With a unique mixture of progressive rock, ambient, electronica, trip hop and other styles of musical collective, Archive has found an enthusiastic audience across Europe. The bands recent run of shows on the continent some of which included a full orchestra has been a huge success, with Sennheiser and Neumann analogue and digital […]
With a unique mixture of progressive rock, ambient, electronica, trip hop and other styles of musical collective, Archive has found an enthusiastic audience across Europe. The bands recent run of shows on the continent some of which included a full orchestra has been a huge success, with Sennheiser and Neumann analogue and digital microphones ensuring that every nuance of the bands complex sound comes across clearly.
Front-of-house engineer Spike Joness use of Sennheiser mics goes back to the mid-1980s, when he first came across them at Londons Nomis rehearsal studios. “Since the early 1990s I have used Sennheiser on tour, though its not always possible when you are using house systems and venues do not supply them,” he says. For some time, this was the situation with Archive. “We were using any mics that the venues could supply and it was never satisfactory,” he continues. “I know what the bands instruments and vocals should sound like, but there was always uncertainty whether the mics we found at the venues would reproduce them to a good enough standard.”
As Archives popularity grew and audience sizes increased, Spike knew that he had to resolve the problem quickly. He approached Sennheiser directly, with the aim of getting a full set of the mics of his choice. The company was happy to help and, ever since, Spike has had complete confidence that what goes into the microphones is what will come out. “Now we have consistency of the sound from source,” he says. “You cannot underestimate the importance of that to a sound engineer!”
For some time Spike has used e 901s, e 902s, e 905s, e 914s and e 604s on the drum kit, an e 902 on the bass guitar, e 606s and e 906s on guitars and an e 965, e 935 and e 945 on the bands vocals. The e 901 gives the kick drum great attack and depth, while the e 905 is sharp and very tough for its size, which makes it ideal for close snare miking.
“I use e 604s on toms because they are small, they dont get in the way and can handle the low-end frequencies. The e 606 and e 906 are perfect for guitar and I think the e 935 is the best-sounding rock vocal microphone available. Its ideal for Dave Pens vocals. Pollard Berrier usually uses an e 965, because its softer character allows me to get his vocals clearly over the loud band behind him.”
