Queen of Shred Matches Audix OM7 With Four-Octave Vocal Range

The Commander In Chief is not the type of artist one runs into every day; master of metal seven-string guitar, operatically-trained vocalist with a four-octave “super-sonic” range, and all at 23 years of age! This Norwegian born, world-raised metal maven is taking the hard rock community by storm with a unique and finely-honed collection of skills; any one of which many other musicians would envy.

Under the careful guidance of a manager who also happens to be an Italian-trained professional operatic soprano, ‘The Commander’ has developed extraordinary vocals skills to augment her blistering seven-string guitar chops. “She’s been singing from an early age”, explains manager Elisabeth Hagen. “There was obvious talent in this young girl bouncing around the house with her toy microphone. She just needed training and the right tools to express her performance.”

Finding a vocal mic that could not only keep up with but exceed this voice has been a challenge. “Oh definitely the case”, says The Commander. “The Audix microphones are really awesome. They were introduced to me by my sound engineer, Manni Hammond, and I have used them ever since. They are perfect for my voice. .”

“The Commander is a massive challenge on vocals”, says Hammond – FOH engineer since her first public appearances. “She has four octaves that she can sing over. I’ve tried numerous mics and none of them captured the complete sound and range of her voice. Some were really harsh on the high-end, which is critical because she has a spike in the higher frequencies.”

Finding the right mic for such a challenging voice took Hammond through the usual choices until he tried Audix. “I used an OM5 from my kit and it smoothed everything out. With the OM7, however, I got an even better off-axis rejection on loud stages and better gain before feedback, so that was our final choice.”

“As The Commander has gained more experience and confidence, her dynamic range has increased too”, continues Hammond.” She can go from a whisper to just belting it out, so I do have to ride the vocal level and use some dynamics, mostly with the Presonus Eureka channel strip. But it all starts with the OM7.”

“The right microphone is the one thing that has really been missing in the development of her complete performance”, adds manager/vocal coach Hagen. “Other microphones would sound compressed and couldn’t reproduce the harmonics. With the OM7, we now hear every single nuance in The Commander’s voice.”

“The Audix OM7 is very sensitive to such a complex voice” continues Hagen. “It’s been difficult to find a microphone that can pick-up all the harmonics of The Commander’s voice and be consistent with her wide range of dynamics and a physically active performance.”

In addition to OM7’s for vocals, FOH engineer Hammond uses the Audix i5 on her guitar cabs. “And I’m a mad fan of the Audix D6! With a well-tuned kick drum, you just slide it in with little or no eq –and i5’s on the snare sound wicked too! I haven’t got a bad word about Audix mics. They (have broken away from the old standards)? They’re a new company (27 years new!) who are getting things right.”

Coming off of her major debut at Bloodstock Open Air, Derbyshire, the U.K. this summer, The Commander In Chief is slated for a growing schedule of club and festival performances for the remainder of the year. Reviews of this still-young artist’s career are excellent and numerous throughout metal magazines and web sites worldwide.

One can only imagine what another four years of daily vocal training will produce for this remarkable voice. And Audix will be there to capture every blistering octave!

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Twitter – @commandermusic