Audiovisual equipment supply company LSH Events (part of the London Speaker Hire family) has been closely involved with testing the Shure’s dual-diaphragm KSM8 even prior to its official launch in 2016. Throughout the microphone’s launch, LSH supplied KSM8s to many high-profile artists and engineers, and helped it to play a part in setting a new world record…
‘Since we opened our event and band rehearsal facilities in East London, LSH Spaces, we’ve been involved with a lot of current high-profile bands and their technical support staff,’ explains MD Grant Turner from LSH’s London HQ. ‘We put some KSM8s in one of the rehearsal rooms there alongside the usual SM58s, and people soon started to ask us about the new mic.’
Early adopters of the KSM8 were up-and-coming Essex-based Arcaves, who had previously been using Shure SM58 and Beta 87As as live vocal mics. The band auditioned prototype versions of the mic at the 2015 V Festival, and progressed to using two KSM8s as their main live vocal mics by mid-2016: the black edition for their female vocalist Bekile, and the brushed nickel version for lead vocalist Billy Wright. Both mics feature clearly in the video shot to accompany the band’s most recent single, ‘Out Of The Blue’, which was one of the first videos shot in the UK using a high-resolution 8K sensor.
‘Everyone who used the KSM8 gave us very positive feedback,’ Turner says. ‘It took off very fast. Matt Lewis, the live sound engineer for Nick Mulvey and Jamie Woon, was keen to audition it, and the next thing we knew, it went from Nick’s trying it out to Jamie would like the KSM8 for his summer tour… In the end, we supplied KSM8s and other Shure mics for that tour, along with PSM1000 in-ears. We gave LeAnn Rimes a black KSM8 to use when she was promoting her new album Remnants with a live ‘unplugged’ session in the piano room at the Yamaha Music London Showroom in Soho in August.
The KSM8 was the vocal mic used for what was subsequently certified as the World’s Highest Ever Stand-up Gig. Stand Up On Everest involved UK comedians Tom Wrigglesworth and Martin Mor, together with Australians Wayne Deakin and Mickey D, performing on a temporary stage erected solely for the purpose at Mount Everest South Base Camp in the Nepalese Himalayas, 5,365m above sea level.
‘We got involved through our work with Save The Children, which sponsored the event,’ explains Turner. ‘They asked us to spec a PA for the gig, and we brought Shure and Martin Audio on board. We have a great relationship with both companies and that really stood us in good stead for this event; we had to be sure that the mics and speakers would still work at the temperature and pressure extremes you find at the Everest Base Camp — we made a few calls to the technical support departments of both companies! But as you would expect, everything worked perfectly, the gig went without any problems, and it raised money for Save The Children.’
