We’re humbled by the nice things reviewers have said recently about our headphones, mics, and PSM 1000. Here’s a sampling…

SRH940 Professional Reference Headphones
“If you’re an audiophile looking for professional-quality headphones, try the SRH940s before spending much, much more on the competition. These are incredible headphones at an incredible price.”  – Nic Vargus, MacLife

SRH1840 Professional Open Back Headphones
“The best headphones that I myself have ever used…almost everything sounds ‘right’ to my ears.” – Andy Hong, TapeOp

VP89 End-Address Shotgun Condenser Microphone
“The VP89 is an excellent, high quality microphone.” – Mark Holder, Videomaker

KSM42 Large Dual-Diaphragm Vocal Microphone
“There’s something weirdly comforting about the thought that I could throw this thing in front of 90 percent of the vocalists that wander in and be perfectly satisfied with the results.” – Luke Harper, Post Magazine

PSM®1000 Personal Monitor System
“In a perfect world, a church would be well off in having a whole rack of PSM 1000s to provide some of the best wireless monitors available in the market today.” – Nolan Rossi, Church Production Magazine

Wireless Systems

• Axient Wireless Management Network
  2012 NAMM “Best in Show—This Year’s Hottest Products” Gotta Stock It Award
• PGX Digital Wireless
  2011 TEC Award for Outstanding Technical Achievement, Wireless Technology
  2011 Music & Sound Retailer Music & Sound Award for Best Wireless System
• ULX-D Digital Wireless
  2012 Pro Sound Network Best of Show Awards: NAMM Edition

Personal Monitoring

• PSM 1000 Personal Monitor System
  2011 Music & Sound Retailer Music & Sound Award for Product of the Year
  2012 ProSoundWeb and Live Sound International  Readers’ Choice Award

Wired Microphones

• Beta 181 Ultra-Compact Side-Address Microphone
  2011 TEC Award for Outstanding Technical Achievement, Microphone Technology / Sound Reinforcement
  2011 Music & Sound Retailer Music & Sound Award for Best Wired Microphone
• KSM42 Large Dual-Diaphragm Vocal Microphone
  2012 ProSoundWeb and Live Sound International  Readers’ Choice Award for Best Product, Condenser Microphones
• SM58 Vocal Microphone
  2011 Musical Merchandise Review Dealer’s Choice Awards for Microphone Line of the Year

Earphones

• SE215 Sound Isolating Earphones
  2011 PCMag.com Best of the Year Award

Okay, success celebrated. Back to the grindstone.

Nashville, TN

Soundland Nashville has taken over the town with great new upcoming bands.  I hope you got a chance to go out and hear some new music.

I started out my day on Thursday by visiting a panel discussion at the Belcourt Theatre on the success of the band The Civil Wars.  If you are not familiar with the group yet, please click on the link.  They are on tour in Europe with Adele, who was quoted saying this is her favorite group live. The speakers included people from their record label, distribution, marketing, and their producer.  It was very interesting to listen to the details of how this group came together, by chance, at a writing seminar and immediately hit it off.  So many great opportunities have come their way and their team has done a great job of handling them.  Their success at iTunes was amazing and now they are opening for one of the best selling artists. Go pick up their record, Barton Hallow, …. immediately after you finish reading this blog of course.

Following this panel was another regarding Grooveshark, the music streaming service. So many people are starting to enjoy having access to thousands of songs at their fingertips.

After that, I went over to Soundland’s temporary headquarters to catch an interview and performance with new Endorser Justin Townes Earle.  American Songwriter did the interview and Shure captured it all.  We supplied a couple of KSM42′s, a KSM353 ribbon mic, some Beta 27′s, and a few SM57′s to capture these moments, which will later be put up online.  The engineer’s were enjoying it all through a couple sets of SRH940 headphones.  The mixes sounded great!  (see pics below).  There will be many other artists interview up as well so visit Soundland’s website often to see them up there soon.

I then walked over to the 12th avenue concert are and waited for the evening’s show to begin.  Tonight featured a group that’s starting to take off – Cults.  Closing the show were endorsers Foster The People.  I watched Cults perform for a little bit and noticed that they were using a non-Shure vocal mic up front.  However, halfway through the set, I saw the monitor engineer change out to an SM58. Sounded like it may have helped a bit.  Festival situations are always difficult to walk in to as you may not get the soundcheck you are used to.

Foster took the stage and proceeded to rock the crowd. An energetic set and a great light show was just what the crowd needed.  While I was hanging out watching their set, I was back by one of the food trucks.  This was a BBQ food truck !  The owner called me over to take a look at what he had on the smoker.  Upon opening the lid, he revealed about 10 pulled pork roasts, completely caramelized over and smelling way too good.  He asks one of his assistants for a serving dish and proceeds to pull apart the meat to give me a sample.  Heavenly….is the word that comes to mind.  Then, if it couldn’t get any better, he offers me some of that caramelized bark!  DONE!  I’m falling deeper and deeper into BBQ bliss…”and I can’t get up.”

After a great set by Foster The People, I met with their sound engineer who proceeded to tell about how much they love the UR wireless mics and the PSM900′s.  Then I’m escorted to the buses where I’m introduced to both Mark Foster and Mark Pontius who thanked Shure for our support.  Foster is loving the freedom of his wireless UR2/KSM9 vocal mic, saying “it’s made me a new frontman.”

The next day (Friday, Sept 23), I went over to the Cannery Ballroom to grab a video interview with Justin Townes Earle. Justin has a rich, deep knowledge and appreciation of traditional country artists.  He loves to talk about them.  They have influenced the way he chooses to perform and connect with his audience.  Justin also loves his new Beta 57A vocal mic as well as his PSM900 ear system. I don’t want to spoil the surprise when you see the interview on our website so I will stop at saying that this was a great interview to be a part of and I have meet another wonderful, approachable artist in this exciting world that is our music industry.

Please take a gander at some of the photos and if you attended Soundland, please (pretty please) write back and let us know of your experiences.  We’d love to hear from you!

A special THANKS to the folks at American Songwriter magazine for inviting Shure to be a part of this event.

Ryan