Posts Tagged ‘Recording Studio’

Tony Harris – Recording Engineer with Attitude

Thursday, February 1st, 2007

Tony… waving the flag for good songs

Tony Harris or ‘Nod’ to his friends is a rare phenomenon; a studio engineer with over 25 years experience who is happy to be just that without hankering to make the move to become a producer. In a way, he’s a typical ‘old school’ engineer in his no bullshit approach, but he’s kept abreast of new developments in technology and is equally comfortable recording on a laptop as he is in a 48-track studio.

SISSY: What would you describe yourself as?

TONY: Primarily I’m a recording engineer but at the moment I’m working at the British Library national sound archive, digitising. I’m transferring tapes of sociological interviews to digital format, backing everything up into a massive hard drive to be preserved for the masses. I have to do 1200 of those during a six-month contract so it’s like a six-month freelance gig

SISSY: Can you tell us a bit about what else you’ve done as a recording engineer?

TONY: I’ve been an engineer since 1979; I’ve worked on recordings by the Sisters of Mercy, 10,000 Maniacs, Sinead O’Connor, Bad Company, Rolf Harris, the Coronation Street Album… loads of things. The Coronation Street Album was a celebration of 35 years of the show with lots of the actors doing a track each. It was amazingly good fun because we worked at Abbey Road studios for three months; it was one of the best gigs I’ve done because now everyone wants to do an album really quickly and cheaply instead of taking their time.

SISSY: Tell us about how you got started; were you originally a musician?

TONY: No, I got into music comparatively late when I was about 12 or 13. But at the same time, I was a bit of a swot at school and I liked biology, chemistry, maths and physics. I was buying more and more records and getting more into science. Then I saw this magazine, which had an article on how a recording studio works. I picked it up and it had pictures of mixing desks and things, and I thought it was interesting because it seemed to be halfway between science and music… it was to do with music but also it was to do with being logical, organised and scientific.

SISSY: I heard that as a teenager you had pictures of mixing desks on your bedroom wall instead of the usual scantily clad females. Is this true?

TONY: Absolutely! When I was 15, all I wanted to do was to work in a studio.

SISSY: How did you get your first job?

TONY: I wrote to every studio in the world a hundred times! When I left school I was temping at Debenhams for about a year because I couldn’t get work at a studio. When I was 18 or 19 I got my first job at a studio down in Worthing. I couldn’t get a job in London because I lived in Guildford, so when I had an interview with a London studio, the people who lived closer would get the job, It was that catch 22 situation of I couldn’t get a place to live in London unless I had a job and vice-versa. I worked at the studio in Worthing for about a year, then left because the guy who ran it was a bit of a nightmare. I was doing the jobs of engineer, tape-op, tea boy and cleaner for hardly any money and no one else was working there for me to learn things from. Then I moved to London and did temp work cleaning pots and pans and packing shirts while looking for another job in a studio. I had a flat in Victoria and each day after work, I would cycle in a different direction, knocking on studio doors.

I eventually got some freelance work for Odyssey studios in Marble Arch… I think Jazz FM are in that building now. They asked me if I was available for a session… they told me the producer was called Connie Plank, the band was Ultravox, then they gave me the keys. So I had the keys to a studio I had never worked at before and I was supposed to be in charge for the weekend while Ultravox were in… it’s amazing because I could have been anyone and stolen everything! The session was to remix a single called ‘the Voice’. It was funny because I didn’t know where anything was in the studio and I had to search for the kitchen and the air conditioning etc. Anyway, I survived the experience and did a few bits of work for Odyssey over the next months. It was a really cool place to be because while I was there, they had Thin Lizzy in one studio, Black Sabbath in another and the Who came in at one point. A few months later I got a job at Livingstone Studios in Wood Green, which is still going today and has lots of big bands in.

I was originally taken on as a tape-op/bottle washer/tea maker and I helped build studio two. Myself and the other tape-op helped the owner, Nick Kinsey to build it although we had no building experience! I ended up working at Livingstone for the next ten years, from 1981-91.

SISSY: Tell us about how the 1980’s were compared to now.

TONY: It was the beginning of the end in some ways for music, because it was the start of technology taking over from ‘real’ music. I didn’t mind using SSL for automated mixing but it was when sequencers and samplers and Fairlights came in and everyone was spending £15000 on an Emulator One or a Synclavier that things went downhill. Everyone was obsessed with making records that were the most in tune and in time possible, but not succeeding. There’s a lot of records from the 80’s that are unlistenable because everything has a stupid big sample of a snare drum and it’s all a bit out of tune with loads of chorus and things on it. I hated it; it was pseudo science with people trying to look like they were clever and that they knew what they were doing. Don’t get me wrong, I love technology if it’s doing something useful but it’s annoying when you’ve been in the studio for 2 days and you can’t get the code on the tape in order to organise a click track so the band have all committed suicide or split up and left because they’re bored out of their minds!I think things did recover quite soon though, because good sense prevailed in the end. There are lots of records from around 1983-85 that sound totally appalling. 1960’s and 70’s records sound great and then once things like Nirvana and grunge came along at the end of the 80’s, everything sounded fine again and has ever since, but there was this horrendous chunk in between! A few people got it right, like Trevor Horn who was really good, but everyone else was trying to copy him and failed. Also, it was a time of complete stupidity where you had every man jack from America who’s ever made tea for Prince or Madonna, coming to this country to be an American producer and getting £500,000 budgets when they’d never actually done anything. They were imported by A&R dimwits who had no idea, who were impressed by a credit as a tea boy on a Prince record or something. Budgets for albums were ridiculous by today’s standards; obviously you can’t really compare because technology has moved on in terms of you can afford to have a studio at home. But then, the studio would be costing the artist around £1200 per day, my fee was £250 per day and although I tried to avoid the really long sessions, I did a Runrig album for 10 weeks, so you can see how that cost a lot. Some people would spend a year making an album at Livingstone, hiring every session musician you can imagine, and hiring loads of extra stuff in. that was also the fashion in the 80’s; to hire in racks of valve EQ’s and effects. There was always ‘this week’s thing’ that you had to have and all that was costing as much as the studio itself.That sort of scenario can still happen today though; I did some recording 18 months ago with this 18 year old Irish guy called George Murphy who’s got a fantastic voice… he sounds like Shane McGowan’s dad! He had a number one single in Ireland so you’d think they’d try and bang an album out quickly to capitalise on that success, but 18 months later it’s still not finished. It’s probably costing 100’s of thousands of pounds. The first album was all covers and was done really quickly but now he’s writing his own stuff; I know you can argue that it’s the artist’s right to express themselves creatively but… do it in stages and start with a couple of original tracks rather than spending all that time in an expensive studio learning to write!

SISSY: Do you think that developments in technology have benefited music or harmed it?

TONY: I think it’s entirely neutral in effect. It’s a tool; intelligent rational people using it make good records and morons or coke addled fools don’t! There’s lots of records now that use a lot of tech and sound great and have been done in a way that you couldn’t make records before, for example the Eels and the Flaming Lips who are farting around with technology in a kind of 60’s approach to making music whilst still being high-tech.

SISSY: Do you think the effect on the industry in general is neutral as well?

TONY: Yes… I mean what’s better? Having 10,000 records out there, which cost £1000 each to make, or one record that cost a million. People can only listen to a finite number of records in their life so you could say it’s good to have choice, but then there are a lot of not very good records out there. It is better if people have learnt their craft; the brain behind doing stuff is more important than the stuff.

The internet has made it easier for people to put stuff out there, but it hasn’t increased the quality of what’s on offer. Look at myspace; it has something like 40,000,000 people on it and everyone’s got a track on myspace. It’s inevitable, and the same applies to TV, radio, art writing; computers have made it possible for everyone to make their stuff accessible. Sometimes I think it would be great if everything got erased and we had to start again! But you can’t now; you can’t imagine a world where you can’t hear Sergeant Pepper or see the Mona Lisa because there’s millions of copies of these all over the world and more and more are being generated all the time… you’ll never get rid of them, we’re stuck with them for all time. We’re drowning in it really, and to make an impact gets more and more difficult.

SISSY: What are your main influences?

TONY: I’d wave the flag for a good song that sounds crap rather than a crap song that sounds great! I was totally influenced by punk, being 17 in 1977. Punk was all about getting out there and doing whatever you wanted to do; that Eddie and the Hot Rods record was actually pivotal. Favourite albums would be Never Mind the Bollocks, London Calling, Ziggy Stardust, and Physical Graffiti but not necessarily for sonic reasons. Sonically, I really do like the Flaming Lips, the new Arcade Fire album, and anything the White Stripes do; I think Jack White is an absolute genius and everything I’ve heard by him is madly good. He takes some wild risks but it works. My favourite yardstick record of all time is that Jellyfish album, Bellybutton, which is an extraordinary record.

As an engineer, I was influenced by Roy Thomas Baker and all those early Queen records; I loved him. You got the impression he really had to work hard to get all those things on a track and that he had to make final decisions as he went. They had to get things right so they could bounce them down free up tracks for more layers. Not like now where you can get hundreds of tracks on Pro-tools and they’re all full of rubbish that won’t get used in the mix.

SISSY: Can you give any tips on recording?

TONY: This is where I sound really Victorian… write some good songs, learn how to play your instruments, put some new strings on your guitars and heads on your drums and make sure you can play your songs and make a sound you like yourselves. Put a microphone in a rehearsal room and if it sounds good, you’re halfway there.

When it comes to recording drums, I’m glad that the world seems to have gone back to reality with drum sounds. My favourite sounds have always been the Led Zeppelin albums and I’m a massive Glynn Johns fan; all the records he did sound great. The drums sound like you are there in the room and the sound doesn’t date. He recorded the Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the first Eagles album, all the greats. Glynn johns would be one of my absolute heroes in lots of ways.

With guitar and bass sounds, you can make more difference to the sound by moving where you hit the strings with the pick by a centimetre, then by moving the mic to a different part of a speaker cone. New strings will always make a better sound. With mics, I’m a Senheiser 421 man all the way… I love them. I use them for lots of things including guitars. Vocal sounds are very hit and miss; I generally try and use an expensive top quality mic, as long as it sounds good.

SISSY: With all the people you’ve worked with, can you say what quality makes someone good?

TONY: I don’t really believe in star quality, I think as long as the song is good, that’s what counts. But having said that, I once worked with Joe Strummer and he really did have it. He knew what he was doing and what he was going for. I’d like to get a t-shirt made that says ‘a bad decision is better than no decision’ because no-one makes decisions… they do a hundred takes of something for no reason because they can’t decide what they really want.

SISSY: Do you have any favourite guitars etc when it comes to recording?

TONY: Not really, people can turn up with the most unlikely looking instruments and then when they play, it sounds fantastic. Someone else will turn up with brand new top-of-the-range gear and sound awful. I’ve never noticed a correlation. Simple is usually better though; I prefer passive basses to active ones. One of the most important things, I think, is to use API mic pre-amps. The mic is the most important thing, and the mic amps come a close second. I record everything through them because when I push the fader up, the sound is the same as it was in the room with the instrument. I also have a theory that any equipment from America with an ‘X’ in it is always good!… MXR, Ampex, Lexicon, Teletronix, Electroharmonix, DBX… they’re all good.

SISSY: What are you currently doing and what will you be doing in the future?

TONY: Because of what I previously ranted about; that everyone has a home studio now, I decided that if you can’t beat them, join them. So I’ve got a pile of gear together which hasn’t cost much. I’ve got Pro-tools, a hard disk recorder, a little desk, mic pre-amps and loads of good mics that I’ve accumulated over the years and I’m taking bookings as a mobile studio. Going back to what I was saying about how old records were made, I’ve always loved the idea of using a mobile studio. Rooms that aren’t in studios can sound better sometimes. Radiohead have been doing that lately and Led Zeppelin recorded in big old houses. It makes sense and I like the idea of it being an unrepeatable event; you can get a good vibe going, have fun, take loads of photos and enjoy the process.

I charge between £200 and £250 per day depending on the location. If someone has a nice room there’s no reason why you shouldn’t make a great record that way. Then I can do mixing at home on Pro-tools. I recently did an album with the Bikini Beach Band in Stoke Newington in a Hawaiian furniture maker’s shop. They are an instrumental surf band and we recorded it in 2 days, then mixed for 4 days. They contacted me through a guy called Mike Gibson from the Godfathers; we also did his solo album at my house. I can do projects involving one or two people at home; there just isn’t room there to do a whole band. You can contact me at tony@nodharris.com and my website is www.nodharris.com my mobile is called New River Studios, or go to myspace.com/newriverrecordings

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Flood – Pro-Active Producer

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

Flood… crazy about tape!

Flood has been a legendary producer for the best part of two decades; he’s mixed or produced countless credible acts including New Order, The Smashing Pumpkins, Tricky, PJ Harvey, U2, Nick Cave, Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, and Tom Jones. His early engineering credits include the Jesus & Mary Chain and Soft Cell. Sissy was lucky enough to meet Flood as he was mixing the new Placebo album (with producer Dimitri Tikovoi) and he was happy to answer a few questions…

SISSY: I’d be interested to know how you got started in the music industry and what led to the path you’ve taken?

FLOOD: Well I started off playing in punk bands and running my own ‘disco’ as it was called then, around 1976, 77. We played small places outside London; I was still at school while I was doing that.

SISSY: Did you get anything released?

FLOOD: We tried! We nearly got one single released… we did it ourselves and then it went to Eddy Grant’s pressing plant which went bust while our master tapes were in there so it never saw the light of day.

SISSY: People would probably pay good money to hear that if it turned up somewhere now!

FLOOD: Hopefully they’ve destroyed all the evidence!

SISSY: What instrument did you play?

FLOOD: Guitar… very badly, which was ok because it was a punk band. We were called Seven Hertz.

SISSY: That’s quite high tech for 1976… and kind of prophetic of your later career in a way?

FLOOD: Yes; it’s a little bit worrying actually!

SISSY: What prompted the transition from playing in bands to producing?

FLOOD: I’d got really bored at school and I’d been reading all those magazines like International Musician. There was a big long article about recording studios and one section was about what was involved in being a tea boy/tape op at a recoding studio, written from a perspective of trying to put people off. But when I read it, it made me think… Wow! I’ve got to do this. So I went to the careers master at school and said ‘I want to work in a recording studio’ and he said ‘Err, I don’t really know what that is, so just stick to whatever you’re supposed to be doing’. Then I pretty much ignored everybody and did my own thing; I completely flunked all my exams, which then gave me the excuse to pursue my own direction.I phoned up about 40 studios and asked if they had any jobs for tea boys. I got an interview and three days later I was working.

SISSY: Which studio was that?… Does it still exist?

FLOOD: It was originally called Morgan Studios which later metamorphosised into the Power Plant and then became Battery Studios. I started there in 1978.

SISSY: What sort of bands did you see come through the doors while you were working there?

FLOOD: Well the first week, there was Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, another heavy metal band called Money and Jack Bruce (from the band Cream) was in doing some solo stuff.

SISSY: Cool! So you learned your skills working on the best stuff. Did they train you as you went along or did you just have to learn by observing, looking over the shoulder of the engineer?

FLOOD: At that place there were four studios with 6 or 7 in-house engineers, 10 assistants and four runners or tea boys of which I was one. So when I was on the day shift I never even saw the studio because I was doing all the menial tasks but on night shifts I got to sit in on the sessions and assistants would take me under their wing. Slowly, you’d build up to learning enough to do your first job.

SISSY: What do you think of the fact that to some extent, that whole thing has declined now that there’s less call for old-style recording studios because everyone has access to cheap, good quality home-recording set-ups? Do you think it’s a bad thing that there are fewer opportunities for people to train up and learn their skills?

FLOOD: I think it’s a shame because there’s experience that people can pass on and lots of that knowledge is being lost.

SISSY: How long did it take before you were recording things yourself?

FLOOD: I worked at the first place for about two and a half years and I graduated to being an assistant, then moved to another studio where it was all film soundtracks and adverts. Then I got another job as an assistant engineer and worked my way up to being an engineer over the course of about 6 years.

SISSY: So you had a long apprenticeship and really got to know your stuff?

FLOOD: Absolutely, it was invaluable.

SISSY: What do you think is the main cause of changing the old way of doing things?

FLOOD: Computers and digital technology. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about photography, music or art or even in the book world; it’s the same thing. I’ve talked to lots of people and what seems to happen is, in the beginning with new technology, you have this massive thing where suddenly anyone can do it, almost going back to the punk ideal which is really good, but then the longevity starts to suffer so you find bands getting stuck after they’ve made their first great album and they can’t move on. Because it’s not just about having all the gadgetry, it’s also about having the experience to be able to work and interact with people and about knowing how to get results when it isn’t all going smoothly; the discipline of how to do things.

SISSY: Do you think that in the same way, the Punk movement could have been responsible for making record companies think that you didn’t need real musical talent as long as you had an attitude and a marketing angle, paving the way for more manufactured acts?

FLOOD: Possibly, although I think that’s more to do with the late 80’s and early 90’s when there was a boom in the marketing and PR side of things. When people ask me what I do, I say I make music to be bought, not sold! Because on one hand, you’re crazy if you think you’re just making art; it is ultimately a commodity but on the other hand the music has to be good and should create its own demand.

SISSY: Do you have principles on what type of artist you’ll work with, based on that?

FLOOD: It’s whatever I’m interested by but I seem to weed it out by meeting people or events pointing things out to me. I can’t do anything just for the money, there has to be something artistic or emotional about it. The music has to move me and I’ve got to get on with the people. If you then accidentally make something that sells shed loads then great!

SISSY: Have you been asked by record companies to basically ‘polish a turd’ and use your reputation to help sell something?

FLOOD: Yes; on numerous occasions but I just turn it down. I’m lucky enough to be in a position where I’m able to do that.

SISSY: Now that there are less opportunities to train in a recoding studio, what do you recommend as the best way to learn to engineer and produce?

FLOOD: It’s very difficult. And things are still changing at the moment, which makes it even more difficult. There’s only about half a dozen multi-studio complexes left in London. But what’s starting to happen is a lot of the old multi-studios are re-opening where there’s say 4 studios and they’re all separately owned. So one way of doing it is to try and apply for a job at one of those.
A good thing to do is to get together with a couple of like-minded people and try and do something yourselves. You don’t have to have all the bells and whistles on to start; experience is essential in the long term but to get the ball rolling all you need is naivety, passion and a desire to explore. If you say you want to go into it to make loads of money then get an admin job at a record company or publishing company! But if you’re doing it because you love music and want to learn, if for example you’re somebody who’s more into programming then hook up with someone who’s a great musician so you can cover all the bases. You can start doing that in your bedroom on your computer.
I know that now you can go to college and do a course in production or sound engineering so that’s another way… I’ve taught in a couple of colleges, mainly in Ireland and it’s a great idea but there really is no substitute for experience… you can’t describe to anyone what it feels like and what you’re thinking about or all the different situations that arise that you should be able to take care of.

SISSY: In your own studio you have lots of vintage equipment as well as state of the art computer and digital stuff. Do you prefer one to the other?

FLOOD: It’s strange; I like both extremes for different purposes. All the vintage stuff there is old synths, which have great sounds. But I love high-end digital effects so my whole thing is based on flip-flopping between old and new and getting the best of both worlds.In the last ten years we’ve had this ‘old is bad, new is good’ attitude and it’s only now that people are starting to realise, there might have been a reason why something worked its way through for 30 years and why people were doing it like that.

SISSY: Which software programme do you think is best?

FLOOD: To be honest, I’d much rather have a tape machine!

SISSY: Do you believe that tape has a better intrinsic sound?

FLOOD: Yes, but also for me the most important thing is the psychology that goes behind it… I could do a whole interview on that subject! Briefly, its because you make decisions instead of leaving everything till the mix so your options are more limited about what you can do. Sometimes the more limits you have, the greater your creativity.

SISSY: As in necessity is the mother of invention!

FLOOD: Absolutely; for example if you’ve got one microphone and one amplifier you can still make an album but you’ll have to try harder to use your creativity than if you’re in a huge studio with endless possibilities.Limitations can make you more disciplined and you won’t spend so much time concentrating on small sections, you’d be listening to the whole. Also because there was no ‘undo’ function, everyone involved had more responsibility, like if the little tape-op sitting in the corner screws up on a punch… nerve-wracking experiences like having to drop in a 100-piece orchestra 2 minutes before they go into £10,000 worth of overtime! It promoted team spirit and more of a sense of focus… the music was really important. If you were faffing around or not really paying attention you’d get caught short. And good mistakes can happen with tape that will end up being kept because they’re better than the original idea.

SISSY: Having said all that, when you have to use a computer, what do you think is the best programme?

FLOOD: From an engineer’s point of view, Pro Tools is probably the best. It’s one of the main industry standards now and if you want to learn quickly go to Digidesign.com and you can download a free 8-track version of it. It’s a very cut back version but the basic principles are there.

SISSY: Do you have any other favourite bits of kit that you can recommend?

FLOOD: My favourite microphone is the Shure Beta 58. There hasn’t been a vocalist in the last 15 years from Bono to Polly Harvey that hasn’t recorded with a Beta 58.People say ‘how did you get that amazing vocal sound’ and it’s just that microphone which is affordable but sounds great.

SISSY: What speakers do you like to have for monitoring?

FLOOD: Speakers are very much a matter of personal taste but at the moment we’re listening to things through a little Panasonic ghetto-blaster; we call it ‘the box of truth’… if it sounds good on that it’ll sound good on anything! What you’re trying to do is to give the same feeling from a track through every different set of speakers so it’s a good idea to check your mix on lots of different systems.

SISSY: What’s the first big gig you went to see?

FLOOD: It was pretty weird actually, my first ever gig was Tangerine Dream.

SISSY: They’re quite influential now aren’t they?… it’s almost like you’ve come full circle! What were your other early influences?

FLOOD: Before punk I was a total pop head; I loved T Rex, Bowie, all the glam bands. And because of my friend’s older brothers and mine we got into prog rock stuff like Tangerine Dream and Yes. Then when I was about 13 somebody sold me this dodgy compilation and on it was this one track that stood out like a sore thumb… it was Search and Destroy by Iggy Pop so I started to go in that direction; the MC5 and all the godfathers of punk. When punk actually arrived, I was ready and waiting!

SISSY: Are there any acts around at the moment that you particularly like?

FLOOD: For me 2005 has been an inspiring year because I love emotion and passion to come through in the music but I also love great pop. So bands like Arcade Fire, Kaiser Chiefs, Hard Fi, I really like them, it’s great when bands like these are getting in the top twenty.

SISSY: Have you got anything lined up in the near future?

FLOOD: In 2006 I’m going to be producing the Killers with Alan Moulder.

SISSY: Do you think the internet has had a damaging effect on the industry?

FLOOD: No; my personal opinion is I blame CD’s. I think they are one of the things that are killing music! It’s the way they sound, the fact that they look so trivial, so small and they’ve changed people’s music habits. Like you’d never listen to 70 minutes of music any more… everyone’s attention span is so short because you can flick through an entire album and dismiss it based on having listened to 30 seconds of music.Downloads, I think are brilliant because it encourages people to be pro-active and you physically have to download it. Whether it’s peer-to-peer or a commercial site doesn’t matter. Also you can check out a band; download a track for 79p or something whereas if you went to a record shop and you’re looking at a CD thinking it’s going to cost £15, you’re not going to take a chance on it. So the internet encourages people to listen to new stuff… if you think the first track is good, you’ll buy another one.

SISSY: In what ways do you think the industry is changing?

FLOOD: I think everything will settle down eventually. At the moment the majors aren’t developing any artists and they’re starting to find out that you can’t do that or you end up with no new bands. At the moment, a lot of producers and small production companies are acting as development agencies. Myself, my manager and Dimitri Tikovoi have been working with a singer called Tigs for 2 years and it’s only recently that she got signed after we’d already made the whole album. So maybe that’s how things will be in the future, or maybe the record companies will start to develop bands again… I hope so!

……………………

That’s where we leave Flood to finish mixing the forthcoming Placebo album; as we leave we bemoan with him the demise of the great british intelligent novelty pop single in the vein of the Timelord’s ‘Doctor Who’ or Frankie’s ‘Relax’. Flood agrees that it’s essential that we shouldn’t forget the fun element, and that one of the most important things is to just enjoy making the music!

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