Sennheiser helps Dubai to Hear the People Sing
Published: MEA
UAE: An extensive Sennheiser inventory was called into action for the recent three-week run of Les Misérables at the Dubai Opera House. The production toured with Sennheiser microphones, headsets, transmitters and antennas supplied by Australian company, System Sound.
‘Musicals of this calibre would tour with the majority of the equipment required for the show,’ explained Shelly Lee, associate sound designer for Les Miserables. ‘This includes the Sennheiser radio mics which have for many years been an industry standard in musical theatre across the world. They are chosen by sound designers internationally due to their high quality, consistency and reliability both sonically and technically. We travel with our own sound system including a large quantity of Sennheiser radio mics as our set up time is very tight and we need to be able to plug-in and go.’
For the Dubai production, performers were equipped with SK 5212-II bodypack transmitters linked to 20 Sennheiser EM 3732-II series receivers. A wide range of Sennheiser transmitters, receivers, antenna distribution systems and headsets were also used for percussion, communications and other background operations.
‘Our Les Mis sound team, which includes a production engineer, head operator and radio mic technicians, is very experienced and has used Sennheiser equipment for many years,’ said Ms Lee. ‘Back at System Sound in Australia we have an RF service technician who services and maintains all our RF equipment so it is always in good working order.’
A major concern for productions involving extensive use of wireless microphones is RF interference and intermodulation. To overcome this, System Sound called on Sennheiser’s Wireless Systems Manager (WSM) software to remotely monitor the radio microphones, update labelling, and reprogram the receivers as needed. During each performance, the team had a dedicated radio microphone technician monitoring the RF and audio quality of each microphone.