All shows on the tour rapidly sold out, including three nights at London's Hammersmith Apollo and two homecoming shows at Aberdeen Music Hall. Sennheiser UK has supported Sandé and her band since the 2012 show recorded for the Live At The Royal Albert Hall album and DVD. The current tour features an SKM 5200-II with MD 5235 head for the lead vocal, plus e604s, e904s and an MD 409 featuring on the backline and a package of ew 300 G3 in-ear monitors for all the performers.
Front-of-house engineer Darren Connor has been working with Sandé for 18 months. A committed Sennheiser user, he has changed her vocal microphone as her popularity has increased and thinks he now has the perfect combination.
"I tried a lot of different mics, both condenser and dynamic. I originally settled on a Neumann KMS 104, which was great with its extended bass response, especially when she was singing off mic," he says. "As the shows and venues became larger and more ambient I switched to the hypercardioid 105, but I missed the warmth of the 104. I spoke to Phil McDaniel, co-founder of Entertainment Sound Specialists [and currently monitor man for Florence and the Machine], who I used to work for and once we had moved to a radio mic he highly recommended the MD 5235 capsule.
"Sennheiser's Mark Saunders had demoed the SKM 5200 series when we performed at the Albert Hall and the combination of that with the MD 5235 capsule means I really don't think we will be using anything else again."
Monitor engineer Laura Davis adds, "The 5200 is solid and sounds great. We haven't had any issues with dropouts due to handling, which other mics have given us problems with. It's great for Emeli as it looks feminine and is lightweight."
Laura is very happy with the G3 IEMs: "Emeli had been using the G3 system for a while when I started working with her. We then bought a further eight systems to use for the band when we started the UK/European tour in 2012," she says.
(Jim Evans)
