Spain's La Voz TV Contest Uses PSM IEMs & UHF-R, ULX-D & Axient Wireless Mics
The fourth series of TV vocal talent contest La Voz, recently completed on Spanish television, made extensive use of Shure wireless technology, including PSM 900 and PSM 1000 in-ear monitoring and UHF-R, ULX-D and Axient wireless microphone systems.
La Voz, which airs on Spain's Telecinco channel, is the Spanish version of The Voice, the international television franchise founded by Dutch television producer John de Mol. As well as completing a fourth successful season, the show, like many of its equivalents around the globe, has spawned a hit junior edition, La Voz Kids, featuring contestants between the ages of 8 and 14. Over the course of several weeks, dozens of hopeful singers compete in the programme to demonstrate their talent, supported by a changing cast of celebrities and artists who appear on air each week to perform and judge the contestants.
Madrid-based AV Facilities company SBA Radical Sound was responsible for supplying the AV infrastructure behind the weekly show, which, as Radical Sound's Engineering Manager, Víctor Ondaro explains, combines all the energy of a live concert with the additional demands of a prime-time national broadcast. Many microphones were needed, and the decision was taken to use wireless microphones and in-ear monitoring to give the performers maximum freedom to move during their performances.
Radical Sound has a history of specifying Shure wireless systems for mission-critical work, and according to Víctor Ondaro, 160 channels of wireless were used in the final system design for the show, including mic channels, IEMs, and behind-the-scenes channels for ENG and communications. The final line-up ran to 70 UHF-R transmitters (35 UR1 units and 35 UR2s, with a mixture of SM58 and KSM9 capsules) and 16 ULX-D digital transmitters; for some of the episodes of La Voz which were transmitted live, Shure's top-of-the-range Axient wireless systems were used for even greater reliability. The guest artists and celebrity coaches on the show all used PSM 1000 in-ear monitoring systems, while PSM 900s were used for the contestants.
According to Víctor Ondaro, the Shure systems used on the show proved their "reputation, reliability, and quality" during the broadcast of the show's fourth series. He concludes: "The robustness of the Shure systems and the outstanding management with the Workbench 6 software gave us the peace of mind we needed for broadcast, and the artists felt comfortable at all times."
The third series of La Voz Kids is currently airing weekly on Telecinco thoughout Spain, and preliminary contests are currently being held in shopping malls throughout the country to find contestants for La Voz's fifth series.