small changes automatically through the show so I can keep my eye
on the band. The d:facto Vocal Microphone really helps control the ambience for the main singers. Compared to
other mics, as well as having a pretty tight pickup pattern, the overall tone
of the spill is much nicer to listen to. You are always up against bleed from
other sources in a live scenario, but with this set of mics the spill is much
more pleasant-sounding and therefore can be a help rather than a hindrance.”
All
of the band’s DPA mics were supplied by Sound Network, the company’s U.K.
distributor. Alongside the d:facto, the tour
configuration
sees Lutkin use DPA’s d:dicate 2011C mics on both kick and snare because they are small
enough to be deployed exactly where he wants them and light enough to stay in
place without putting any pressure on the stand or clamp. d:vote 4099 Instrument Microphones are
also in use for rack, floor, crash, ride and the brass section.
To maintain consistency, the group carries all the mics and IEMs with them
internationally, simply hiring in consoles locally (a DiGico SD7 for FOH and Midas Pro2c for monitors), thus ensuring that the signal path from source to
output is the same each day.
“In a
live scenario, you can’t always place mics exactly where you want for a variety
of reasons, so having a set of mics that work
well wherever you put them is a real positive,” concludes Lutkin. “All the DPA
mics we use on Bombay, like all the ones I have used in the past, never fail to
impress day-after-day. Since populating the stage with DPA microphones, it has
really made a difference to the quality of the overall sound of the show.”
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