The Temper Trap's tour is covering Europe and Australia and they will be paying particular attention to the US during 2010, which they did not manage to cover as fully as they would have wished in 2009.
"The band relocated to the UK in late February 2008 to help build a fan base in Europe," McNeil says. "It was only meant to be for that year's festival season, but they just took off. We thought we'd be on tour for a year, but we're now going to carry on until November or December this year, which will make it nearly two years on the road."
McNeil has been using Sennheiser equipment for a number of years and it is an important element of his touring rig. "The first Sennheiser mic that really blew me away was the 935 vocal mic," he says. "I was working in a venue up in Glasgow at the time and what struck me immediately was that it sounded like another industry favourite after you'd done a lot of work on it. But the 935 was straight out of the box and in. After that, I tried as much Sennheiser gear as I possibly could."
His kit list for The Temper Trap includes a range of Sennheiser microphones - e 901 on kick, e 904s on toms, e 905 on snare, e906s for cabs and further e 935s for the bands backing vocals - and for him, simplicity is the key.
"There's already enough to do," he says, "so I like things that sound really good with minimal effort. The band is happy that the 935 can take a lot of abuse, outside that they're happy to go with whatever I recommend."
(Jim Evans)
