DJzone DJ Magazine

Award winning country music artist Clay Walker is now an official endorser of microphones from Audio-Technica, a leading manufacturer of wired and wireless microphones, headphones and accessory products. Since the beginning of this year, Walker and his backing vocalists have used A-T microphones during their touring performances across the U.S. and Canada. For Walker, who has won Radio & Records Best New Male Artist, Top New Male Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music and Country Song Roundups Best New Male Vocalist Awards, the A-T 5000 Series Frequency-agile True Diversity UHF Wireless system and AEW-T5400a handheld transmitter are the perfect combination of nuanced sound and reliable performance night after night. And the A-T Artist Elite AE4100 Cardioid Dynamic Handheld Microphones are used to the same great effect by Walkers backup singers.

Clay is a very dynamic singer, and he needs a microphone that he feels he can control easily, that makes the best use of his vocal dynamics, explains Curt Walsh, Walkers Bassist for the last 15 years and Bike Team Coordinator for Walkers personal non-profit charity, Band Against MS. The Audio-Technica microphone gives Clay exactly that  total control. And I know our FOH mixer likes it because of its great sound and total reliability on stage.

Walsh says Clay Walker is a singers singer, who is acutely aware of what he wants in a microphone. Clay needs to hear certain key frequencies clearly, especially high-frequency transients, up around 9 kHz to 12 kHz, where it has to be really airy and transparent-sounding and get even whispered words across clearly, and not harsh in the 2.5-kHz band, he explains. Some microphones seem to be a little active in certain frequency ranges, especially in the 800 Hz range, but the A-T 5000 Series is flat across the spectrum. And between Clays T5400 and the AE4100s that our backup singers are using, its easy to achieve a great blend. Switching to the A-T microphones gave us a significant improvement over what we had been using before. It was a great move.

For more information, please visit www.audio-technica.com.