The 6060 - A new standard for film lavalier mics

By Allen Williams, Sound Speeds

Parents share their successes and failures with their children to make them better. Fully embracing this spirit and sentiment, DPA has poured nothing but the best it has to offer into the 6060!

I ll be honest, when I first heard of the 6060 I was confused when I saw everything it has to offer. It has better specs than the competition; it's smaller, rugged, feels great to the touch and comes in all the colors we require in the motion picture industry. Best of all CORE by DPA Technology is included!

Very confusing indeed but how can you not love it if it's true?!

Anybody who is familiar with the DPA 4000 series lavs may agree with me; they sound great and when placed correctly, they can sometimes sound like a boom mic. That's a very bold statement, I know, but one I don't just hand out because I am a boom operator. On some TV shows and movies I've worked on, we've had to place microphones in the hair of actors. Hair mics sound great if you can hide them properly. After testing and playing around with the 6060, I can't think of a better mic to go in an actor s hair. It's full sound and small size screams for it to be hidden in hair, and I'll bet that new opportunities will open up for hair mics in the film industry because of it.

How about a couple of practical applications? One trick we've sometimes used on other mics is putting a small safety pin thru a piece of heat shrink then putting that around the lav so it can be safety pinned under an actor's clothing. The 6060 would be a great candidate for such a rig when tapes or other adhesives can't be used on an actor's skin or shows on clothing. Additionally I can see the 6060 cap as being a high demand item if sold in multipacks because they are metal and don't fall off but can be easily removed when you need it to. Having the wardrobe department sew a 6060 cap into an actor's wardrobe could very easily become a go to option for difficult to wire costumes. Best of all, the lav can be quickly removed from the cap so the costume could be laundered whenever they need it to be! That's what I call a problem solver!

In closing let me stress that I think listening to any mic, whether a lav, large diaphragm or anything in between, is crucial if you're constantly on a quest for the best possible sound for your tracks. The size, the build quality, the natural sound, the ease of use, the quick remove cap, the low noise floor, the high SPL, the industry leading THD, CORE by DPA - pick any three from that list and it deserves a listen but all of them ALL OF THEM?! Yeah you need to hear it to believe it.

You can watch my review of the 6060 on my YouTube channel.

About Allen Williams Allen Williams works as a boom operator in the film industry. He enjoys teaching other sound professionals through union classes, students at high schools and colleges and on his sound based YouTube channel, Sound Speeds (http://www.youtube.com/SoundSpeeds). He's very active in the Georgia sound community and many people look to him for what s new in the sound world. He also helps sound manufacturers with product development and testing and is also an Associate member of the Cinema Audio Society.

LINK:	https://www.dpamicrophones.com/news/the-6060-a-new-standard-for-film-l...
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