Shure's Flagship Wireless System Axient Digital used on Gorillaz' Humanz World Tour

With an early 2017 release of ‘Humanz’, the first album in seven years  from the world’s most successful virtual act Gorillaz, scoring the most  successful debut in YouTube VR history and enjoying another  ground-breaking first when 2D and Murdoc joined Mistajam for their first  ever real-time streamed interview, it comes as no surprise the tour  turned to the future of high-tier digital wireless technology, Axient  Digital for the Humanz World Tour.

Entec Sound & Light were one of the first to tour Axient Digital  on such a rigorous live schedule and application. Jonny Clark, Head of  Sound at Entec comments “Any equipment we invest in needs to be right  for the tour but also future-proof for ongoing deployments. Not only  have we found that in Axient Digital but we’ve developed a relationship  with Shure that’s second to none. My set-up time has been dramatically  reduced whilst using Shure’s Axient Digital Series, saving me time to  focus on more resource intensive aspects of the tour”.

With a fairly complex and rotating cast and in addition to Damon  himself, a band that features in its ranks two drummers and six backing  vocalists, there’s the ever-changing and dynamic menu of guest stars to  contend with. “The audio metering facility is extremely impressive and  making decisions ‘on the fly’ (albeit calculated, of course), now a  reality.

Having a simple cross-platform of being able to see my RF reception  and audio reception/quality from the microphones and instruments, means I  can make rational decisions even if sometimes one of those signals  might not be where I’d like it to be, which often happened. I would have  potentially made some bad decisions had I not had this feature.” says  Ben.

Jonny continues, “Shure knows and should be proud of their growing  dominance in the live touring market, it’s highly deserved. The specs  that come in to us, are increasingly for Shure kit and we carry plenty  of manufacturer choice in our inventory. Entec can proudly service these  requests and Shure can rely on us to deploy their products properly and  professionally whilst out on technology driven tours like this one.”

Ben says, “Shure’s support in the initial stages and throughout the  tour has been faultless. From the moment I first heard the system in the  US and understanding all the new features and digital output options,  the suggestion to use Axient Digital was an easy one to make. Being able  to fit more frequencies into less spectrum is extremely useful and the  overall audio quality is phenomenal.

It’s easy to stand by a product when you have people representing the  product & brand that are responsive and that’s the bottom line.”

“When you get feedback that the sound quality of Axient Digital is as  good as any wired alternative, you know you’ve made the right choice“  adds Jonny.

Supporting those comments, Tuomo Tolonen, Director of Pro Audio at  Shure UK adds, “It’s been great to see how Entec have implemented Axient  Digital into the Gorillaz touring rig and hearing compliments from  various people on both RF and audio performance is the icing on the  cake. Knowing we have a world class team on the tour, from Ben, Jonny,  Dave Guerin (Monitor Engineer) & Matt Butcher (FOH Engineer) Axient  Digital is in the best hands and we are proud to be working with them on  this world class tour. Axient Digital is a product we are rather  excited about. It not only replaces UHF-R which is possibly the most  widely recognised high-end RF system ever made, but also has to operate  flawlessly night after night in a far harsher and congested RF  environment than we have ever seen. The reality of a harsher RF  environment is what really drove the development of the product as the  expectation from any high-end production is that there are no RF issues.  Gorillaz certainly fits that mold as the show is phenomenal with plenty  of RF channels on a stage with plenty of LED screens and it has to tour  the world. It’s the perfect recipe for a challenging environment but  it’s precisely what the product was designed for.”

After a rigorous 2017 event schedule, the 2018 leg of the Gorillaz  Humanz Tour now heads back across the Atlantic for an event schedule  kicking off in Mexico until late March, returning back to Europe for the  summer festival season in June. For more information, visit  www.Gorillaz.com