Shure supports Patchwork London on NME Best Live Act 2022 winner Rina Sawayama.
Japanese-born singer-songwriter, model, and actress Rina Sawayama, released her debut album during lockdown on the Dirty Hit Label to rave reviews, from ‘strongest album of the year’ (Elton John) to ‘something truly beautiful’ (NPR). Her diverse sound from straight-up Pop to the metal influenced heavy guitar riffs, has something of a diverse appeal.
In support of the album, Patchwork London were selected by Rina’s management / record label to record live video shoots during the lockdown period, providing monitoring and multi-track recording, which led to Patchwork being asked to support the UK Tour, followed by her biggest show to date at Roundhouse and ultimately the NME Awards 2022 show.
With lots of energetic choreography and dancing, on her first large scale tour, a premium wireless microphone system was a necessity. Patchwork London’s Touring Director and Rina’s Production Manager / Front of house Engineer, Calum Mordue selected the Shure Axient Digital Wireless System and AD2 microphones with the Shure PSM1000s In-Ear Monitoring System.
The solid stability of the digital set-up on the Axient Digital, paired fantastically with the demands of the large video wall at the Roundhouse. Aside from the video wall, the set including riser platform, staircase, lighting, and sound was used throughout the tour, to ensure each audience received the same experience. Freedom on stage was important and Axient Digital Wireless System allowed this, with the faith that there would be no signal degradation.
On the tour, Patchwork found the sound quality of the Axient Digital system to be faultless, with extremely low latency. Mordue was keen to keep the show as digital as possible and was particularly impressed with the RF and sound quality, whilst keeping the full signal chain digital from the AES outputs from the wireless transmitter into the desk, digital processing by the desk and then out to the amplifier rack without multiple conversions.
Mordue added: “The NME show had particular RF challenges with 5 acts playing the award show with huge numbers of channels of RF, using Shure’s Axient Digital meant we could licence in a broad range of wireless spectrum which was really useful.”
Along with being impressed by the sound quality, the Patchwork Prep Team found the system very easy to use: “The Wireless Workbench integration is fantastic, the speed at which we could change and deploy frequencies to units was astounding, and the 4 channels receiver in one rack is such a winner – I don’t know any other manufacturer where you can get 4 channels in one 19” rack.” concluded Mordue.
Shure are well known for their dedicated in-house training and support, though in this case Patchwork found no training was required to set-up and use the system, which they stated was “further testament to how easy it is to use.” Mordue was keen to praise the support, adding that “Working with Jack Drury from the Market Development team at Shure is fantastic. Any niche request is dealt – on another project, last minute we were asked for a Chrome AD2 Microphone which resulted in him personally hand delivering it within 2 hours – I was very impressed.”
