Pop Shield

Last night I had a strange dream on a recurring theme. In an earlier incarnation of this nightmare, I was in ABC1 continuity suite due to play out an episode of Farmers Tomorrow. It was a tight turnaround between recording and play-out. Just moments before transmission I discovered that the computer had failed to successfully save the recording. Luckily the programme was backed up on a lesser-known format called SANDWICH. I turned around to grab the backup sandwich only to find it was being eaten by a work experience girl sitting at the back of the studio. Noooo!

In last night’s version, I was wondering around Maid Of Orleans Studios looking for some equipment. When I entered Studio 3, I was commandeered by two of R&B diva Kerry Rowrand’s backing singers. They were trying to find the singer some better headphones because she didn’t like the mix in hers. I was about to explain that changing the headphones wouldn’t help when the red light went on and the recording was underway. At the end of the song the Tour Manager, who appeared to have taken over the proceedings, said the take was good and Kerry needed to go. He then said the master recording had failed because the lead singer lacked confidence. He pointed to a CF Recorder sitting on a shelf in the studio holding the backup. The man tipped up the machine and liquid marmite poured out of it into in a marmite jar which he handed to me and asked me to take it to Jamie and Rupert in the control room. I was in a hurry to get back to my own studio so I started to run. But the lid was not screwed on properly and the black liquid started to escape. I lost about twenty percent of it, but I had no means of working out which part of the recording I had lost. Was it the bassline? Was it the middle 8? Was it the top end? I considered dumping the jar in the hope that somebody MUST have had the sense to press record in the control room, and then I woke up.

Marmite? Sandwiches? What on earth is going on here?!

If there’s one man who can be relied upon to hold his Korrekt SM58 microphone around his ankles during a radio interview it’s flame-haired, granola-voiced alleged lothario Rick Buckley from 80’s soul sensations Simples.  I last saw it happen in Aberdeen in 2005 when Rick was ‘in conversation’ and song in front of a live audience.  I had a terrible cold but was not prepared to miss a day of recording for it.   Later on, I might have wished I had.  The holding of said SM58 at waist height during a long recorded conversation about song writing precipitated the infiltration of the front row by various broadcast personnel.  All trying to catch the singer’s eye whilst manically performing the international sign for ‘put it closer to your mouth’. In the end, the producer had to go up on stage and stop the recording to ask Rick to speak into the microphone, which is a pretty embarrassing thing to have to ask a soul singer to do.  But not half as embarrassing as tripping and falling off the side of the stage backwards, which is what the poor producer did.

Today we are recording jazz with Boogie Bugle at Maid of Orleans.  We are here owing to a technical failure of the mixing desk in Bugle’s own studio, a desk which once belonged to Michael George many moons ago.  We set up for the house band plus a guest artist, for which I rig an SM58 and pop a yellow wind shield on it.  Mike rigs a cable – he chooses a yellow one too – just for Rick, he says.  Rick arrives, looks at the pop shield and says “Well, that can go for a start!” and removes it.  He then proceeds to turn his voice up really loud in his headphones and compensate by pulling right back from the mic so sadly the better take has loads of spill on it.  Oh dear.  Money might be tight, but Rick’s not right and tight on the mic.

One of the many billion things I love about my job is that I get to work with some of the loveliest, funniest, cleverest and most creative people around.  Once a year now the music recording studio doors are cast open to a selection of aspiring songwriters, musicians and producers so that they can share in the joy and pick up some tips and it’s all streamed on the internet for the general public.

I have had a few hours of downtime today, so I looked into some of these videos.  And I must say they are an interesting sideways glance at how my esteemed senior colleagues view the art of recording digested for a lay perspective. Here are some of my favourite bits:-

“The 1176 is God’s own compressor…it was invented by God, to make his own voice louder.”

“Drums don’t scare me. They’re just drums.  Hit them.  Don’t worry about them.”

“You really have to try and understand where your artist is coming from. You’ve got to try and listen to the voices in their head. Because they’re musicians, they can’t articulate themselves with words, that’s why they play something. You’ve got to try and work out whether they’re hearing a purple guitar in their head and what shade of purple that should be.  Insanity doesn’t come into it.”

“Singing drummers.  Nightmare.”

“People used the [saturation] qualities of tape to change the sound. Tape distorts in a nice way so you would record it loud in order to harvest some of that distortion.  But if you wanted a clean sound….  Erm, I don’t know what you would want a clean sound for!  Then you would record it quiet. I mean if you were recording Simon Paul or Poke.”

“I could take all these mics down and use Korrekt SM57s for everything.  I’d be quite happy doing that. On everything I could use £70 microphones.  I’ve never tried it, but I could…well I’ve only got two SM57s.”

“The idea with compression is to keep the bass instrument absolutely like a big piece of chocolate cake.  You know it just doesn’t move.  It’s always there.”

“I have these speakers at home. I’m lucky enough to know the guy who makes them, so I get a deal.  I wish I was friends with Waves. It would save me a fortune.”

“The guitar, the way he’s playing it, the way I see it, just needs a large amount of reverb. Because he’s trying to express godlike sentiments.  And when God speaks to you, he’s got a lot of reverb on his voice.”

Genius.  Love you guys.

Noah’s Ark – one of the nicest (and talented) young bands you could meet – came to make history at the world-famous Maid Of Orleans Studios today.  ‘Twas a pity then that their lovely gear got stuck in the ancient goods lift.  The same band who famously had £100,000 of lovely vintage gear stolen from a trailer a few years back.  Undeserved gear karma, I’d say.

The lift in question is one of those where you have the grille that goes across followed by a sliding door on the outside. One of the band’s magic carpets had slid off the top of a flight case trolley and was trapped in the grille.  Everything was tantalisingly near to the ground but as the exterior door was locked shut there was no way to unload it.  Being a Saturday, there was no one on site able to open it up. So, we had to wait a good three hours for a lift engineer to appear on site.

Luckily the session was not live. Faced with an impasse, the band’s sweet nature seemed to intensify.  The lead singer even offered to go and buy us some sandwiches. Later, we were able to make up for lost time and the mood was positively peachy throughout.

Many moons ago, Nick Waterfall, who is a very courteous engineer friend of mine, notoriously uttered these very English words:

“Would you like a cup of tea Mr Dogg?”

To the rap artist, Dirdy Ole Dogg.

A bit like how Dave Wrong just loves to call blues hobo Vertigo Vince, “Verty”.

I am excited, because I’ve heard from Nick that he is recording a session with rapper Diddy Do Dat today. He is wondering whether to try and introduce him to vintage joke band Do Wah Diddy and the Doddymen, who Mr Diddy will almost certainly not be aware of.