In December I was fortunate enough to travel with Kari Jobe for her Christmas tour. Kari is a worship leader at Gateway Church in Dallas as well as a Sparrow recording artist. Her new record, “Where I Find You,” was just released in January. Because we were traveling light for the tour we ended up relying on the house systems at the churches we were to visit. I knew I needed to at least be able to provide Kari with a reliable, consistent wireless in-ear monitoring system. For this task we employed the Shure PSM 1000 Personal Monitor System. The PSM 1000 represents Shure's top-of-the-line, no-holds-barred wireless personal monitoring product. This unit packs a lot of features and screams “professional level application.”
The first feature I noticed was the RF mute switch on the front panel. During my initial use I could not understand why I saw levels metering on the transmitter but could not hear audio out of the body pack receiver. A quick switch and all was well. This is actually a great feature (no menu to search through) that allows you to quickly eliminate RF use on either channel, while still allowing you to use features like cue mode and RF spectrum plot.
What's inside
Enclosed in this full rack unit are four channels of audio transmitted across two channels of wireless frequencies. This means that you can have two separate stereo mixes or, with two additional body packs, four mono wireless mixes. If you are familiar with the PSM 900 then you will feel right at home because the look and feel is the same. In fact, the PS 1000 transmitter is compatible with 900 Series body packs, so upgrading from the PSM 900 is affordable and easy. Editor's note: Read Church Production's review of the Shure PSM 900 Personal Monitor System at www.churchproduction.com/shurepsm900.
One significant improvement from the PSM 900 is the diversity body pack. The visual cue for this is the two antennas on the body pack receivers vs. the one antenna you'll see on a PSM 900 pack. This feature dramatically improves the signal strength and range, and I have to say that this really lived up to its promise on tour with Kari Jobe. Most of the tour I ended up mixing Kari's in-ear monitor mix from front-of-house position mix position. In larger venues, this meant I had the PSM 1000 at the mix position over 100 feet away from the stage. Not once did Kari or I ever hear any type of drop out or RF interference. Compared to the PSM 900, the PSM 1000 also doubles the compatible frequencies that can be used. That's a lot more options when drudging through a muddy RF situation.
Features to note
One of the standout features on the PSM 1000 is the cue mode. In a traditional monitor engineer setup, the engineer would cue the performers' mix on the console to listen in on what the performers are listening to. Shure's cue mode allows the user to store up to 20 different channels on one pack. The user can store all of the performer's used frequencies and then quickly change between them. This enables the engineer to monitor any issues that could be happening at the RF end; the engineer is listening to the most accurate representation of the performer's experience.
Another amazing feature is the RF spectrum plot. As a traveling engineer, knowing what frequencies are available in a given venue is critical to my job. Seeing a frequency spectrum plot instantly lets you know what frequencies to stay away from, which can save a lot of time. One can pay up to $5,000 for a good RF spectrum analyzer. With the PSM 1000 you can scan the room for available frequencies with the body pack, then send that information to the transmitter for a visual read out of the scan. I can't tell you how many times this helped out on the tour. It removed the guess-work time and time again.
Shure also offers an optional rechargeable lithium-ion battery and charger (SB900) that is reported to deliver up to eight hours of use. That is double the life from typical battery use. An eight-bay charger for the battery packs is available, so you can invest your battery budget this year into real gear. Along the subject of power is the internal power supply with IEC cable pass-through. One IEC cable can power a whole rack because of IEC in/out ports in the pack. This cleans up your racks and reduces weight if you are traveling.
If you are wondering if the PSM 1000 provides any difference of an audio experience, I can tell you that the technologies surrounding the quality of audio are the same as the 900. I talked with two Shure reps at NAMM 2012 and they confirmed that the audio path is identical to the PSM 900. What is different is the RF, which does allow the PSM 1000 to stand out allowing that great sounding audio path to stay clean from the troubles of interference.
Though not yet fully supported, the PSM 1000 integrates with Shure's Wireless Workbench software. Shure was not able to tell me when it would be released. However, with the release of Workbench 6, users will have full network control of the PSM 1000.
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. Knowing that most churches deal with very realistic budget constraints, a more tangible scenario would be to purchase one of these units to add to your current monitor system. This would give your monitor engineer a way to accurately scan the RF situation in your room and provide a better way to monitor the performers' mixes with cue mode. Not to mention that you would have two solid stereo mixes to provide for your team. Street price is about $5,100.
