Shure Digital PSM on Gorillaz's The Mountain Tour

	"The SM35s are incredibly clear and comfortable enough to be worn for long shows or rehearsal days," says Woodward.

Virtual alternative rock band Gorillaz's The Mountain World Tour has taken the production through a demanding run of indoor arenas, outdoor festivals, TV promo slots, and one-off creative activations across the globe. The guest-artist line-up changes nightly, with sound engineer Colin Woodward and the touring crew ready for anything from a single guest vocalist to a seven-piece brass section or a 12-strong choir. Throughout, Shure Axient Digital and Axient Digital PSM wireless systems have been involved.

Axient Digital AD1 bodypack transmitters cover every guitar played by Jeff Wootton, with two AD2 handheld transmitters fitted with KSM8 capsules on standby for frontman Damon Albarn. Wootton also monitors on Axient Digital PSM in-ear system, while a stage full of Shure microphones -- including KSM8, VP88, Beta 91A, Beta 57A, and KSM137 -- capture vocals, percussion and ambience for front-of-house engineer Matt Butcher and monitor engineer Dave Guerin. Woodward co-ordinates the entire RF picture, including third-party wireless systems, through Shure Wireless Workbench software.

When Wootton's previous in-ear monitoring system began clashing with the Axient Digital guitar packs, Woodward and the team needed a fix. The Axient system "plays nicely with the AD1s. We had some issues with clashing and dropouts using the other IEM system, as well as some low-level interference noise with his amplifier. Axient Digital PSM solved that, as it's an RX-only system," Woodward explains. "Axient Digital PSM has solved all those issues while sounding great. It's been rock-solid for me, and the noise floor is really impressive, to the point where you have to double-check it's on when the mix is quiet. He's a big fan of the sound.

"Shure Axient Digital has rock-solid performance in really tough conditions. I knew we'd be moving all over the world and having to work in some difficult RF situations -- hello, Hollywood -- and I knew I'd have no issues with it," he says. "It also sounds great for guitars, almost indistinguishable from a regular guitar cable, which is what we needed most.

"For this solution I need the guitars to sound exactly like a regular cable and not have any color to them. Axient Digital solves all that. It's got power if I need to shoot over noise, and I'm still constantly impressed by how well the units perform right at the edge of range. It takes a lot of abuse to drop the quality level.

"My day begins and ends with Workbench, basically," he says. "If I'm in early, I'll normally take a scan with my portable canner and start work on my laptop. This then transfers over to the computer in my rack, where I'll compare it with a scan on the AXT600, with antennas in position on stage." Wireless Workbench also lets Woodward bring third-party wireless systems into a single view. "I co-ordinate everything through Workbench, including other manufacturers that I've added profiles for."

The software's monitoring and timeline recording tools are also valuable. "I send a copy of the monitor screen out to our guitar tech via Vmix, so he can see everything he's got going on," Woodward says. "The timeline recording helped me pin down the issues we were having with the guitar dropouts and prompted the switch to Axient Digital PSM. It's so useful to be able to visualize the RF performance in real time." He runs an AXT600 spectrum manager and is planning to move to Shure's newer AD600.

Vocals throughout the show run on Shure KSM8 capsules -- the mic of choice for Damon Albarn, according to Guerin. "For decades, Damon was on an SM58," he says. "Matt [Butcher] had tried a KSM8 somewhere with another act and pushed to try them with Damon. He wasn't expecting it to be any different to the normal SM58, but he loved it -- the lack of proximity effect was the main thing, and a better top end." The production now carries around ten KSM8 capsules, rotating in a new one for Albarn each year.

Elsewhere onstage, two Shure VP88 stereo microphones do double duty -- one as a percussion overhead, the other repurposed as a targeted ambient mic for Damon since he moved to in-ear monitors. "What a truly phenomenal mic," says Guerin. "Placed vertically near Damon's piano, it picks up a really natural-sounding stage sound, so he hears everyone when they're speaking without having to take his ears out -- and then when the music starts, a big compressor on the channel and it disappears, coming back to give the stage ambience as soon as the music stops." Shure shotgun microphones on the side fills and Beta 57A mics between the center wedges cover front-row audience sound, part of eight channels of ambient audience mics.

The rig even carries a handful of Shure's discontinued 527B microphones, used for Albarn's distinctive gritty, distorted vocal sound. "They're used on a lot of the Gorillaz recordings, and obviously live," says Guerin. With Shure no longer manufacturing the model, the team keeps watch on the second-hand market to maintain their small stock.

For crew communications, the team relies on Shure SM35 headsets. "The SM35s are incredibly clear and comfortable enough to be worn for long shows or rehearsal days," says Woodward. On a production with constantly shifting features, brass and strings, that clarity matters. "Communication between the crew during the gig is paramount, especially on a gig like Gorillaz that's ever-changing," adds Guerin. "The SM35 was the only headset we've tried that was actually intelligible against the d&b M2 wedges and E5 sidefills at gig levels."

That reliability extends to the support behind the products. Woodward singles out Shure's Peppe Mallozi for going the extra mile during the tour. "I realized I needed some rubber boots for the Axient Digital PSM antennas. I sent him a text, and they were with me two days later. I always get a quick response from him with the info I need."