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Sennheiser Looks to the Future with RFX Series

For many years professionals have chosen to use Sennheiser products for two crucial reasons. The quality of Sennheiser's equipment is indisputable. But audio professionals have also come to appreciate that in the event of unforeseen situations, Sennheiser will always be there, in person or at the end of a phone, to solve any problem.

Ensuring this tradition of unparalleled customer service continues was the reasoning behind the first ever Sennheiser RFX Series: a unique training event giving Sennheiser's most talented service and support engineers from around the globe the opportunity to experience RF issues that can affect live shows at first hand. Only by dealing with problems in real life pressure situations, Sennheiser believes, can engineers pick up the field experience needed to turn RF knowledge into operational RF expertise.

Putting theory into practice, the students Sennheiser employees from the US, the UK, Denmark, India, Russia, China, Singapore and Germany learnt the nuances of RF equipment and potential problems before spending a full day installing and troubleshooting RF mics and IEMs for a nine-piece band under the watchful and demanding eyes of two very experienced live sound engineers. Digico donated their new flagship SD7 console for front of house, and a D5 for monitors, and with George Michael's monitor engineer Andy 'Baggy' Robinson and The Prodigy's Joe Campbell manning the FOH and monitor desks respectively, the team put together an RF solution enabling the band to perform a superb-sounding concert for a marquee packed with friends, families and VIPs from the Sennheiser team.

Sennheiser UK's director of engineering, Dave Hawker was the man leading the UK section of the tuition.

"Professor Sennheiser wanted a world wide team trained into the skills of operational radio," he explains. "There are many scientists and designers who manufacture the equipment, but not too many people who can actually make it work in a live environment. We had the first session in Germany earlier this year. This was theory and best practice and was run by Klaus Wilhemson, who is probably one of the most knowledgeable RF teachers around.

"This second session was putting the students in a live environment. Of course we couldn't stop an actual live show to interfere with the RF equipment. So we built our own live show. Prior to the event I set them homework about planning a live show denoting what mic goes on what, frequency planning, cables, aerials and even liaising with customs officials on transporting test equipment and a compiling a risk assessments of potential hazards. We asked them to present their answers, which they did stunningly well.

"The course is not only a technical one," Hawker continued. "Sennheiser is a world wide multi-cultural company which operates in many areas around the world, so it is very important to teach the students the interpersonal skills necessary to deal with all situations. We are lucky have Professor David Schoormann on the RFX team. He teaches the interpersonal and management skills to the students. On day two he took lessons on conflict resolution and cultural difference. Sometimes at a live event there are problems, and you're seen as the villain of the piece because you're a representative of the company. You have to know how to deal with hostile engineers and artists who need an answer very quickly. He taught the students how to deal with this sort of conflict and how to turn it to their advantage."

Having prepared for various worst-case scenarios, the students had the opportunity to put their new knowledge into action in a specially built marquee in the grounds of Adams Park, home of two-time European Rugby Champions London Wasps.

"We had them put the equipment together here," continues Hawker. "There was a pile of equipment, racks, nut, bolts, screws and some wires. They had to design the system and put it together. In the morning we installed the equipment and did some more training on the way. We sent them to lunch, at which point we sabotaged the equipment with the sort of faults you would normally find on a big live show. Come the afternoon, we made them find the faults. We very were impressed by how they did that."

"We made things go wrong deliberately," confirms Volker Schmidt, director of microphone development at Sennheiser Germany, and one of the course tutors.

"But these things have happened to all of us. Sabotaging the training day sounds stupid, but when a show's about to start, it's not so stupid. Those are real-life applications."

"The whole point of this is sales support," stresses Hawker. "It's not about the product being unreliable; in fact the products are very reliable. It's about providing a service. No matter what happens, the equipment must work perfectly in all situations. That's how you gain loyalty from engineers."

Joe Campbell came off tour with The Prodigy to lend his expertise to the final day's hands-on lessons.

"It's all very good setting up wireless gear in a workshop," he insists. "It's easy to overcome any problems there. But when there's a band playing, and it's dark, and you're tired and it's smoky and it¹s loud and you're in a rush, it's a completely different affair. The only way to know how to do it is to practice. After the sabotaging they found all the faults very quickly. I had a couple of problems with the desk that were my fault, which resulted in a couple of IEM mixes not working. But nobody panicked. They didn't go around chasing their tails; they just dealt with it as if it were part of the test!

"Choosing the brand of microphone you're going to use, naturally the gear itself has to be up to a certain standard, but that isn't the only reason you choose a particular manufacturer. For me it's the support you get from the manufacturer, knowing that there's a number you can call if you're in trouble and they can help you out. That's something that Sennheiser has always done. If you phone Dave Hawker no matter what your question is, he'll be able to answer it. If he can't fix it for you over the phone there's a good chance he'll show up and actually fix it for you in person. It's a great thing to have that level of support from a company. Combined with the quality of the equipment, that's why you see Sennheiser stuff all over the world."

Problem solving in the live music arena is just the first part of Sennheiser's training of the next generation of in-house audio experts.

"The music industry is an important element of our industry," continues Schmidt, "but how about fixed installs, theatres, hotels and churches? Producing experts in all these fields are some of the things we're going to do next."

In picture: Dave Hawker at Sennheiser RFX Series.

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Sennheiser Looks to the Future with RFX Series

29th July 2008

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