Miking the Peter Erskine Quartet on Tour

Italy (September 5, 2024)―Studio and live sound engineer Andrea Pellegrini brought along his collection of DPA microphones when he recently worked a 22-date tour of Italy with the Peter Erskine Quartet.

Pellegrini a native of Florence, says he was thrilled to join the quartet in his home country. “Being able to work with such a superstar quartet was an incredible opportunity. I brought my DPA microphones with me because I know how great they are; using those mics ensured the highest quality sound for each performance, capturing the dynamic range and tonal quality that jazz music demands.”

The Peter Erskine Quartet is led by legendary drummer Peter Erskine and comprises jazz greats George Garzone on saxophone, Alan Pasqua on piano and Darek Oles on double bass. The engineer deployed a combination of DPA 4099 instrument mics on the piano, saxophone, double bass and snare drum, along with 4011 cardioid condensers as overhead mics and a 4055 for the kick drum.

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Pellegrini explains that with a jazz quartet, while the microphone setup might be simple, “Jazz music can be very tricky to mic because it’s about dynamics, tone and quality of sound. Jazz music really caters to the audiophiles, so I needed to make sure it was perfect. The tone of DPA’s microphones is what sets them apart. You just place them, turn up the volume and they sound great.”

When it comes to placement, Pellegrini says that DPA played a crucial role in perfecting the sound. “If you pay attention to the original positioning of the microphones—which is a golden rule—you never have to fix or adjust the placement,” he explains. “For this show, we used only three stands. Since this was a jazz quartet, they want to play as close together as possible to be able to hear each other acoustically. If you use a lot of mic stands, it becomes too complicated because the instruments get in the way.” To alleviate this, Pellegrini called on the benefits of the 4099 instrument mic, which he was able to place on or inside each of the instruments as necessary.

Pellegrini recorded every performance, capturing both live mixes and multitrack recordings. An album featuring the quartet’s live performances is planned for release later this year.