The American Pop-Rock band recently supported Muse on a string of North American dates with Dobbins and monitor engineer Francois Pare – both a part of London-based live music production house Cato Music – specifying the equipment for the tour, including Shure PSM900 in-ear monitors, which are ready for the channel change.

‘Before the tour, we were looking to try something new – mainly because we weren’t very happy with the system we were using at the time,’ Dobbins  explains. ‘We were getting a lot of interference and the sound quality wasn’t great. I’d heard about this new Shure system, so I thought I’d try it on a tour that started back in April. We didn’t really know what to expect, but we were so blown away by them that we’ve now got seven systems.’

Monitor engineer Pare is also convinced, not only by sound quality but also features that make life easier for the crew. ‘For a start there’s the new Cue mode,’ he says. ‘Now I can check all of the frequencies and cue up everyone’s mix, and all from the same pack. In minutes you’ve checked everyone’s mixes with no fuss. And I rarely get interference now – even to the point where I’ve stopped walking it. With some other systems we’ve used I’d spend an hour trying to get some frequencies that are clean, and you’d get nothing. But the PSM900 quickly tells me that a frequency is available and that it’s nice and clean. I also like that you can just turn off the RF. You don’t have to turn off the whole system, you just turn off the RF so you’re not interfering with anyone else’s wireless systems.’

‘Comparing life before and after the PSM900s is like comparing night and day – and this is the feedback we’re getting from the band as well,’ says Dobbins. ‘Now we spend our time talking about the /lack/ of issues. With PSM900 I genuinely think Shure has built a fantastic product. And compared to the competition, it’s a vastly superior system. We’re over the moon with them.’

More: www.shure.com