For Lights ‘Alive Again’ Tour, Monitor Engineer, Andrew “Slipper" Brown, and FOH mixer, Chris Kaplinski did something that’s rarely thought of as ideal – changing out their existing wireless vocal rig shortly ahead of the tour in favour of a Sound Devices Astral wireless kit. And they have no regrets whatsoever.
Although we’re primarily discussing the Astral kit for Lights’ vocals, the two are no strangers to other GerrAudio Distribution products. In fact, the decision to deploy Astral came about after they attended Gerr’s Demo Days in Toronto in December 2024 – an event that, beyond showcasing technologies the pair refer to as “the best of the best,” fosters and cultivates a community of users.
“Slipper and I got a demo at Demo Days, and we were both intrigued by the ease of use and integration of the Sound Devices gear,” Kaplinski says. Since then, they’ve had significant success with the rig. “And the support has been classic, GerrAudio – it's the best.”
Both praise the gear for stability, ease of use, and ability to integrate it quickly and seamlessly into their live rig, but also for keeping costs down. “We recognized the budgetary considerations,” says Kaplinski, “going from a 4 or 3U down to a 1/2U cuts costs right away.”
“When it comes to wireless, one big challenge we face, especially as touring engineers in the Canadian market, is space and weight, and of course, budget,” Brown says.
“With many acts I work with, including Lights, we often fly to gigs when off-cycle, which limits what we can carry. On bus and trailer tours, we’re also restricted by weight. That’s why having a product that delivers top-tier audio quality and a wide range of capabilities in such a compact form factor is so valuable.”
“On this tour, we were fortunate to have a semi, which isn’t always the case in this market,” Kaplinski said. “Even so, we’re saving rack space, which translates to rental savings, as well as space and weight savings that reduce fuel costs. Over the course of months on the road, it all adds up.”
For Lights, the team carried an Astral A20 Nexus Receiver (now branded as Astral ARX16), two A20 Monarch Antennas, and two Astral Wireless Handheld Microphone Transmitters. “The Astral receiver can output AES, Dante, and analogue,” Brown notes. “At first, we kept it analogue to minimize changes during the initial integration. But now that we’re using AES, I wouldn’t want to go back.”
Kaplinski adds, “I did some pre-production in LA with it, and it was almost a zero learning curve – it just seemed intuitive right out of the gate. I was able to sync our transmitters, scan, and deploy frequencies entirely from the front panel displays with ease. I didn’t even need to enter the menu on the handheld as all the changes I made to frequency, name labels, and power levels were synced in real time via NextLink.”
Again, for late summer, one-off fly gigs, the compact form factor was helpful. “I could throw 8 channels of wireless into a Pelican 1510 and carry it on flights, so we have the exact same vocal sound and flexibility of wireless everywhere. That's a huge advantage,” Brown says. “To have the level of flexibility Astral offers when walking into a festival anywhere in the world is massive. Tuning capability between 169 MHz and 1525 MHz without carrying any extra hardware is insane to me. Also, I didn’t even feel the need to carry a secondary RF scanner. I could export my scans from my receiver and put them into Soundbase or Workbench to coordinate my IEMs. It was such an easy workflow.”
“Whatever the situation, the higher the comfort level, the fewer variables that might throw a wrench into the show, the better,” Kaplinski notes, citing Lights opening up for Gwen Stefani this summer. “With the gain-forward architecture of Astral, Slipper (Brown) didn't have to play around with settings like sensitivity on vocal mics, or worry about whether input gains across different consoles/I/O line up. You always want to put your best foot forward, and when you have an opportunity to play a show like that, and don’t want to be thinking, ‘What’s this gonna sound like today?’”
That’s important for artists at any stage of their career, Brown says. “It's not uncommon now for a young, up-and-coming band to have 32-plus channels, remote flyable IEM packages, or complex stage setups, where, back in the day, they might have had 12-20 shared channels already spun up on the house monitor desk and some wedges. Yet we’re still tied into the same time constraints for, say, throw and go changeovers. So, the last thing you want to be concerned about is your singer walking out and you forgot to change the sensitivity of whatever the wireless du jour is – and all of a sudden your vocals are just a disaster.”
“All (wireless rigs) sound different,” Kaplinski adds. “I've been doing one-offs, with all kinds of bands, and you might have one system for two days or three days in a row…” Or you might not, and even if it is the same system, not having your own kit is far from ideal. “We did a festival recently, with all of the artists sharing the same wireless vocal mics all day. When we walked on stage, one of the lead vocal mics was 7 dB quieter. Slipper and I, when we're working together, we don't roll like that.”
Nor do they expect their artists to.
“We’ve talked about how good the Sound Devices stuff sounds,” he adds. “But one thing we didn't get into was that there were no complaints from Lights. When you introduce a new piece of equipment, you don't want a response like, ‘This sounds different,’ or worse, ‘weird’ - and you don’t want them to suffer through it to make you happy. Neither scenario is good. But this was a totally seamless transition. She was comfortable right out of the gate.”
“I’ve been fortunate to use the mics with a couple of other artists this summer when I was at FOH,” Brown says. “And it’s been the same with them; seamless integration sonically for their monitoring, and a massive improvement for FOH clarity. “We were able to get our hands on a couple of the Astral TX instrument packs to try as well, and they solved a number of issues I’ve had with other instrument wireless. Most notably, with the Smart Guitar cable, I can make adjustments for cable capacitance and input impedance, which is genuinely a game-changer. Both Chris and I are very excited to experiment with this more.”
Again, although we’re discussing their use of a new Astral wireless kit they used for Lights (and more recently some other acts), the first question – what other Gerr represented gear are they carrying – having spoken with both before, they’ve previously discussed DiGiCo and DPA…
“All of the above,” Kaplinski says, citing their long-term use of the brands, the variety of DiGiCo desks deployed for the Lights tour, and long-term association with GerrAudio.
“I’d say we’re both DiGiCo power users for sure,” Brown says.
Kaplinski adds: “We’ve had an SD9, 10, 12, Quantum 326 and 338 so far this year. We’ve used DPA 4099s and 2011s, and I also have a Ferrofish A32pro Dante converter in my rack for the tour.”
Beyond the reliability and capabilities of those products, they point out the service Gerr offers as a major driver for their preferences. “With the initial deployment of the Sound Devices kit, I had a very short time frame to wrap my head around it,” Brown explains. “I was able to get Adrian Sterling at Gerr on the phone any time I had a question or an issue to resolve, and that was extremely helpful and comforting.”
“Even when they’re at a tradeshow in Berlin and crazy busy, they still picked up the phone,” Kaplinski puts in.
“I also want to stress how stable the Astral Handhelds were. That's a huge deal, especially with a new product; you tend to be a little apprehensive,” Kaplinski concludes. “You know, is it gonna perform the way it’s supposed to? And the Astral kit definitely did.”
“Did we bring the Astral products in because it was going to solve a specific technical problem we were having? No, not necessarily. Chris and I want to always have our best foot forward. We want to bring the best tools to the job to provide the best results while maintaining a high level of consistency.” Brown sums up.
And they’re confident it will continue to, adding they’ll be using the same kit for upcoming Lights dates in Canada and the US in 2026.
Lights Swaps to Sound Devices and Wins Big