The Jazz Cruise created by Anita Berry has been producing floating jazz parties for twenty years, starting on the SS Norway and now on The Holland America Line. The combination of top name entertainment and exotic ports of call has been very successful.
 
In the Rembrandt Lounge we employed several of the new DPA microphone capsules. We had eight DPA Flamingo mic stands available for that elegant but high tech look. We washed the stage with two DPA 4023 compact cardioids on CAP 1250 Flamingos, capturing the entire blend of the big band. This is a lot simpler miking method than putting a mic on everyone.
 
For Count Basie, we put solo mics out front and for Frank Capp, we put a solo mic in each section. To accomplish this we used CAP 1250s and CAP750s on the same vertical stand. Again the Flamingos kept the elegant look. At first on the Yamaha grand piano we started with two DPA 4028 compact wide cardioids but realized early on that only one 4028 was needed to cover the entire piano. The lid on the piano was off for Count Basie and short stick for Frank Capp. The 4028 didn't care. On other occasions we used the new DPA 4041 large diaphragm mics as the stage wash. They added a more than spectacular sound component to the mix. The 4041 does two things; it intensifies the sound without equalization, and it also homogenizes the sound without compression. It must be heard to be understood.
 
 
The Ocean Bar is an open space bar, asymmetrical in shape, with good acoustics and 150 comfortable seats. The groups playing here were never more than septet-size.
The microphones used here were one DPA 4004 omni on the Yamaha grand piano with the stick wide up. Two DPA 4011s were used on the front line for trumpet, trombone, flute, and vocal. We then used the new 4015 wide cardioid for saxophone. This mic freaked us out. It has a large proximity reach from one meter away. The 4015 warmed and fattened up all the saxophones including the alto and soprano sax while not muddying up the house sound. On the tenor sax it's astonishing.

The Crow's Nest was dead and tight and was a completely different test of the same equipment used in the Ocean Bar. We employed two DPA 4011s again for high and low brass and one DPA 4015 for the reeds. We were able to achieve the same results as in the Ocean Bar, with the only difference being that we used a TC electronic M2000 reverb unit to open up the acoustic deadness.
 
The recording of the Eric Allison Quartet, produced by Eric and the group and recorded by engineer Gary Faller, was done live over a three day period. Explains Faller:
"I placed the A-B record mics halfway between the ceiling and floor with the left 4004 directed at the piano and the right 4004 focused on the drum kit. I used the Aux 1 and 2 busses prefader to feed the DAT recorder.
 
The live AB stereo record was done while all of the top list of DPA mics were in a full FOH mix. The depth and stereo image from the AB DPA 4004s provided 80% of the record mix! Very minor amounts of the close mics and Yamaha reverb return were used only to tweak the record mix, and this due to the lower ceiling of the ship and its ambient noise. This arrangement produced a stellar recording of the band and even picked up the audience."
 
 
The setup used for recording Henry Johnson and the Organ Express used a combination of 4023s on the guitar and organ, a 4040 for the drums, a 4061 miniature on the sax, and a pair of 4006s for overall ambience. These all went to a DA88 with little or no EQ.
 
[The original version of this article was printed in the May 2003 edition of Live Sound International. Download 240k .pdf]