Sheeran's front of house engineer is Chris Marsh from Major Tom, the tour's audio provider. "I first got involved with Ed last October when he was doing a club sized tour," explains Marsh. "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's microphone choice for Ed is a Sennheiser 2000 Series wireless system with an 865 capsule.
"It didn't start off like that," Marsh recalls. "When I first came on board, he was using a 945 capsule on a 500 Series wireless system. But instantly I found a problem...
"Ed sings and plays guitar, so the microphone spends a lot of time on the stand. When he's doing that it's fine, but once he's built a loop there are many songs where he will grab the mic and run around the stage, rapping, or 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, and not just Sennheiser, that has consistency between the open mic and the cupped. And Ed likes it!"
(Jim Evans)
