International. In an afternoon of emotional musical tributes and memorable live performances, Sennheiser delivered ultra-reliable wireless sound at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards.
With more than 18,000 celebrities and music fans present and more than 24 million viewers, artists including Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar, Adele and The Weeknd were featured, each delivering performances using Sennheiser's wireless microphone technology, with Taylor Swift performing as the opening show with "Out of the Woods." on a Sennheiser Digital 9000 system.
Ed Sheeran, who always uses Sennheiser, won two Grammy Awards for "Thinking Out Loud": one for Best Song of the Year and one for Best Pop Solo Performance. Meanwhile, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson won Best Album of the Year and Best Pop Duo or Groups Performance for their famous "Uptown Funk." Among the big winners of the night was Kendrick Lamar, who was honored with four Grammy Awards: Best Rap Album, Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration and Best Music Video – which he shared with Taylor Swift.
Perhaps the most emotionally moving performance of the night came from Lady Gaga, who performed an electric mix of David Bowie's songs taken from various stages of the artist's long career. Singing through an SKM 5200 handheld transmitter paired with an MD 5235 microphone capsule, he highlighted "Space Oddity," "Ziggy Stardust," "Heroes," "Fashion" and other musical gems. Lady Gaga's performance was outstanding for the different Bowie-inspired costumes, stage props and theatrical effects.
James Corbin, monitoring engineer for Lady Gaga, commented: "During the presentation of the six-minute segment, we used, in fact, three different microphones – all sennheiser's SKM 5200/MD 5235 combination," he said. Under normal circumstances this would be a real challenge, because most paired capsules from other microphone manufacturers rarely sound the same. But the MD 5232 capsules sound identical – this means I was able to get the sound I wanted in the soundcheck with one of them, and literally cut and paste the EQ settings into the other two microphones."
Ron Reaves, FOH mixer at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, said, "Our Sennheiser microphones delivered crisp, detailed audio throughout the night. I particularly like the MD 5235 capsule as it handles proximity very well and is also responsible for the entire dynamic range."
Over the course of a technical and diversely challenging night, Sennheiser's microphones – including 36 channels of wireless audio – worked flawlessly. Dave Bellamy of Burbank, California – where Soundtronics is, who has directed 17 Grammy events, was responsible for RF coordination and ensured an uninterrupted wireless presentation: "The most important thing for me, is that the team is reliable," he said. It has to be something I shouldn't think about or worry about. We have a substantial amount of Sennheiser equipment in our inventory, so my confidence in the product speaks for itself."
