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Peak At Six

How to mix like a six year old

How to mix like a six year old

Rock and (Vegan Sausage) Roll

Uber cool American drummer with big hair: “I’m hungry. Say, do you have one of those little pastry restaurants near to here?”

Me: “Hmm. Pastry restaurant. Do you mean Presque?”

Plugger: “I think he’s referring to Dreggs.”

Me: “Ah yes sir. The little gentlemen’s pastry restaurant around the corner. Go out of the building, turn left and left again and it’s on your left.”

Well it’s been an interesting morning on the Nations Favourite, including an impromptu dance routine in the style of The Power Girls throughout the travel bulletin by wild-eyed, wild-haired, comic monitor lizard Buzz Bailiff.

“Who’s headlining the embargoed event that everyone forgets the name of?” says Mavis Marbles on the reverse talkback early one morning. “I’ve been asked to introduce them on stage, it would be nice to know who it is.”

“Let me see. Hmm, right. Well it’s a whole load of the usual suspects, blah blah blah, the ubiquitous avant-garde mime artists Dirty Beggar, blah blah blah…finishing up with 80’s soul sensations Simples featuring flame-haired, granola-voiced alleged lothario Rick Buckley” replies Golden Boy.

“Oh, I rather like Rick Buckley!” says Mavis. “I do think he gets a bad rap; you know. Everyone likes to not like him and goes on about his flame hair and his extraordinarily long arms and it’s all rather unkind. I mean what’s wrong with him?”

“Well, he’s reputedly a lothario for one” offers Melody.

“Is he? Does that even matter? Anyway, I like his granola voice” says Mavis.

“That’s it – long arms!” I exclaim, almost choking on my actual granola. High on sleep deprivation and eureka-moment euphoria. “Of course!! That would account for the abominable mic technique!”

Quote | April 24, 2019

The First Rule of Rock and Roll

Ugh. Can’t we please change that m201 for a 57. Hurrah! It’s THE FIRST RULE OF ROCK AND ROLL. If a snare sounds bad on an SM57, change the snare.

Pearl of wisdom from The Mixmaster General

February 16, 2019

Dithering About

“It’s a Full Tilt Audio procurement exercise that we’re lumbered with for the next ten years. Thanks a f****** lot! It’s not a broadcast desk, it’s a PA desk. And it’s not even a very good PA desk!!!”

“My general approach to MADI is… You can take your MADI and you can STICK IT UP YOUR A***! It’s an absolute nightmare and that usually applies to the people operating it rather than the kit. It’s a world of pain. You’ve got to assume that some clever b****** is going to f*** you over.”

“Happy so far? Good. Because there’s bad news on the way”

“These arrows here are cursor keys in the fantasy land that Dither & Co. inhabit. Curses.”

“The broadcast add-on brings a stab in the dark by Dither & Co. to guess what broadcasters may need. And without ANY BROADCAST EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER they have created this extension that in some fantasy world may do some things. We’ll see in a minute how s**** those options are.”

“You will rapidly realise all of the menus are s***. It’s all written by different software engineers and none of them join up.”

– Lead engineer tows the official company line during the Dither and Co desk training

December 19, 2018

Top That Again

So, it’s my last Top Cat Show on Nations Favourite before he retunes himself to Cherry FM. It’s my second in a row. Every day this pre-Christmas week is a Friday format which is another way of saying a celebrity pile-in. Yesterday we had so many choristers inside the studio, backs pressed against the glass like sardines in a tin that it was impossible for the production team to physically see what we were trying to produce. Today I set my alarm for 2.30am in order to get everything rigged in time, including a little sub-mixer for the 7-piece acapella group Streptochorus. The only way to stop my brain exploding with all the things to do whilst in forced awake state – when it is supposed to be fast asleep consolidating the madness of yesterday – is by carrying out a 20-point action plan I’ve written down. Amazingly it works and I manage to get through the soundcheck and transmission with no stress or upset whatsoever. Fast forward to the last five minutes of the show. The studio is humming again. Unbeknownst to me, as I can’t see, the travel reader has not been able to get to her microphone for her bulletin. Nor the mic I’ve put out in case she can’t get to her mic. “And now the travel!” Says Top Cat “From the red mic!” Off-mic I hear the travel reader adding “If that’s alright”. Forgetting the control room is packed too, I pronounce rudely “NO ITS NOT ALRIGHT!!! £&@?#%€$!!!!” before flinging open all the Streptochorus faders on the sub mixer and then take out all the ones she’s not on. It’s a respectable reaction time given the circumstances. There is some laughter. What I don’t notice is one person who has snuck in behind me for the last few minutes of the show. It’s the General Director of The Corporation. Oops. We come off air and he turns to me and says, ‘fantastic job’.

October 3, 2018

More Your Vocal

This afternoon I spotted a temporary art installation on the pavement outside of the goods lift door at Maid Of Orleans Studios. Materials – concrete, sycamore leaves and seeds, camera tape, sharpie.

September 13, 2018

Luke Warm

Can’t you put a better record in by Four Star? What are you trying to do – uncoolify me?

DJ Nelson Travis has a sense of his own coolness, and this just doesn’t cut it.

July 24, 2018

Dead Format

You may remember, that I have a recurrent nightmare where I am trying to record to or playback from a non-compliant (and frequently edible) format such as ‘sandwich’ or ‘marmite’.

Today I awoke from an anxiety dream. I had been sent to Germany on an aeroplane to mix a live concert by the space rockers “Choose”. My colleagues Runabout and G have decided we are going to record on a new state of the art multi-track format However they are a bit vague about it since they have decided to focus their efforts on hacking into the local TV network and hijacking it with World Cup footage. As far as I can work out, the ground-breaking new format looks pretty much like a jar of crane flies.

During the load out from the aeroplane hold, the lid of the format jar comes undone and several flies escape. I try to catch them and stuff them back in.

We arrive at the venue just in time to witness on giant screens that the audience are already in place. The artist is coming out onto the stage. We start to try and record the concert without any time to rig or test the gear.

In a panic, I open the drawer of the ‘crane fly recorder’ to load up a fly. But I discover our outside broadcast engineer has already placed one in there. Out it flits. I quickly but carefully catch it and stuff the spindly aphid back in the drawer. But its wings are too big for the aperture and now I’m risking killing the fly. The opinion seems to be that you have to multitrack onto a live fly (-otherwise it’s a dead format, right?)

Just then, Mike phones. He suggests we ignore all contractual commitments and mix straight to stereo. “Tell the record company ‘this is what the engineer had intended’” he says. Then I wake up in a sweat. Argh!

Image | July 18, 2018

Well. It’s back to save the day once again today. The legendary Roger Andrews’ legendary drum kit. Radio pluggers’ oversight. Honestly. It’s like entering the Derby but leaving your horse at home. In the hope there will be a house horse. Or something.