Vanessa Paradis Switches to Wireless with Spectera Handheld on Tour

Vanessa Paradis's 2026 tour of arenas, large indoor venues and festivals relies on Sennheiser's Spectera wideband wireless setup, among them the recently launched SKM handheld transmitter. According to monitor engineer Matthieu Speck, it is the first time in her career that the singer has agreed to use a wireless microphone on stage.

The audio team consists of Speck on monitors, Julien Decarne at front of house, Nelly Robert on RF and François Kerjan on sequencing. Equipment is supplied by the French rental company MPM AUDIOLIGHT, whose operations director David Nulli said the firm invested early because customers asked for the system from launch. The tour is part of the Spectera Pioneer Program, which lets engineers talk to Sennheiser developers directly, including on Discord.

The rig

• two Spectera Base Stations and one backup unit;
• 28 SEK bodypacks;
• two Spectera handhelds for vocals;
• in-ear monitoring at 96 kHz;
• eight Neumann MCM 114 clip-on mics on congas, bongos, saxophones and trombone;
• four MKH 8018 stereo shotguns for audience sound, two in narrow XY for the tiers and two in wide XY for the stalls.

On the road

Speck said that at the Zénith arena in Lille the team could not break the radio link even from the highest seats, with either the handheld or the bodypack. The system runs alongside SK 6000 transmitters used for backline communication. Musicians can change the main settings on their own bodypacks, while Robert can lock critical functions remotely during the show.

Speck described wireless in-ear transmission as formerly the weakest part of the chain and compared the move to 96 kHz with going from standard definition to 4K. He also noted that firmware updates such as version 1.3 install in minutes.