Ed Sheeran relies on Sennheiser for live shows

Ed Sheeran is nearing the end of his European tour, and will soon head to the US for more live shows, backed the whole way by Sennheiser wireless systems.

Chris Marsh from Major Tom, the tour’s audio provider, decided that a Sennheiser 2000 Series with 865 capsule would be ideal for Sheeran.

“I first got involved with Ed last October when he was doing a club-sized tour,” Marsh explained. “I had met him previously at the Latitude Festival when I was there with Rumer. He was opening the festival that day and we got talking about the level of work that I was doing and where he wanted to be. Shortly after that, I got a call from his manager saying they were going to do bigger shows and would I like to be involved. Ed’s such a lovely guy and I enjoy his music, so I said ‘yes, I’d love to’, and we’ve been on the road ever since."

Marsh reveals that even though Sheeran is a singer-songwriter, his activity on-stage often makes him surprisingly challenging to engineer.

“Ed sings and plays guitar, so the microphone spends a lot of time on the stand, but once he’s built a loop there are many songs where he will grab the mic and run around the stage, rapping, singing, or enticing the audience, and he has the habit of cupping the microphone and holding it in the air at an awkward angle.

"With almost every microphone you can use, that changes the response dramatically and you find yourself reaching for the EQ constantly to change the tone, or to stop it feeding back into the monitors.

“The other option is that you find a capsule that works for both cupping and open, which is what I did. Mark Saunders at Sennheiser UK was really helpful by allowing us to try lots of different mic systems with Ed. The 865 is the capsule out of all those that I tried that has consistency between the open mic and the cupped.”

A Digico SD11i console is also being used on Sheeran’s current world tour.

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