Having released her debut album Sawayama during lockdown, Japanese-British singer-songwriter, model and actress Rina Sawayama subsequently went out on a UK tour, followed by her biggest show to date at Roundhouse and the NME Awards 2022 show. Her sound spans from straight-up pop to metal influenced heavy guitar riffs, with the tour involving energetic choreography and dancing – making a wireless microphone system a necessity.

Sawayama’s management/record label to record had co-ordinated live video shoots during the lockdown period, with Patchwork London providing monitoring and multitrack recording – leading to Patchwork being asked to support the tour and Roundhouse gig, and ultimately the awards show.

Patchwork London’s Touring Director and Sawayama’s Production Manager/FOH engineer Calum Mordue selected Shure’s Axient Digital Wireless System and AD2 microphones and the PSM1000 In-Ear Monitoring System.The stability of the digital set-up on the Axient Digital, paired well with the demands of the large video wall at the Roundhouse. Aside from the video wall, the set including riser platform, staircase, lighting, and sound was used throughout the tour, to ensure each audience received the same experience.

On the tour, Patchwork found the sound quality of Axient Digital to be faultless, with extremely low latency. Mordue was keen to keep the show as digital as possible and was particularly impressed with the RF and sound quality, whilst keeping the full signal chain digital from the AES outputs from the wireless transmitter into the desk, digital processing by the desk and then out to the amplifier rack without multiple conversions

‘The NME show had particular RF challenges with five acts playing the award show needing huge numbers of channels of RF, using Shure’s Axient Digital meant we could licence in a broad range of wireless spectrum, which was really useful,’ he says.

Along with being impressed by the sound quality, the Patchwork Prep Team found the system easy to use: ‘The Wireless Workbench integration is fantastic, the speed at which we could change and deploy frequencies to units was astounding, and the four channels receiver in one rack is such a winner – I don’t know any other manufacturer where you can get four channels in one 19-inch rack,’ Mordue says.

Patchwork found no training was required to set-up and use the system, which they stated was ‘further testament to how easy it is to use’. Mordue was keen to praise Shure’s support, adding that working with Jack Drury from the Market Development team at Shure was fantastic. ‘Any niche request is dealt – on another project, last minute we were asked for a Chrome AD2 Microphone which resulted in him personally hand delivering it within two hours. I was very impressed.’

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