Toad the Wet Sprocket (L-R) Todd Nichols, Glen Phillips, and Dean Dinning. Photo by Chris Orwig.
Alt Rock favorites Toad The Wet Sprocket dropped in at TELEFUNKEN headquarters in Connecticut during their recent tour. The band filmed three songs for the company’s “Live From The Lab” series and tried out TELEFUNKEN’s new 2022 TEC Award-nominated TF11 FET condenser mics on guitars, in addition to performing with their stock of M80 dynamic mics for vocals.
Founder, lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Glen Phillips commented on the M80 vocal mics, “Our soundman has been switching me from mic to mic over the last few years, trying out some of the top brands in the market, but this year he brought out the M80 and we’re loving it – it’s totally responsive to my mic technique and he’s been using a fraction of the EQ he used to use. It’s a great mic, really clear in my ear, and he likes the bleed better when I step away.”
Toad the Wet Sprocket was formed in 1986 in Santa Barbara, CA and gained international fame in 1991 when the singles "All I Want" and "Walk on the Ocean" reached the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100. “Fear” became the band's first RIAA-certified platinum album. In 1993, the Mike Myers feature film “So I Married an Axe Murderer” included the song "Brother" on its soundtrack.
Monty Python’s Eric Idle is responsible for the name of the band. “I once wrote a sketch about rock musicians,” he recalls, “and I was trying to think of a name that would be so silly nobody would ever use it, or dream it could ever be used. So I wrote the words ‘Toad the Wet Sprocket’ And a few years later, I was driving along the freeway in LA, and a song came on the radio, and the DJ said, ‘that was by Toad the Wet Sprocket,’ and I nearly drove off the freeway.”
Glen Phillips is seen playing guitar with the new large diaphragm TF11 microphone.
The LIVE FROM THE LAB live music video series is recorded and filmed at TELEFUNKEN Elektroakustik's facility in South Windsor, CT. Each session is tracked live exclusively with TELEFUNKEN microphones and features unique performances from a variety of local, regional, national, and international artists and ensembles.
The multitrack audio files from these sessions are available for free download via clickable links below the individual performance videos. All audio files are presented in .WAV format and were recorded at 24bit / 48KHz sample rate. They are clearly labeled in the same format with the source listed first (LEAD VOX, ACOUSTIC, PIANO), followed by the microphone used (C12, AR-51, etc.) and can be downloaded and imported into your Digital Audio Workstation of choice.
For more additional content visit: livefromthelab.net
The band’s FOH engineer John Edman explained, “I’ve been working with Toad The Wet Sprocket and Glen Phillips for the last 5 years and this year I introduced the M80 for Glen to try out at rehearsals for the current tour we’re on and I received positive feedback from Glen. For starters, I didn’t need to EQ like before and I also found that the bottom was natural sounding and smoother with less of a proximity rise. The M80s off axis leakage sounded very natural, as if the mic had an omni quality to it without it being omni. A great mic for a great voice.”
Check out this new episode of TELEFUNKEN Live From the Lab, featuring “Fall Down”, “Starting Now,” and “Transient Whales
