HERSHEY, PA — Demi Lovato visited nearly 50 cities across the U.S. in support of her second Hollywood Records album release, Here We Go Again, using Sennheiser equipment, including multiple channels of vocal microphone, instrument and personal monitor systems. The teen singer/actress used a Sennheiser SKM 5200 handheld vocal mic outfitted with an MD 5235 capsule. “Demi’s mic is very well-suited to her voice,” said monitor engineer Cam Beachley.
As for the total number of wireless channels on stage, Beachley said, “We had 16 channels of G2 instrument wireless, a couple of channels of SKM 935 G2 handhelds that we used on the background vocals, and we used the new EM 3732 receiver for the SKM 5200.”
In addition to Lovato and the two female background vocalists, three of the five band members also contributed vocals, according to Rob Rankin, FOH/systems engineer.
“The stage right guitarist and bass player also sang, and there was a vocalist on keyboards. They all used wired e 935 mics,” said Rankin, a veteran of tours with Carrie Underwood, Jars of Clay, Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride, Pam Tillis, and Hilary Duff.
With Lovato also performing on acoustic and electric guitar, in addition to piano, the tour required more than a dozen channels of wireless instrument systems.
Beachley, who recommended the evolution wireless systems, commented, “I’ve always said that the evolution wireless stuff sounds as close to a wire as you can get. I did an experiment last year with JBL Smaart, a cable and a G2 pack. I scoped it and found that it is indeed as close to a cable as you can get. That being said, the frequency agility that comes with the G2 is spectacular. The fact that the Sennheiser engineers had some forethought in grouping the groups and channels into masses that would not intermodulate between one another was brilliant.”
Beachley, who also works with Carrie Underwood, and has toured with Keith Urban, Peter Frampton, Smash Mouth, Collective Soul and the Indigo Girls over the past decade, generated a dozen separate stereo monitor mixes for Lovato and her band. “There were 10 channels of G2 wireless personal monitors,” he said. The IEM systems employed Ultimate Ears UE-11 ear buds, he added.
Lovato, a Texas-born singer-songwriter and actress who turned 17 this August, took her first steps onto the live stage last year on her Demi Live! Warm Up Tour prior to accompanying the Jonas Brothers on their Burning Up tour.
Lovato’s Summer Tour 2009, which began June 21 in Hartford, Conn., circled the country and returned to New England for a final show in Hershey, Penn. on August 21. The tour also featured “American Idol” series seven runner-up, David Archuleta, as well as KSM and Jordan Pruitt on selected dates.
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