Sound Devices

Wireless microphones are one of the biggest headaches in live sound, and basically across Africa. When I started in this industry 24 years ago, having 2 wireless mics on a show was fine. 4 wireless mics was like impressive. Sometimes I would do a show with not even one wireless mic, but that world is gone. Today the lead vocalist needs a wireless mic, guest artists need a wireless mic, backing vocalists want a wireless mic. A conference with a panel of 12 people, every single one of them needs a lapel. I have done shows with 52 performing artists plus backing vocalists and also presenters. That was the Trace Music Awards in Rwanda, the first one ever to happen with wireless microphone counts above 32. And this being a compromise because of the limited resources as they were flying in the wireless system from a different country. I have done the B20, which is a business event for the countries in the G20 this past year in South Africa, where one show alone needed 24 wireless handled mics for panel discussions. And another part of that show needed 5 handles for the lead vocalists, 24 headsets for the choir, plus also presenters' wireless mics. mics, the channel count of these wireless mics, they just keep going up. And then there is the frequency problem. Africa is not one country, it is 54. Every region has different frequency regulations and different congestions from like television and radio channels. I did a show in Zambia for Bloomberg last year with a mixture of wireless systems, basically just different brands, you know. different models. By the end of day 1 of that show, I had to kill more than half of them. Interference from the local broadcasters. And because every single receiver was locked to its frequency band, there was really nothing I could do. This is the reality of buying wireless gear that is made for another region. You buy in the UK and you get European frequencies, buy in the US and you get American frequencies, bring it to Africa and you are already in trouble before the show even starts. And then there is the coverage problem, which is a different thing altogether again. I once did a stadium event in Mexico at the Estadio Azteca, one of the most iconic stadiums in the world. and 50,000 people across 2 days for that event. It was for Prophet T.B. Joshua. He was not just on stage. He moved from stage into the stadium, walking to different sections, addressing the crowd from whatever he felt led to do or led to go. With the system we had at that time, that meant multiple receivers positioned in different parts of the stadiums. And I manually switched to the nearest receiver every time he moved to a different section altogether. It worked, but it was really too much work. Sound Devices was founded in 1998 in the US by a team of engineers who previously worked at one of the biggest microphone brands. In 2018, they acquired a UK wireless microphone company called Audio Limited, and that combined expertise became what is now the Astro series. The centerpiece for live production is the Astro ARX32. It has 32 channels of wireless microphones in one rack, basically just one box. Here's the part that matters for Africa. Specifically, the ARX32 uses SpectraBand technology, a tuning range from 169 MHz to 1525 MHz. megahertz that covers virtually every licensed frequency band on Earth. You can change the country profile for the entire system in under 1 minute. No frequency locking, no limitations. Whatever region you are working in, the system basically adapts to that. And when you arrive at a congested venue and you need to find 32 clean frequencies fast, the RX32 has a built-in real-time spectrum display on its front screen, basically showing you exactly which frequencies are in use, which ones are congested, and then which ones are free. Then it uses auto-assign to basically allocate clean frequencies to all your microphones in literally just seconds, with backup frequencies also built in for redundancy. And this is all happening, no laptop, no external software. It is all right there, just in that box, you know. Just build your rig and go. Now for the TB Joshua scenario, for a speaker or a performer moving through a massive venue, the Astro system has a product called the Astro Outpost. You basically connect it to the RX32 via a standard network cable or fiber, place it anywhere in the venue, the far end of the stadium, behind the stage if you need to. I've had events like that, wherever the action is going, and it extends the entire antenna coverage to exactly that location. You can deploy up to 8 Outpost units across one venue simultaneously. No manual switching, no stress. The system literally covers that whole space. The artist called The Weeknd for his stadium tours, he uses also the Astral system, and there's been more and more artists adopting to it. And for Africa, where, where RF environments are unpredictable, where you're often working in multiple countries, where traveling with 20 receivers is already a logistical challenge, one box that can do 32 channels, you know, and covers every frequency band on, on Earth, you know, for the wireless systems, connecting them automatically and can extend antennas across an entire stadium via a single network cable is not just efficient, it is exactly what we've always needed. You are only considered a professional when you use professional tools. I'm Remember. Thank you for watching.