Producer Steve Power put the DPA 3541 large diaphragm mic kit to the test, recording Robbie Williams' album in London.
"The thing I like most about the 3541 is the sound pressure handling. Bobby's got a hell of a loud voice, but the DPA can actually handle him. We had a track on the last album where half the vocal was completely ruined because there was no mic that could handle his volume – he'd already distorted it before it got anywhere near the mic amp! This one can actually handle it.
And then I thought, if it can handle the volume, it can sound like a condenser on very loud guitar amps and snare drums. You can get the 3541 close, and it can still handle it, which is a step forward, nobody else has managed that before.
I like to use high quality mic amps, and the mic amp you get with the 3541 is very good and open. I've used it on a bass guitar amp, and it was thoroughly transparent, I couldn't hear the mic at all. The amp was there, and it wasn't being squished in any way on its way from there to me listening in the control room, and I found that very impressive.
I ended up using it on acoustic guitars as well, and there, its 10k lift was very handy. You can always take that down with a posh EQ if you want to, but I didn't want to on the acoustics. They do sound lovely and very transparent, only they've become less transparent now because of compression which you've obviously got to use a lot of in pop music, but before it was compressed – incredible, and they still sound very nice now."