Allie Fox – Waylands Blues

Five years in the making, the acoustic guitar album, Waylands Blues by Allie Fox, is now being mixed.

The album will be released on Vixen Records lateer this year.  I worked with her on her debut album Diving For Pearls which was critically acclaimed by Mojo, Q magazine and BBC Radio 2’s Bob Harris. It was a collection of songs, unlike this album which is completely instrumental collection of mainly her own original compositions.

I used to wonder why some albums took years to make and now I know! This one started when I had a G4 computer using Logic 4 and has been transferred several times onto each version of Logic I’ve upgraded to over the years. Allie, who lives in Selkirk, travels to Edinburgh once a month or so to spend 4 hours at a time on the recording, initially establishing a live take per session and some guitar overdubs. We created a click track for each tune, creating rhythms that suited the track which would eventually be removed. That was a good decision as endless comping of layers of takes have been involved.

There are quite a few guests on the album, Dobro slide guitarist Rod Clements from Lindisfarne,   Harmonica player Fraser Spiers,  Ben Ivitsky – producer of Elisa Carthy on  Viola, Ron Shaw on Cello, John Wardell on Pedal Steel , Dave Haswell on Drums and Percussion,Pat McGarvey on Banjo, Frank Usher on Acoustic Guitar, Gavin Dickey on Bass, myself on Bass and Keyboards and programming. One track in particular – The Meaning Of Life And Death, I really wanted to get on with Rod Clements,  just so I could say I played with them. OK, it was me playing one sustained note on synth strings with one finger, but hey, call me shallow ….they can’t take that away from me.

Each musician made a great contribution on two tracks each on average.  Mostly they didn’t know the tracks they were guesting on and jammed lots of takes each, from which Allie and I painstakingly edited down into performances. That was the time consuming bit. It would sometimes  take 3 to 4 sessions for us to comp parts together that really worked with the tracks.

The challenge was always making sure that Allie’s own guitar parts didn’t get swamped by the guests and each resulting comp track was reduced even further throughout the album. Getting to what sounds like a simple natural performance was a process not unlike editing a film. The vast majority of guests ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor. Another good analogy is the distilling of whisky… nobody complains of how long that takes!!

I think this is a fabulous album and considering how long it’s taken to do, it always manages to sound fresh and vital. I look forward to the release later in the year.

It was fantastic to be part of the team that recorded Spirit Of The Glen – Journey – for Universal Music Group. recorded mainly at Heartbeat Studio, the album was also party recorded in Basra, Iraq last August/September. Competition for the Brit Award included Katherine Jenkins, Mike Oldfield, The Male Fron Choir, Andrea Bocceli and Hayley Westenra.

Although credited as the engineer for the job I also received the help of Heartbeats Dave Valentine and Ed Logan. the producer of the album Jon Cohen is up there with the best Classical Crossover producer. A real Logic Audio wizard and amazing musician, I really hope to get the chance to work with Jon on a third Spirit Of The Glen album if Universal decide to do it.

This  week we have Tim Hegarty in the studio putting together a 45 minute music programme for the forthcoming musical of the childrens book written by Julie Hegarty. The show entitled Crabbit -The Musical – will be directed by Sarah Townsend who has just finished producing a feature film for release in the USA. Very much along the lines of The Lion King, the show is set to be a massive Fringe success. The show will transfer to London’s West End after the fringe.

Tim had already created the music in his Yamaha workstation, so it was a  matter of reprocessing sounds through logic and mixing the programme down so that rehearsals can start on the muaical. Musician Willie Carson worked on the music with Tim. Nearer the event we will be adding backing vocals and  finalising the mix for the show.

Recently had Paul and Fiona Johnston from Rock, Salt and Nails in the studio singing a tribute to Andy Murray, tennis champ.

Park Records have released the single entitled Volley Highway in time for Wimbledon featuring the band.

Check out this article in The Scotsman. http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/A-smash-or-just-a.5363008.jp

A spokesman for the label says “Fred Perry was the last British male to win  the Wimbledon singles championship back in 1936, lots of tennis fans in Scotland will buy the record and anything which raises the profile of tennis is a good thing”.

Vocals engineered by Iain McKinna and Amy Fowler at Offbeat.co.uk

As usual it’s been another crazy year at Offbeat. I’ve been all the way up to high-doh and back again re-designing the Offbeat website from scratch – www.offbeat.co.uk.

Creating a new website for Royal Mile Recording experiences – www.royalmilerecordingexperiences.com.

Creating a web-site for custom backing tracks – www.custom-backingtracks.co.uk

Making a video entitled Moving On www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3qjJmbDMlc.

Anyway. everything has been completely re-branded. I’ve taken on, and trained, a new assistant producer, Amy Fowler aka DJ Siren.

Recording lots of new material for various artists.// including Pat McGlynn, Allie Fox, Nicki King, Richard Anderson, Rock, salt and Nails single for Andy Murray’s Wimbledon single…. blogs to follow for all that. There always seems to be more happening than I can remember.

Oh yes nearly forgot.. Spirit of the Glen ‘Journey’ won a Classical Brit Award for best album of 2007….so am I forgiven for neglecting the blog?…. hope so )

Started Pat McGlynn’s album on Thursday 21st August for BMG in Japan. The album is due for release in November. Pat’s been busy recording demos for the past while and has amassed a bunch of great new tracks. His partner and singer Janine Andrews will be singing lead vocals on the album. Pat is a great Bass Player and Guitarist and was a star in Japan before and after he joined the Rollers. He also wrote songs for Sonya back in the 90’s.

I met Pat in 1984 after recording my Zed album when I recorded and co-wrote tracks with him and Les McKeown and Eric Faulkner for a Bay City Rollers revival album. We spent a Summer at Wilf Smarties Planet Studios in Broughton St, Edinburgh. Wilf was the producer who discovered Wet Wet Wet and produced their demo ‘Wishing I Was Lucky’, the single that broke the band.

The tracks were never released following a spectacular break up (also a kind of revival) but the songs were eventually signed to Stiff Music in 1985. After that I recorded and co-wrote another series of songs with Les and Pat at Palladium Studios with engineer/producer Jon Turner with Jons ex wife Ann Turner on backing vocals.

Pats new deal in Japan sees the release of two albums he recorded in the late 70’s as well as the new album. A band will be formed to tour in Japan following the release of this album.

The recording for Spirit Of The Glen has now been completed. Producer of the project, Jon Cohen, arrived last Friday for the set up at Heartbeat Studios. I took my Apple G5 and Cinema Screen, Mackie Controller, Emagic Midi and Metric Halo sound unit along to the studio for the recording and engineered the session. Not a demanding task as once the mics were set up on day 1 there wasn’t that much for me to do and it was all up to the guys in the band who did a great job of performing their parts. On the last day I was kept busier when it came to recording the drum parts which required multi microphone setups.

Following the chart success of the first album the atmosphere on this one was amazing and we all felt part of a winning team. The pipes and drums went down really fast and the session was finished ahead of schedule. Jons arrangements were great as usual and despite having recorded in Prague with the Czech Film orchestra for the album earlier in the year we worked with Jons initial midi parts for the recording This time we worked with the midi arrangements throughout the recording and not in isolation like the last time. This definitely produced a better result and seemed to speed up the recording process. We also worked using Interleaved stereo files using 2 Nuemann U87s for the entire Pipe recordings. Last year we used a pair of Rode mics too and recorded each mic on a seperate track which made Jons editing job of four tracks per take a bit unwieldy as a result. Dave Valentine, the owner of Heartbeat had invested in more acoustic screens which provided a much better working acoustic for the recording. Also the guys used pipes in concert pitch unlike last year, maiking Jons job easier still when it comes to pitching them against the orchestra.

Not all the pipers of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards were able to come over from Iraq for the recording so later this month Jon is off to Basra with his laptop to record the other pipers for the album. he’s already been measured for his body armour for the job.. a brave man! I did ask if he needed an engineer for the job but I wasn’t required..perhaps just as well!!

All in all this was an inspiring session and we all hope the album is as successful as last years. I personally liked the material more on this one. The majority of the tracks are awe inspiring and the orchestral arrangements are fantastic.

Singer Songwriter Rosie Nimmo has just been in the studio recording her song ‘The Spider And The Fly’ in which she also plays guitar and harmonica. The song was laid down with a live take of Rosie singing and playing acoustic guitar. We went through various arrangements before settling on the best one for the recording. Once the best performance had been achieved I added some bass and drums and hammond organ before Rosie finished the track off playing harmonica. The track has been mixed but it’s possible her guitarist Stewart will be guesting on the track before the final mix is done. The vocals on the track are brilliant and I hope it’s the first of many productions we do together. Once the track is done it will be available to listen to on the offbeat site http://www.offbeat.co.uk (producer – Iain McKinna)

Following the amazing success of Spirit Of The Glen by The Royal Scots Dragoons and the Czech Film Orchestra, once again I’ve been asked to organise the studio and engineer the follow up album for The Universal Music Group which begins on August 8th. Spirit Of The Glen reached the coveted Christmas No 1 slot in the Classical Charts in 2007 and stayed there for 10 weeks, well into March 2008. It also reached no 11 in the UK Album charts and received a nomination for a Classical BRIT award. …. (there’s a few press cuttings at the end of this blog). Again, I chose Heartbeat Studios for the job. It’s a studio run by musician Dave Valentine, formerly the lead singer with RAF who recorded 2 albums back in the early 80’s for A+M Records. Situated in a converted barn. inside a working farm. the studio is a great location for bands. There’s a large playing area, a vocal booth and a spacious conrol room, and best of all a band hideaway downstairs. It’s situated just outside Edinburgh near the A7. I first worked there in 1985 with my Zed project along with singer Kirsty Anderson. My album ‘Message’ was re-mixed there by producer Chris Harley, aka Chris Rainbow, with Davy Valentine engineering.

Anyway the producer for this album is Jon Cohen, a frighteningly talented musician who is an accomplished Jazz Pianist as well as a Classical arranger and Producer. Jon has had another no1 for the Fron Valley Choir, again in the cross-over Classical vein. He’s also worked with The Sugar Babes, Vanessa May, Ronan Keating and lots of other well known artists. Jon also uses Logic Audio so I take my set up along to Heartbeat and he brings up the working tracks on his portable hard drive, copies it over to my G5 and the process is reversed at the end of the recording. On the last album I picked up loads of Logic tips from him. I had never met anyone so heavily into the depths of the programme so it was real opportunity to learn from a true Logic boffin.

I expect we will work on this album in much the same way as before. John has MIDI arrangements of each composition and the pipers and drummers play along to click tracks set up in inside the arrangement page of each tune. Parts are reduced down to 8 – 16 – 32 bar loops and takes are performed in groups. Solo Piper – Two Pipers – Four – Eight – etc all playing the same part. It’s the same process with the ‘live’ drum parts. Once the tracks are all recorded , which should take about 8 days. Jon spends ages sifting through each take to find the best ones, both in the evenings after each session and once the session is over.

We recorded the pipes and drums on last album with 2 pairs of condenser mics. Nuemann 87’s and Rhode Valve mics. In the end Jon used the Nuemanns on the actual record so this time that’s all we are using. It’s important to stop off all the drones and record them seperately. Because these will be Classical arrangements using an orchestra, the root note of the scale needs to be controlled, or even REMOVED. This meant recording groups of pipers playing just the drones for up to five minutes. We didn’t want to resort to looping the drones if at all possible.

The best results I’ve achieved recording the pipes, which are notoriously difficult, is to get the mics well back from the players. This produces an evenness of tone which is hard to get with close mic techniques. – more tips about ‘recording with mics’ on www.offbeat.co.uk/recordingtips.htm

The real secret to getting a great sound – AS ALWAYS – is great musicians using great sounding instruments, these guys are really the best around at what they do. The band perform in the Military Tattoo in the evenings at The Edinburgh Festival so sessions are usually over by 4:30pm (ish).

At the next stage of the production. Jon goes to Prague where he records the Czech Film Orchestra in much the same way. The only time the parts are married together is when he gets back to his own Logic Based studio and compiles the grouped recording sessions prior to mixing.

PRESS

Spirit Of The Glen by The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards

“The pipes and drums of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards have marched from Iraq straight into the top 20″.
THE SUNDAY TIMES

“There aint no party like a Jools Holland party, thats for sure so don’t fret if you can’t decide who to see/what to do/where to go tonight – the music maestros’ doors are open to everyone. He’s got Paul McCartney, Kaiser Chiefs, Mika, Kylie and of course the Pipes and drums of the Royal Scots Dragoons, Happy New Year”!
**** TV TIMES

“Those unlikely pop stars the Royal Scots Dragoons have been given the royal seal of approval by the Queen, who listens to their latest album in the Bentley”.
THE DAILY EXPRESS

“Today as the rest of Scotland celebrates the feast of St Andrews the Royal Scots Dragons are poised for chart success. The band has crashed into the mid week Top 20 with it’s new album Spirit Of The Glen ahead of The Killers and Mika”.
THE INDEPENDENT

“On pipe major Derek Potter’s return to Britain he swapped his combat uniform for full Highland regalia to promote Spirit Of The Glen which is curreently no 13 in the official Uk chart, No2 in the classical chart and still in with a chance of winning the coveted Christmas no 1 slot”
THE SUNDAY TIMES

Got a visit from guitarist Keith More this weekend. Keith and I worked together at Sonic Studios in the late 80’s creating TV ads for Scottish Power, Evening News, Scotland On Sunday. Keith has played with Five Star, done sessions for Tina Turner, Chaka Khan amongst many others. He toured with G3, the guitar show created by Joe Satriani. He also toured with Fish and The Illegal Eagles.

Keith is also the programmer behind EZ Drums, the software programme which has sold more than 3,000000 copies. Back in the 80’s I can remember Keith spending days on end programming the old Akai S900 using octopads. I picked up loads of tips from him in the early days of Midi which I still utilise today. Keith also featured on Offbeat recordings featuring Senegalese Drummer and vocalist Hamed Kane on tracks I had co-written with Hamed in the late 90’s. Keith has an obsessive approach to music, he practices 8 hours every day and is an incredibly hard worker in the studio. His enthusiasm for what he does is awesome, he’s been a huge influence for my approach to production over the years.

Check out this utube video of Keith in action http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8rnq44luwI