Left to right: the London Astoria in-house crew Mark (stage engineer), Yogi (monitor engineer), Matt (in-house sound engineer) and Maddie (stage engineer).
For the third consecutive year, UK distributor HW International ensured that the Mean Fiddler-owned London Astoria was furnished with a plethora of Shure microphones for the NME Carling Awards. The shows ran for a week-and-a-half during February and included bands such as the Pet Shop Boys, Aphex Twin, Ash and Starsailor. One of the most anticipated gigs was The Charlatans who performed to an enthralled capacity crowd. The Charlatans were supported by Reading's Cooper Temple Clause, the bill was completed by ex-Ultrasound star Matt Jones' new band Minuteman and promising Northern rockers Moco.

Matt West, London Astoria's in-house sound engineer, commented: "Shure were able to supply us with a generic mic set-up which would suit most guitar-based bands. Their mics are robust and reliable and used the world over, so I was more than happy to have them to offer to the bands and their engineers. During the NME Carling Awards we’ve been generally setting the bands up with a Shure SM58 for vocals, Beta 57a on vocals, guitars and snares, Beta 52 for bass drums and bass guitars, as they have great low-end response, though some engineers preferred the Beta91a in their kicks. Beta 98s were used for toms and percussion, SM81s for hats and overheads, or the new KSM27s, which I found have nice warmth and clarity."

(Lee Baldock)


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