Capturing the Orchestral Vibes of Bad Bunny

Miami, FL (April 3, 2025)—A hitmaker around the world, Bad Bunny is not one to be hemmed in by one genre of music, so when the Latin music superstar wanted classical music to a crucial part every night of his recent in-the-round arena tour through U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, he turned to Grammy-and Latin Grammy-winning producer, composer and conductor Carlitos Lopez (Carlos Fernando Lopez) to make it happen.

“Benito (Bad Bunny) loves all styles of music and decided to open his album with a classical sound,” explains Lopez. As a result, he found himself conducting the Philharmonic Orchestra Project (POP) nightly as it performed Bad Bunny’s songs. Adding to the honor, POP also opened all 50-plus shows playing a number of Lopez’s original compositions.

It wasn’t the first time Bad Bunny and Lopez worked together, as Lopez had previously co-produced the artist’s 2023 hit “Nadie Sabe,” set to full orchestral accompaniment. “I wrote orchestral music for him to use with ‘Nadie Sabe’ and recorded with a full orchestra in Prague,” said Lopez. “Then, from that collaboration and while producing that song, Benito decided he wanted to take a full orchestra on tour and asked me to conduct. He also requested new orchestral pieces to open the show, which I turned around in just a few days.”

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Wanting to capture the same musical tones live as in the studio, Lopez collaborated with the tour’s engineering team, opting to work with many of the same mics used for recording the orchestra. On tour, Lopez utilized DPA 4099s for string instruments, such as violins, violas, cellos and double bass, as well as for the trombones. “We also used the 4011A Cardioid in the string sections; that’s a good one for a delicate and bright tone,” he says. “For percussion, we used the 2011C Twin Diaphragm Mic and the 4018 Supercardioid. This tour was performed in the round, with the audience seated 360-degrees around the stage and the speakers situated all around the arenas. We had a huge bass drum and when he hit the drum, the whole arena would tremble, which was iconic for the show. The 4018 did an amazing job handling that sound and our engineers were awesome with the entire production.”

Lopez was also entrusted with creating arrangements for legacy songs that didn’t originally feature orchestral instruments, providing even more reasons to record each performance. “The level of isolation that these little mics provided was mind-blowing,” he says. “Since we were playing for arenas of 20 thousand or more people, all the cheering and screaming from the fans could potentially overpower the PA system and the recordings, but the noise was almost non-existent—even the bleed was totally isolated.”