DPA Microphones capture pristine audio at Radio City Music Hall for legendary singer's last two live performances.
Renowned crooner Tony Bennett recently took to the stage for the One Last Time concerts at Radio City Music Hall alongside long-time friend and collaborator Lady Gaga, and the performances were nothing short of magical. As this is likely to be the last time audiences see Bennett perform live, the concerts were captured and aired as a CBS special on November 28, 2021. With sound at the forefront of considerations for this event, GRAMMY Award-winning Audio Engineers Jody Elff and John Harris of Harris-Elff Audio Resources (HEAR) selected a variety of DPA Microphones for the orchestral recording.
The audience was full of love for Tony Bennett, and it was a powerful couple of nights of music, says Elff. We were live on-stage at Radio City Music Hall, one of the greatest venues in the world, with a large orchestral ensemble. We also had Tony's jazz ensemble and Lady Gaga's rhythm section on-stage, in addition to full string and brass sections, a harp and a few woodwinds. We had DPA mics all over the orchestra our older 4021 Compact Cardioid Condensers [today known as the 4011ES] on the piano, 4061 Omnidirectional Miniatures on the violins and violas, and 4099 Instrument Mics on all brass, woodwinds and strings, including harp, as well as on the soloing sax and trumpet. As expected, all the DPA mics sounded great.
During the two performances, Elff was feeding his mixes to Harris, who was mixing the bands and vocals. I sent my stems to John for him to blend, explains Elff. It was not a live broadcast, but we were making a stereo reference mix that would later be used during the video edit. I had the orchestra under my fingers with 40 or 50 channels of inputs, with DPA arranged throughout. It was fantastic to have DPA's level of fidelity and unrivaled level of clarity and isolation in the very large hall, which had a lot of sound reinforcement and 6,000 adoring fans. The DPA mics allowed me to create a beautiful, clean, orchestral mix that worked really well for the recording. I also sent mixed stems of the orchestra mics back to the stage to be used in the performers' in-ear monitors. These performances were remarkably touching, and the DPA microphones helped showcase Tony's legacy as one of all-time greats.
The multi-track recordings (147 channels total) were then handed off to Engineer Dae Bennett (Tony Bennett's son) for final editing and mixing for the broadcast. It was essential that what the team delivered was the best possible quality for Dae to work with, and DPA mics were central to that process.
According to Elff, the compact form-factor of the DPA mics also benefitted the production. I'm pleased that the mics are so discreet, he says. When there's a lot of people on the stage, like we had for these performances, using 4061s and 4099s gives the audience the ability to experience the music without a forest of microphone stands obscuring their view of the musicians, either in the hall or on-camera. I think it's important for the audience not to be distracted by all the technology. They're not thinking about the microphones, they're just watching the musicians play, listening to the music and thinking about how good it sounds. That's one of my favorite aspects of working with DPA mics.
A long-time DPA fan, dating back to the mid-1990s, Elff finds the brand's mics to be among the best in the business. For years, DPA has and continues to produce(d) some of the greatest sounding microphones out there, he adds. The mics certainly hold up to the rigors of live use in recording, as well as studio applications. The 4006s are a staple for orchestral recording, and they sound great as well. The first time I heard a 4006 was when I was queuing a microphone while checking lines. I didn't hear the microphone, just the room, and it instantly changed the way I thought about any other brand. When you queue up a mic, you hear how much character the device itself imparts to your signal, and with DPA, it's like there's nothing but your source material. It was a remarkable experience, and I have been using DPA mics whenever possible ever since.
Elff has mixed countless televised network concert events and his orchestral collaborations include the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Lincoln Center Festival. He has made field recordings of folk music in Morocco and Ethiopia, recorded three albums with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, and has provided sound design for hundreds of performances around the world. He is also a co-partner for HEAR, which provides location and remote recording and broadcast music mixing services.
The CBS special, One Last Time: An Evening with Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett,' aired November 28, 2021 and is currently available to stream on Paramount+.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
David Dvir, 2D founder (left), Sundeep Reddy (center), and Jean-Marc Bouchut (right), both of Zeiss...
23/07/2026
Screen Australia announces new national documentary accelerator program 23 July 2026
Screen Australia has today announced the Above the Line Documentary Accel...
22/07/2026
Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...
22/07/2026
The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...
22/07/2026
From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...
22/07/2026
TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...
22/07/2026
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...
22/07/2026
Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...
22/07/2026
Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...
22/07/2026
The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...
22/07/2026
Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...
22/07/2026
Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...
22/07/2026
FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...
22/07/2026
The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...
22/07/2026
Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...
22/07/2026
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...
22/07/2026
FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...
22/07/2026
Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...
22/07/2026
SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...
22/07/2026
The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...
22/07/2026
At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room
NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...
22/07/2026
Library now available in Engine Player
Another of Eduardo Tarilonte's popular sample libraries has just been moved over to Engine Audio's Engine Pla...
22/07/2026
All-in-one mic & DSP interface overhauled
Cloudvocal have just refreshed the design of their all-in-one mic, audio interface and DSP processor, introducing ...
22/07/2026
The final boss of the lost dual-op-amp circuit
Electro-Harmonix have just introduced the Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2, which they say offers their latest take on t...
22/07/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution
LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...
22/07/2026
Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...
22/07/2026
An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app
Marc Levoy July 22, 2026
0 Comments
At left is the user interface of our Playground, running on an ...
22/07/2026
Custom Consoles announces the completion of a large technical furniture project for Radio T l vision Suisse (RTS) at the networks recently inaugurated productio...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Culver City, CA, July 21, 2026 3D streaming infrastructure provider Miris today announced glTF intake, including the binary .glb form, to its spatial streamin...
22/07/2026
Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's versatile design allowed filmmakers to c...
22/07/2026
AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back
Jerome Gardier July 21, 2026
0 Comments
A two-way converter for macOS and Windows...
22/07/2026
From Class to Concert: Explore a Student-Led Production of David Bowies Work Thr...
22/07/2026
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang today visited the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, to commission an NVIDIA DGX GB300 system - bringing one...
22/07/2026
A poisoned spy, a secret war, and a small English city contaminated by a deadly chemical weapon. Available on Sky Documentaries from 4 AugustWednesday 22 July 2...
22/07/2026
Audio at Parity: Comscore Launches Transcript-Level Targeting and Measurement wi...
22/07/2026
Arvato Systems and Lobster Enter into a Partnership and Combine the Integration Platform and Managed Services
Flexible integration solutions for cloud, hybrid...
DPA Microphones capture pristine audio at Radio City Music Hall for legendary singer's last two live performances.
