Sennheiser Digital 9000 Takes the Center Stage Along with Beyoncé and Jay Z in ‘On the Run’ Tour

Beyoncé and Jay Z’s ‘On the Run’ tour has taken the entire European fans in a storm with their awesome voices and groovy moves. The ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ themed stadium tour continued from its 20-date North American tour, immediately after the success of their own solo concerts. The entire tour spoke of the duo’s chemistry onstage, as well as their overflowing creative synergies and fashion senses. And in this grand tour, both Beyoncé and Jay Z made use of the Sennheiser Digital 9000 wireless microphone system.

Bought by Eighth Day Sound Systems, Inc. due recommendations made by Stephen Curtin, front-of-the-house engineer, and James Berry, monitor engineer, Sennheiser’s Digital 9000 wireless microphone system ran the entire tour.

With band members from both Jay Z and Beyoncé touring camps joining the grand tour, it also consisted of two stages- an elaborate lighting design and a massive video walls. These factors made it quite challenging for the RF. In addition to that, the audio staff also found Beyoncé‘s vocal expertise and Jay Z’s rapping tones challenging to handle, as well as intimidating.

Sennheiser Digital 9000 was able to perform excellently, showing its reliability and high quality audio power in the durations of the ‘On The Run’ international stadium tour.

Monitor Engineer James Berry believes that the Sennheiser Digital 9000 was the ideal system for the tour and the two great artists. He said, “We are on tour with two of the biggest artists in the world. They bring it all night after night and are constantly setting the creative bar for other artists. This can be challenging for us as engineers, so we have to remain at the edge of technology to stay ahead. The Sennheiser Digital 9000 system was a perfect solution from both a sonic and reliability standpoint.” In addition to that, he believes in the importance of audio quality and believes that Digital 9000 can offer just that. “For us, it had all come down to audio quality. We did A/B tests between the Digital 9000 and our previous system before it ever saw an artist. When the artists came in for rehearsal, I handed them a Digital 9000 and we never looked back,” He said.

Take a look at other excellent products from Sennheiser by visiting our store.

What Experts on Tour had to Say about Sennheiser Digital 9000

Experts who are involved in the tour had a lot to say about the performance of Sennheiser Digital 9000. Some of which are:

Front-of-house Engineer Stephen Curtin said: “My first impressions of the Digital 9000 was during the rehearsals with Beyoncé –as soon as she sang, we instantly knew that it was going to work. Normally, I have to do a lot of balancing and EQing for the environment I am working in, but with the Digital 9000, the pure, natural tone came ringing through – nothing was getting lost in the transmission and I hardly had to make any corrections.” In addition, he also said, “Without the companding, I can immediately realize a fuller and more dynamic sound. For a vocalist like Beyoncé, this is a big help because it means I don’t have to search for frequencies that were lost during transmission – they are all there.”

James Berry (talking about the sonic experience on Jay Z’s vocals) said: “The lack of compression made everything sound so smooth,” he says. “I will never use another microphone on a rapper or on another hip hop gig.”

Eighth Day Sound Chief Technology Officer Jason Kirschnick said: “If we are making it easier for the engineers to do their jobs and increasing the quality of the audio, then it is a good decision for everyone. The Digital 9000 sounds remarkable and is very ergonomic. When you put it in context with all the other products Sennheiser makes, such as the SKM 5200 handheld microphones and the EM 3732-II wireless systems, there is a great track record there. We have a great relationship with Sennheiser, so the decision was that much easier.”

Band’s Monitor Engineer Jimmy Corbin said: “We noticed there was a significant difference in what you could do with it. With many other microphones, you have to be ‘defensive’ from an EQ perspective, counteracting the problems that routinely arise. But with the Digital 9000 and the MD 9235 dynamic cardioid capsule which has outstanding rejection qualities, you could actually be more creative and ‘offensive’ in how you EQ. When I first heard this microphone, I knew it was going to make my day easier.”

On The Run’ Tour RF technician Clinton Reynolds said: ““For me, the RF landscape changes with every city and every venue. We are constantly working around digital television and other challenges and the RF challenges are getting harder, not easier.” He also described the role of Digital 9000 in the frequency coordination process simplifications and said, “It actually takes what my antennas are seeing at any given moment and shows me the lowest noise floor for that particular bandwidth. I can always use other scanners for finding frequencies, but none of them show me what the antennas are seeing like the Digital 9000. This is very useful often critical because an antenna might be in close proximity to a lighting rig and be prone to more noise. A traditional scanner won‘t show you this.”

Other Sennheiser Products that Backed up the Tour

Besides the Sennheiser Digital 9000, here are 24 additional channels of Sennheiser wireless used for backline, instrumentation and monitoring duties:

• 6 channels of Sennheiser EM 3732 receivers (horns, guest microphones)
• 6 channels of EM 2050 receivers (guitars/bass/keytars)
• 12 channels of 2000 series wireless monitoring

Jason Kirschnick concluded Sennheiser’s role in the tour by saying, “Sennheiser has always been there to support us and has been very responsive to whatever we might need – both from a product and application perspective.”