Big Big Train – “The Transit of Venus Across The Sun”
Box, United Kingdom, November 2017 – English prog-rock band Big Big Train picked an arsenal of TELEFUNKEN microphones for their rehearsals at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios before taking them out on the road for their recent tour.
Big Big Train is using the entire TELEFUNKEN Dynamic Series of microphones, including the M80-WH and M80 on vocals, M81 and M81-SH on guitar amps and horns, plus two DC7 seven-microphone drum packs on the large custom drum set provided by Sonor. Rehearsals were recorded and filmed for future release.
David Longdon (vocals, flute, keyboards and guitars) commented, “I have used Telefunken mics quite a lot in the studio and know how great they sound. They always work and seem to bring life to the instruments they are put on. With Big Big Train we have a big band with a lot of different instrumentation. From my vocals to the brass ensemble, guitars, bass, and Nick’s big drum kit, I knew using Telefunken live would be a great choice and they did not disappoint at all.”
The band’s FOH mixer Rob Aubrey added, “All the mics I used at rehearsals and gigs were perfect straight out of the box with little or no EQ.”
Big Big Train was formed in 1990. The current line-up consists of Nick D’Virgilio (drums), Dave Gregory (guitars), Rachel Hall (violin and vocals), David Longdon (vocals, flute, keyboards and guitars), Danny Manners (keyboards and bass), Andy Poole (guitars, bass and keyboards), Rikard Sjöblom (keyboards and guitars) and Gregory Spawton (bass, guitars and keyboards). They have released eleven studio albums and three EPs. The band released the single “Merry Christmas” on December 8.
Real World Studios is a residential recording studio and rehearsal space founded by Peter Gabriel and situated in the village of Box, Wiltshire. The studio’s 2,000 sq. ft. Big Room has two isolation booths and houses an SSL XL 9000 K mixing console, with additional outboard equipment surrounding the room.
All the audio files for this session are clearly labelled in the same format with the source listed first, then the microphone used.
The entire session was tracked live at a 48K / 24 bit sample rate through a Midas console via MADI to the JoeCo Black Box Recorder. These files can be imported into your digital audio workstation of choice by downloading and unzipping from the link below.