ORLANDO, Fla. – The Backstreet Boys, the best-selling boy band of all time with over 100-million album sales worldwide and a dozen U.S. top 40 hits to their name, are back on the road with their Unbreakable Tour. The line-up may have slimmed down from five to four members, but the boys haven't changed their preference for Sennheiser vocal microphones, once again opting to use SKM 565 G2 wireless handhelds, along with Sennheiser ew 300 IEM G2 personal monitoring systems.
Monitor engineer Doug Deems, who started working for BSB – as they are known to their fans – when they returned in 2004, tried various models of microphone on the singers in order to find one that suited every voice, rather than choose several different models and attempt to keep track of them on the busy stage. It soon became apparent that the SKM 565 G2, an ME 865 super-cardioid condenser capsule atop the SKM 500 RF handheld, was the overall best fit.
"I wanted everybody on the same capsule," he says. "That was my main goal, to find something that they all sounded good with, and the ME 865 just sounds amazing on all four of them. It just jumped out." For the Unbreakable Tour, the Backstreet Boys have had the vocal mics customized with a black gloss finish and gold windscreens, says Deems.
"As for the G2 personal monitors," says Deems, "I flat out won't use anything else. I don't know how you can listen to all the available units side by side and not choose the G2s." In addition to the four singers, two backline techs are also on ew 300 IEMs on a communications network that also includes the FOH and monitor engineers and the backing band's musical director.
To ensure interference-free performance of more than twenty wireless channels, Deems relies on SIFM (Sennheiser Intermodulation and Frequency Management) software. Available as a free download from Sennheiser's website, the SIFM software enables the rapid calculation of intermodulation-free radio frequencies for wireless microphone and monitoring systems. "It's probably the one thing indispensable to getting 21 channels of RF spread out across four different frequency groups to work together. Learning about intermodulation and using SIFM have made it exponentially easier to keep all this wireless working," says Deems. "I think it says a lot about Sennheiser as a company that they put this amazing tool on their site for free."
To give the four singers – Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell and A.J. McLean – ambience in their monitor mixes, Deems uses Sennheiser shotgun microphones. "Two of my room mics are MKH 416s. If you want it to sound like the room, just put up a pair of 416s," Deems says.
Despite the high-tech wireless equipment, a seemingly insignificant Sennheiser accessory has actually proved especially useful, according to Deems. "Sennheiser happens to make these little colored caps that go on the bottom of the mic in the colors I had earlier assigned to each one of the boys. I didn't do the promo and the rehearsals this time around, but when one of the Backstreet Boys walked in and someone tried to give him a red mic, he immediately replied, 'No! I'm brown. I'm always brown.'"
Deems, who has worked with a diverse roster of internationally known clients that includes Kid Rock, Julio Iglesias, Mary J. Blige, David Sanborn, Destiny's Child and Megadeth, says that he can always rely on Sennheiser's support. "I can't say enough about Kristy Jo Winkler and the entire Global Relations team. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, they take care of you right away. Not that I ever need to worry – even Sennheiser's prototypes work better than most manufacturer's final production equipment."
Promoting the Backstreet Boys' "Unbreakable" album, released at the end of 2007, the current tour has already passed through Japan, Australia, several Asian countries, including China, followed by Mexico and Europe, and will visit the Baltic States and Russia before the end of May. Tour dates in the United States are currently scheduled to begin in August.
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