Still putting together this page so forgive scrappy and incomplete bits...
Hey, I'm a producer and live sound engineer! 14 years experience. My studio, "The Old School" is in South Wales nearish to Swansea. I'm trying to put together a masterlist of all the bands I've worked with - Gotta admit it's difficult remembering the whole lot! This is what I can remember so far:
Recording/Production:
After Suburbia / Inimenter
Agile Thought
Brainchoke
Buried Between The Cross
Cousin Joey
DeadIdentities / DropoutKids
DorianGrey
EmoRangers (Main Theme (fei comodo))
Endurance Of Hate
Farenheit 451 / F451
Fei Commodo
From Almost The End (FATE) / Inscape
Halomobilo
HiJinx
HondoMaclean
Indifference
Kenai
Kobe
Little Joe Zero
No Hope In New Jersey
The One Condition / Victory Pill
PDHM
Sixty Mile Smile
Sonos
Takoma Star
Thaed
Ventura Drive
Vero / UnusualSunday
Live:
The Abner
Aconite Thrill
Akercocke
Apartment26
As She Screams
Bambino
The Blueprint
Capdown
The Cassanovas
Cousin Joey
Days In December
Fallen To
Fony
Funeral For a Friend
Hondo Maclean
Junk/Ritalin
Knuckledust
Lights/Action
Little Joe Zero
Murder One / Medulla Nocte
The One Condition/Victory Pill
PDHM
Pitchshifter
Scenes
Sikth
Skindred
The Sonic Art
RealTV
Reuben
Ripley
Slugworth
Stampin' Ground
This Is Menace
Twin Zero
Vacant Stare
Vive Finito
Ventura Drive
Live, incidental (Honestly - I've ended up doing Front Of House Sound for these people - mostly one offs - and usually by default!)
The Drifters
The Cheeky Girls
Dollar
Easyworld
abdoujaparof
arab strap
and a whole load more, 'cos I used to do house engineer duties at The Y Club and The Army&Navy in Chelmsford.
I also do loads of work with a Production solutions company called Network Audio. This means that I do loads of other stuff like:
Melas - All round the UK - loads of Asian artists including Ragav and Metz'n'tricks
Ross Unintentional festival andloads of other medium size festivals,
Various Bands from Corporate stuff - like avensys MD's band, stuff like that, did FOH for The Feeling when they did a gig for The Microsoft Challenge.
MaxPower live and Autosport International Live - Great fun, miking up Jodie Kidd'n'stuff. Loads of good cars. All fun stuff. 'loody hard work tho!
Used to be singer/guitarist in underground london band Inimenter, according to the press we were quite good actually?!?
Right, what's it like recording with me?
(pictures will be up there soon...)
Well, you can see it almost as a holiday! A week (or whatever) in Wales hanging out at my place and having a great time, whilst recording! "The Old School" is, in fact, where I live! It was originally a church hall/theatre that was converted in the 70s into a DSS office?! The place is divided into rooms, one of which is set up as a 'band dorm' room with 6 bunks, skyTV/DVD/Consoles. Next to that is the sorta main hangout room with a fullsize american pool table, sofas, computers and stuff and a projector for movies and games (got loads of Retro consoles and games'n'stuff, xbox too!) - loads of fun playing 4 player project gotham on a 3m x 2m screen in 5.1 surround!
The studio room itself is a medium size room that I just use for tracking everything except drums, and mixing.
Typical demo sesh at my place runs as follows -
1st day: Drums, I track drums using my portable rig at one of a few local studios. Everyone is in on it. Really flexible how I work with this one. I'm always happy to track with or without a clicktrack - depending on how confident the band are with their drummer! I can do fully tempomapped clicktracks too, so you can keep your natural push'n'drag with a consistend drive...
DrumEdits are available - any depth from fixing the odd weak kick hit right through to slicing, quantising and triggering!
Drum edits can take up to 3 hours per track, so I usually allow that time into the evening (you guys don't have to be around for that, you can play pool'n'stuff!)
2nd 3rd days: Bass, Guitars, Tech/Keys/Samples, we'd lay these down back at my place. Edit's and tweaks are available if wanted or needed! Real amp mike up (I can get a decent deal on rental for Diezels!) or plug-ins (got some really good sounding ones). Whatever you wanna do!
4th day: Vox - Usually 2-3 takes per song, "comp"'ed into a "perfect take" which, if still not perfect enough, we can tweak the tuning!
5th day: Mix - Where the magic happens! you guys would all go and have some fun looking at castles and mountains or playing games or whatever... I get the first mix together. You'd then come in, listen and say what you want different and we'll tweak it.
You'll leave with a top sounding recording - You'll get a version which is unmastered AND a version that's got Audio Mastering done so you can stick it straight in your CD player and it will be fully competetive with your fave band's recordings.
Everyone gets a set of tweaks too! I know what it's like being in a band, going to record, everything sounds great, you get home and go "damnit! That guitar part sucks!" or whatever. Go ahead, live with your mix for a day or two, if there's still stuff that bugs you, give me a call and I'll tweak it for you. Sorted!
Well, that's your typical 5 day demo sesh anyway. Albums are, of course, different, and if you need a longer or shorted sesh, that's all workable too. Give me a shout and we'll work out what you need!
