They might be musically adventurous, but Radiohead have tended to favour wired instrument and mic setups over wireless solutions when they’re performing on stage.
That changed in 2025, though, when the band reunited and performed a run of European live shows. This time, they made use of the Sound Devices Astral Wireless technology, and Radiohead’s FOH mixer Simon Hodge has now been explaining what convinced them that it was time to make the switch.
“The technology always needed to catch up in a sonic sense,” he says. “The band doesn’t tend to change how they operate for the sake of changing; they only are interested in upgrades that will serve their musical goals.
“Although the band have used RF systems for guitars in the past, the opinion was always that it never sounded as good as a cable and would not be adopted,” he continues. “When we became aware of Sound Devices Astral, we realised that the team had gone to some effort to make sure it truly did sound like a jack and cable input with customizable capacitance and impedance. I remember thinking ‘We might finally have something interesting here.’”
The change wasn’t made without careful consideration, though. “After listening to it myself, we brought it into Jonny [Greenwood]’s studio and did some blind tests between Astral and their preferred cables,” Hodge says. “We all listened and even the most cynical guitar techs were impressed! The quality of the audio path was obvious, and it wasn’t changing the sound at all.”
In the end, Radiohead ended up using three Sound Devices Astral ARX32 Wireless Receivers, 42 Astral TX Digital Wireless Bodypack Transmitters, and six Astral HH Wireless Handheld Microphones for their stage show. There was also the Astral Guitar Cable, which appealed to the band because of its selectable input impedance and cable capacitance, which enabled them to match their cabled setups.
The wireless gear also helped with when band members switched guitars during the set. Together with Radiohead’s RF Tech Matt Hayes, Hodge designed a custom solution which fed the Astral ARX32 inputs into a Prodigy Audio Processor via Dante and, used custom Streamdeck controllers to provide easy accessibility to both the band and their respective guitar techs.
“The band travels with dozens of guitars, Ed O’Brien himself had 32 on this run,” Hodge reports. “This was the first time we could have all 32 at once accessible and easily switchable in the same interface, a choice that either the musician or tech can make as needed.
“The need for quick, seamless changes in a live show is incredibly important and often more challenging when done in an ‘in the round’ setup as we had,” he continues. “The ease of use in the Astral UI allowed us to manipulate the signal flow seamlessly, which worked really well for the logistics of the show and allowed us total control with no compromises.”
It sounds like the Astral Wireless gear is here to stay, then, having stood up to the challenges of live performance without detracting from the overall spectacle.
“The band is very invested in the experience being as real as possible without any ‘fixes’ or gimmicks,” says Hodge (there are no backing tracks or Auto-Tune in play). “There’s a lot of pressure for these shows to be amazing given the following that the band have. This is countered by the fact that the band are extremely reasonable people who are very invested in their output and their fans, so they enjoy the challenge to get the best results, rather than deferring to ‘easier’ solutions.”
Summarising what makes the Sound Devices kit different, Hodge says: “It was an excellent experience for both the band and the fans because the setup allowed it to be intimate while still giving us excellent control of all the sonic and visual details that are so important,” he says. “We are all very invested in that personal experience and anything added only makes the cut if it’s guaranteed to do that.”
“The Astral Guitar System ended up being a game changer for us, and the band have been quite happy with the results on stage.”
