Yannis Philippakis

The Shure SM7B can be seen in use during the recording sessions for "Holy Fire"

In a photo from the new album tour, Yannis Philippakis of Foals is seen using the Sennheiser e935 microphone.

Having no real constraints on their studio time, Brett Shaw and Yannis Philippakis chose to set up a circle of mics in the live room at 123 to try out different vocal sounds. "Yannis sort of insisted on finishing all of the music before we got into the vocals," says Shaw. "I set up usually six microphones in a circle and he could just sort of skip between any of them at any point. You can just record a bit and see what it sounds like."

The circle of microphones generally comprised a Shure SM7, Neumann U67, Flea 47, an Altec 633A 'salt shaker', an AEA R44CX ribbon and a Yamaha NS10 speaker cone used as a mic. "The 'salt shaker' is a real lo-fi, gravelly thing," says Shaw. "That worked on some of the songs where Yannis really pushes his voice hard and heavy and dirty. The SM7 is probably the mic he's used most on the other albums. He'll sort of fall back on that, 'cause he knows that it's worked for him throughout the years.

In the vocal chain, the preamps tended to be the Tree Audio Branch and the Chandler REDD 47, while various compressors were used

Having no real constraints on their studio time, Brett Shaw and Yannis Philippakis chose to set up a circle of mics in the live room at 123 to try out different vocal sounds. "Yannis sort of insisted on finishing all of the music before we got into the vocals," says Shaw. "I set up usually six microphones in a circle and he could just sort of skip between any of them at any point. You can just record a bit and see what it sounds like."

The circle of microphones generally comprised a Shure SM7, Neumann U67, Flea 47, an Altec 633A 'salt shaker', an AEA R44CX ribbon and a Yamaha NS10 speaker cone used as a mic. "On the slower songs and warmer vocals, the Flea 47 sounded great. He'd get up close to that and it'd give it a big, deep dimension."

The AEA R84 can be seen in use during the recording sessions for "Holy Fire"

Having no real constraints on their studio time, Brett Shaw and Yannis Philippakis chose to set up a circle of mics in the live room at 123 to try out different vocal sounds. "Yannis sort of insisted on finishing all of the music before we got into the vocals," says Shaw. "I set up usually six microphones in a circle and he could just sort of skip between any of them at any point. You can just record a bit and see what it sounds like."

The circle of microphones generally comprised a Shure SM7, Neumann U67, Flea 47, an Altec 633A 'salt shaker', an AEA R44CX ribbon and a Yamaha NS10 speaker cone used as a mic. "The 'salt shaker' is a real lo-fi, gravelly thing," says Shaw. "That worked on some of the songs where Yannis really pushes his voice hard and heavy and dirty.

Having no real constraints on their studio time, Brett Shaw and Yannis Philippakis chose to set up a circle of mics in the live room at 123 to try out different vocal sounds. "Yannis sort of insisted on finishing all of the music before we got into the vocals," says Shaw. "I set up usually six microphones in a circle and he could just sort of skip between any of them at any point. You can just record a bit and see what it sounds like."

The circle of microphones generally comprised a Shure SM7, Neumann U67, Flea 47, an Altec 633A 'salt shaker', an AEA R44CX ribbon and a Yamaha NS10 speaker cone used as a mic. "The ribbon AEA again sounded pretty nice on the softer stuff."