Despite the change of image and musical direction of recent years, Cyrus has remained faithful to key members of her technical team, in particular monitor engineer Vish Wadi and FoH engineer Paul David Hager. Both have been working with Cyrus (and Sennheiser) for a number of years. Wadi's relationship with Sennheiser goes back some 17 years, whilst Hager has been working with Sennheiser since he engineered the Goo Goo Dolls tour in 2005.
"Miley had been using an SKM 5200 handheld transmitter with a 5235 capsule which was a great combination for her - very robust, sounded good etc - but Paul [Hager] and I were really keen to try out the digital system," explained Wadi. "When we did, we both fell in love with the sound quality and the innovative RF capabilities, so we decided to move Miley over to the Digital 9000 system for this tour. She is using an SKM 9000 handheld transmitter with the MD 9235 capsule, and it sounds fantastic!"
Wadi noted that FoH engineer Paul David Hager was a significant driving force of the desire to move over to digital. "If anything, it was even more important for him than it was for me because Paul is using digital outputs, and therefore wanted a fully digital workflow, whereas I am using analogue outputs because I think it works better for monitors, especially in-ears. That said, there has definitely been an overall improvement in sound quality, and the other major bonus is that it just makes life so much easier for all of us in terms of setup and operation. The frequency scanner is a real time-saver and once you've understood how it all works, it's just a dream to work with."
(Jim Evans)
