(Left to Right): Brett “Scoop” Blanden, FOH, and Peter Bowman, monitors.
Old Lyme, CT (March 3, 2014)—As the Grammy award winning group Lady Antebellum continues its 80-city tour across North America this year, the group has been using Sennheiser’s Digital 9000 wireless system.
Currently, Lady Antebellum’s production team is using eight channels of Digital 9000. According to monitor engineer Peter Bowman, channels 1 and 2 are allocated to Hillary Scott (lead vocals) and Charles Kelley (lead vocals). Dave Haywood (backing vocals) has three wireless microphones throughout the stage to accommodate his playing an assortment of instruments, which includes electric and acoustic guitar, mandolin, banjo, bouzouki, and piano. Each vocalist uses the SKM 9000 handheld transmitter coupled with an MD 9235 capsule. Channel 6 is currently being used for production/spare, and channels 7 and 8 are allocated for Lady Antebellum’s guest artists, who are also singing through SKM 9000 handhelds with MD 9235 capsules.
“The analog to digital conversion takes place at the transmitter itself, and then the signal is decoded at the receiver,” explains front-of-house engineer Brett “Scoop” Blanden, who says that switching over from their analog SKM 5200/MD 5235 mics to SKM 9000/MD 9235s has resulted in sonic advantages: “This has really opened up the top and provided still more audible uniformity among the microphone capsules we are using. Overall, I really like the clarity and it has brought about more warmth in the capsule.”
Bowman added, “The range is very good. I have walked the hallways in the back of the arenas and since it’s digital RF, there is no loss of signal quality, even when you are hundreds of feet away. We start each show in the back at front of house, so having this range is very important to us.”
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