Students at the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts (LVA) got their hands on a production of Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida recently, including use of DPA Microphones’ d:screet 4071 Miniature Microphone on both leads.

A publicly funded magnet arts school, the LVA aims to augment students’ chosen major with life skills such as time management and leadership, along with academics. An average academic year for the theatre programme includes three or four main stage and two black-box productions, run nearly entirely by the students.

‘As an educational institution, we try to put professional products in the hands of the students as much as possible,’ says adjunct faculty member Eric McFall, LVA’s volunteer resident sound designer, who has been an advisor of the theatre programme since 2006. ‘We take great pride in the fact that we challenge our students to perform at a level well beyond what they thought they could ever accomplish – we treat them like the professionals they will become.’

The three-week run of Aida allowed them unprecedented access to high-value theatre production: ‘All technical and performance operations for Aida were controlled completely by the students,’ McFall says. ‘The feedback they had from using the DPA miniatures was extremely positive.

‘Right out of the gate, it was clear to my lead engineer, who has never had the opportunity to work with DPA before, that we wouldn’t need to be nearly as aggressive on the EQ as we typically are,’ he continues. ‘With the mics positioned so close to the performer’s mouth, we often run into issues with a nonlinear response. The 4071s, however, didn’t have any feedback problems and allowed us to find an EQ that sounded equally good at the high end as it did at the low end.’

In addition to the technical improvements noted by the lead engineer and students working behind-the-scenes, the aesthetic differences were also noticeable. ‘The performances are mostly funded by ticket sales, so we’re used to working with lower budget mics,’ McFall says. ‘I was impressed by the construction of the 4071s — they are very well built and the cables are very easy to hide in the costumes.’

LVA’s theatre season for the 2015/16 school year includes Rent, Footloose and Crimes of the Heart.

See also:
Case Study: Aida at the Royal Albert Hall

More: www.dpamicrophones.com