Currently on tour with Rush, front-of-house (FOH) engineer Brad Madix, a long-time Audio-Technica user who has worked with Marilyn Manson, Def Leppard, Queensryche, and Bruce Hornsby, commented on Rush’s choice of Artist Elite: "We’re using AE5400s for lead singer Geddy Lee’s vocals and two AE3000s on Neil Peart’s rack and floor toms," stated Madix. "Our monitor engineer and I did a blind listening test and put the AE5400 against all the usual suspects. We turned our backs while one of the sound guys went from one mic to the other, and we both picked the AE5400 as our favourite - hands down. We both felt the AE5400 had a better high-end and a smoother low end for vocals. Those are the qualities we’re always looking for - a tighter low end that doesn’t rumble and a real extended high end. For Neil, the AE3000s are great because we need a small mic that can take lots of SPLs, as well as fit into a very confined space. It’s nice to be able to fit a large diaphragm condenser mic into a small space."
FOH engineer Chris Taylor, whose clients include David Foster and Amy Grant, is currently on tour with Jewel, who is using the AE5400. "When we went into rehearsal in January, Jewel said she had been having trouble getting a good vocal sound live," stated Taylor. "Jewel has a very wide vocal range, therefore the mic needed to sound good over her entire range in both front-of-house and her in-ear monitors. It also had to have good rejection or at least the things that did bleed into the mic had to sound good. We tried several mics and chose the AE5400. It has a nice top end that made it very easy to understand her whispers, yet enough proximity effect to fill out the low end without sounding too muddy. The blend between the upper mid-range and the top end is very smooth, which made the mic not sound too harsh when the vocal got real loud. The AE5400 worked so well with in-ear monitors, we took it with us to every show so Jewel could have a consistent vocal sound. To say the least, monitor engineer Robert Bull and I liked the mic a lot, it worked perfectly for Jewel’s vocals."
The Artist Elite Series has also been used on a number of high profile broadcast events, including Late Night with David Letterman (AE5100, AE3000), the Carson Daly Show (AE5100, AE3000), and the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards (AE5100, AE3000).
