Press release
11.10.2010 - Wedemark, Germany
It´s a Simple Plan with Sennheiser
Guitar-driven pop-punk outfit Simple Plan has earned its considerable international success the old-fashioned way: by playing catchy, tuneful songs that its audience wants to hear over and over again. The band has toured the world many times over playing everything from rock clubs, to arenas, to festivals whose attendance was measured in the hundreds of thousands. Veteran FOH engineer Anthony Pitcher has been with the band for several touring seasons and counts on Sennheiser gear to convey every element of the band’s sound in any venue. He relies on Sennheiser’s user-friendly wireless technology for both the band’s vocals and wireless personal monitors.
 Pierre Bouvier, frontman for Simple Plan, sings into a Sennheiser SKM 2000 with 935 dynamic capsule.(Photo Credit: © 2010 Sim Klugerman) |
“With Simple Plan, the guitar sound is paramount and guitars sit at the front of the mix,” said Pitcher. “The band gets the right guitar tone with high SPLs – so high in fact that the direct sound from the amps can potentially mess with the FOH mix if I leave them in the standard position.” Pitcher’s solution is to turn the amps around so that they face away from both the band and the crowd. Depending on the backstage layout of the venue, the amps may be projecting directly into a nearby wall, with a lot of potentially colored reflections returning to the mics, or the amps may be projecting into open space, with no reflections returning to the mics at all as is the case with outdoor venues. The upshot is that Pitcher’s |
“I always listen carefully to the sound we’re getting, and I always allow time to try out plan B or plan C to get it just right,” he explained. “The reflections or lack of reflections can have a huge impact on the sound, even with close-mic’d amps.” In addition to Sennheiser’s “standard” live guitar mic, thee 906, Pitcher keeps e 935 and MD 421 II cardioid and e 945 super-cardioid dynamics on hand, as well as e 965 condensers. He works with several mics on each cabinet, varying distances and angles to obtain the right sound.
“I’ve been a live sound engineer for over twenty years,” Pitcher shared. “When I started, the only Sennheiser mics that were on stage were the MD 421 and MD 441, which are still around today. Sennheiser obviously made a very conscious decision to put more products on the map in the form of the evolution series. What impressed me is that they put a tremendous effort into research and development and kept sound engineers at the heart of that process. The result is a live microphone line that far surpasses anything else that’s out there.”
Simple Plan tours around the world with a stage full of Sennheiser and Neumann microphones along with G3 personal monitors. |
Simple Plan’s drums are an excellent case in point. Pitcher uses what is fast becoming the industry-standard bass drum pick-up system – a Sennheiser e 901 paired with an e 902. Between the two signals, the engineer can dial in whatever combination of pillow, thump, and pop is needed for the band and the venue. Simple Plan’s snare cuts through with a Sennheiser e 905 on top and an e 904 on the bottom. The 904 is housed in a clip-on body, which makes obtaining Simple Plan’s thunderous tom sounds as easy as it is satisfying. For hi-hats and overheads, Pitcher turns to Neumann. A handful of classic KM 185 small-diaphragm condensers provide a shimmery high-end that is present, but not overbearing. |
Noted Pierre Bouvier, Simple Plan’s lead singer, “No matter where we are in the world, no matter how big or small the venue is, I know we can count on Sennheiser microphones to bring some of that studio magic into our live show every night.”
Pitcher is pleased with the support he receives from Sennheiser’s Global Relations team and Chris Isaac, Sennheiser Canada artist relations manager. “It’s great to know I can call Sennheiser anytime from anywhere,” said Pitcher. “They work quickly to get us replacements or demos as they understand the stresses and time constraints that happen during a tour.”
The Sennheiser Group, with its headquarters in Wedemark near Hanover, Germany, is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of microphones, headphones and wireless transmission systems. The family-owned company, which was established in 1945, recorded sales of around €390 million in 2009. Sennheiser employs more than 2,100 people worldwide, and has manufacturing plants in Germany, Ireland and the USA. The company is represented worldwide by subsidiaries in France, Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark (Nordic), Russia, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Japan, China, Canada, Mexico and the USA, as well as by long-term trading partners in many other countries. Also part of the Sennheiser Group are Georg Neumann GmbH, Berlin (studio microphones and monitor loudspeakers), and the joint venture Sennheiser Communications A/S (headsets for PCs, offices and call centers).
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Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG
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Am Labor 1 • 30900 Wedemark • Germany
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edelgard.marquardt@sennheiser.com
Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG
Mick Whelan
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mick.whelan@sennheiser.com
