Spectera's great adventure (Sennheiser) start with DJ BoBo

Swiss singer and producer DJ BoBo presents “The Great Adventure”, a tour will take you to 28 European cities that will have the Spectera two-way broadband system from Sennheiser after being successfully tested in concerts held at Europa-Park Rust a few months before the tour.

The technical team of DJ BoBo, formed by Second Monsoon (FoH), Benny Mengler (monitors) y Jens Bublitz (backline), met Spectera through your contact at Sennheiser, Chris Kopp. The tour rehearsals at Europa-Park Rust emerged as an “ideal” opportunity to test Sennheiser’s solution as its new intra-auricular system.

Mengler He was immediately impressed by the speed of setup and frequency coordination, as well as for the “excellent audio quality”: “Everyone on stage uses Spectera SEK: dancers, gymnasts, singers and band. We use 26 Spectera SEK as IEM receivers and an additional SEK as a line transmitter for the acoustic guitar, which is used during two songs”.

To cover the scenarios A and B, IEM configuration includes three DAD antennas, one located next to the monitors to the left of the stage, another to the right of the stage near the band and another on stage B. Bublitz explains that, with the previous guitar transmitter, the guitarist lost connection when he was on stage B, so they simply used an additional SEK bodypack as an instrument transmitter. “Spectera works much better in terms of RF signal transmission. I haven't noticed any deterioration in sound quality either., but quite the opposite.", explains the technician backline.

Spectera on DJ BoBo's new tour

Mengler executes a total of 12 stereo IEM mixes (plus microphone for acoustic guitar) through MADI 96 kHz in a broadband channel with a central frequency of 490 MHz. Use “Live Low Latency” mode for band and singers, while the dancers and technical team They are in “Live” mode. All of this, in a canal RF broadband 8 MHz.

“The most important thing for me is how quickly you can scan, adjust the center frequency and, next, all SEK are incorporated into the new configuration just by turning them on. There is no need for infrared synchronization and the Spectera web interface is very well organized”, comment Mengler when asked about the way in which the Sennheiser system had changed its way of configuring monitors.

In addition, Mengler paid special attention to maintaining a certain distance between his new digital equipment and old analog equipment: “We use SKM analog handheld microphones 2000, some of them personalized. When placed too close to digital transmitters, noise may occur in the analog receiver. That's why we made sure that the digital SEKs were worn on the opposite side of the hand holding the microphone, or on the artist's back, to avoid any interfering noise coupling into the analog microphone”.

A before and after

The creative team of DJ BoBo has welcomed Sennheiser's solution with open arms. “The entire band and crew still felt totally relaxed even after several hours of listening through headphones.”. This is one of the main differences we find with Spectera. We tried different modes to find out which sounded best for our needs, and everyone is very happy with the sound. We have combined Spectera with an immersive IEM processor Klang, and that has opened up a new world of listening possibilities for us.. for the band, Spectera made a world of difference, so the production invested in Spectera from the beginning”, comments Mengler.

​The FoH engineer, Second Monsoon, certifies your partner's vision, highlighting the satisfaction of the entire team: “It gives them more confidence.”. Con Spectera, artists can trust what they hear and perform better. Regarding the microphones, we used Spectera for the acoustic guitar and it worked perfectly. We can't wait to get our hands on the next handheld microphone. Have handheld microphones, in-ear headphone and instrument inputs, all on a single broadband channel and a single device, will allow us to travel with a single 19 device″ and 1U to individual concerts. It would also be useful to have a durable and protective SEK case for dancers and artists.”.

“For us, the engineers, Spectera saves space and time, and the sound and overall performance are top notch. “Spectera is an absolute new starting point for RF transmission techniques in live entertainment.”, concludes.