Touring audio and RF engineer Ali Viles, who over the span of three decades has worked with artists that Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Coldplay, Madonna, Metallica, Bruce Springsteen, Bruno Mars and many others in addition to running his Mission Control Limited consultancy business that supports 80 to 100 tours at any given time, regularly employs wireless systems from Wisycom in his work.
“I first used Wisycom gear in Mumbai on a music video shoot with Coldplay for a then-unreleased song,” he says. “We were trying to keep the song under wraps, so we needed to use an IEM system on the band, but it had to be battery powered and able to run off a laptop. We also needed battery powered transmitters for the band to wear. This approach allowed them to hear the song and sing along for the shoot. At that time, the Wisycom MTK952 wideband in-ear dual transmitter was the only thing I was aware of with that option that was also easily portable. Following the success of that project, I was intrigued to see how the brand worked in a live concert setting.”
Next, Viles demoed a Wisycom IEM package that he ultimately used on tour with the English Band, Gorillas. “Off the back of that tour, I wanted to learn more about it and began to work closely with Wisycom,” he adds. “What Wisycom was doing was miles ahead of the competition, so we started using it on tour with Coldplay. At the same time, it was also out with Beyoncé on the OTR II Tour and eventually on the Madonna Madame X Tour. It quickly became evident to anyone who used the Wisycom wireless IEM system that it was a game changer.”
For the Coldplay tour, Viles deployed the MTK952 on 22 channels and 60 Wisycom MPR50-IEM receiver packs, which were used for the band, crew and guests. To deliver stadium-wide RF coverage, Viles’ team relied on the Wisycom MFL RF-over-fiber system with 20 discreet, single-mode fiber links that allowed them to provide remote IEM transmits between the stages, which were positioned at either end of the arenas. “This setup allowed us to deliver coherent RF coverage of multiple IEM channels spread across the stadium,” he explains.
For Viles, the decision to use Wisycom comes down to three key elements: “The first is the tuning range, The MTK952 and MPR-50 IEM beltpack receiver tunes from 470 to 700 MHz. This allows you to work pretty much anywhere in the world with the same physical set of hardware, as long as you adhere to the legal restrictions and license limitations of each country. I can take the same gear from Amsterdam one week and use it in Italy the next, and then use it in the U.S. or Southeast Asia the week after. To get something else that covers that same spectrum would require three or four times the amount of equipment, which obviously is not financially viable. With Wisycom, I know I will be able to make it work anywhere within that legal spectrum, and that’s huge.”
