A variety of microphones from Audio-Technica were used for singer James Arthur's recent headline tour.

Arthur, who won X Factor back in 2012, has sold more than 2.5 million copies of his first single Impossible, and released a successful eponymously-titled debut album in November last year.

For the tour, FOH engineer Darren Mullis opted for a selection of A-T mics, including an AE5400 cardioid condenser, AE6100 hypercardioid dynamic and AE2500 dual-element cardioid dynamic/condenser – on both vocals and backline.

“When we went into rehearsals with James we had numerous microphones to try for different applications,” Mullis commented, “and we quickly settled on an Audio-Technica AE5400 for James' vocal and AE6100's for backing vocals.

"The AE5400 is a great fit for James and its top-end dips at about 5-6k, which helps get rid of sibilance. Rejection from those microphones is great, which really helps me because the band’s monitor wedge mix is fairly loud, and the crowds are incredibly loud. But we barely notice that noise down the vocal lines, so clarity is great and James’ vocal is very clean at FOH, which is obviously what people want to hear.”

Mullis – who also works with American pop trio Haim – began using Audio-Technica in 2005 and still favours his original AT4050 large diaphragm condenser on snare, as well as AE3000 cardioid condensers on toms.

Mullis added: “James’ live shows are very much a ‘band’ gig with very little playback, so drums and guitars are very important. I’ve used the AE3000 for toms for a few years and they continue to serve me very well – I find I get everything I want out of the toms without having to manipulate my EQ very much at all. And the combination of both dynamic and condenser capsules in the AE2500 is fantastic on guitar and delivers both the bite and punch needed with no phase problems.”

TAGS: Live Sound, audio-technica, wireless karaoke microphone