ALLEROED, DENMARK – For French artist Jeanne Added’s first pop tour, sound engineer Gilles Olivesi chose DPA Microphones – specifically the d:facto – to reflect the power and emotion of her voice. Olivesi was looking for a “very flat microphone that wouldn’t try to enhance anything in her voice,” he says, adding that the d:facto “keeps her voice sounding natural.” Added’s tour continues through the end of 2017.
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French artist Jeanne Added has found the perfect complement for her powerful, harmonic voice – a DPA d:facto Vocal Microphone that allows her to convey emotion without changing the timbre of her singing. Jeanne, who last year released her debut solo album “Be Sensational,” was introduced to the d:facto by her sound engineer, Gilles Olivesi.
“I was looking for a very flat microphone that wouldn’t try to enhance anything in her voice,” Olivesi explains. “French Engineer Malik Malki told me about the d:facto, so we tried it with Jeanne in the studio and compared it to a number of other vocal mics. We all agreed that it was the right one because it keeps her voice sounding natural. It also works for the FOH mix and the monitors – in my opinion vocalists sing better when they can hear themselves clearly without stretching the monitor’s EQ.”
Jeanne’s tour is also an interesting departure for Olivesi because it is the first time he has been the FOH engineer on a pop tour.
“I have been working as a sound engineer since 1997, both in studios and live and generally with the same French jazz artists,” he explains. “With Jeanne, we are playing venues with a capacity of 600 to 2,500 people. The biggest audience we’ve had to date was at Les Vieilles Charrues Festival where we played in front of 40,000 people.”
On stage, Jeanne plays bass and keyboards and is supported by a drummer and two more keyboard players/backing vocalists. They are also using d:facto Vocal Microphones.
“Alongside the d:facto mics, I am using d:dicate 4011C Cardioid Microphones as overheads, because they are really natural and allow us to maintain a nice, acoustic sound for our drums,” Olivesi says. “I’m also using d:dicate 2011C Twin Diaphragm Cardioid Microphones on the snare and kick because I like the low end. For the snare in particular, they allow me to work very precisely with placement so that I can have more or less of some frequencies that I either want to hear or hide.”
Singing in English to provide distance from her French origins, Added says that “Be Sensational” should be taken as her guiding principle – a way of refusing to surrender and to find courage in herself. The album was released on the Naïve label and her current tour is scheduled to run until the end of this year.
