Playing Wembley Stadium is the kind of gig that tests everything, from the mix to the microphones. For Cast’s front-of-house engineer, Jim Mitcham, supporting Oasis on their Live 25 tour meant tackling one of the most demanding acoustic spaces imaginable.
As the summer went on, Jim realised that the mics he normally used for festival and club shows weren’t giving him the clarity he needed in such vast, reverberant spaces. “I needed to tighten up my drum sound to get more control in my mix,” he told us. “The large-diaphragm overheads I usually go for just weren’t cutting through the reverb soup of a stadium.”
After a long chat about what he was hearing and what he wanted to fix, we recommended the Sontronics STC-1S, a matched stereo pair of small-diaphragm condensers with an accurate, focused response. So we loaned Jim a pair for Cast’s final shows at Wembley Stadium.
The difference was immediate. “The STC-1S brightened up the drum sound and gave me the clarity and control I was looking for,” he said. “They just handled the space perfectly.”
So perfectly, in fact, that after the Wembley shows, Jim decided to buy a pair for himself. They’ll now be joining him and the band on their upcoming Autumn/Winter tour, a fitting next chapter for microphones that proved themselves under the toughest conditions.
For us, hearing that story was a proud reminder of why we do what we do. The STC-1S have long been a studio favourite for acoustic instruments and overheads, but this was proof of how naturally they step into live environments too. It’s also why the same microphones form the heart of our Drumpack Plus, trusted by engineers who need consistency and clarity on every stage.
From a loan at Wembley to a permanent spot in Jim’s mic box, that’s the kind of real-world feedback that means the most.