Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Behind The Boards with Zeppelin, Marley, McCartney & Clapton with Engineer Digby Smith [Episode 341]

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Behind The Boards with Zeppelin, Marley, McCartney & Clapton with Engineer Digby Smith [Episode 341] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Taking you into the studio and behind the mixing board.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Legendary engineer Digby Smith has worked with Led Zeppelin, Free
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Bob Marley, Steven Stills. The list
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: goes on and on. He has got so many great
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: stories that he's going to share with you in this episode,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: and it's coming up next. I'm Booked on Rock.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: We're totally rock and roll. I mean gotta leave you.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: You're reading. Little Hands says it's time to rock and roll.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Roll up three, I totally booked.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the podcast for those
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: about to read and rock. Excited to have this episode's guest.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: He's a first time guest on the show. He is
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: the author of the book one, two, three four, The
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Life and Times of a Recording Studio Engineer. It is
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Digby Smith. His career spans four decades, beginning at nineteen
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: years old when he joined Island Studios in London as
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: a staff engineer. Digby, Welcome to the podcasts. Great to
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: meet you. How are you.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: I'm fine, Eric, Thank you for thank you for speaking
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: with me much.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being on so many great stories
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: in this book. I want to get to some of them. Today,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: you say, right up front of the books forward, it
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: wasn't the fame or the leads that pulled you into
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: a career as an engineer. Talk about when you fell
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: in love with rock and roll and what led you
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: down the path towards engineering and producing as well.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: You go way back to when I was about thirteen
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: or fourteen years of age, and my slightly older sister
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: was coming home with her early rock and roll records,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and the Everly Brothers, and we
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: had a tiny little record player with the speaker and
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: the lid, and there's only a mono little turntable, but
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: the Sandlers records coming out of my sister's record player
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: just act evaated me that I just had to be
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: part of what I was listening to. So I did
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: what a lot of us did at that age back
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: in the mid sixties. I bought myself an acoustic guitar.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: I started learning all the chords, and then subsequently, by
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: the time I was about seventeen, my sister was getting
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: into the Beatles, and I remember hearing Paul McCartney count
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: out the one, two, three four on the first track
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: on the first side of the Beatles first album in
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: the UK, which was Please Please Meet. And when I
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: heard that, I knew that I just wanted to be
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: a part of what I was listening to.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: There's a great story from very earlier in your career
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: about Stephen Stills and his song love the one You're with.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: You were standing right next to him for the first
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: performance ever of this song.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: It must have been because it was the previous night
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: when Stephen was at his hotel in London on Park Lane.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: He booked into the studio where I was now working
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: as a chief tea boy and mail room operator and
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: starting to get my push my nose in and hang
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: out on the sessions. And Steven had booked the studio
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: for a couple of weeks to do his first solo album.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: And well, I list the musicians that were present on
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: that record in the book. I mean it was who's
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: who of everybody that was anybody at the time, And
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: it was I don't know, day three or four into
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: the sessions. They were nighttime sessions. They would start about
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: eight o'clock in the evening. Stephen came running into the
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: control of about seven point thirty with his acoustic guitar
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: that he'd taken with him back to the hotel the
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: night before. He gathered everybody around him in the control room,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: and I made my presence felt. I entered on queue
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: with a tray of tea for everybody, and I stood
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: right next to Stephen as I handed him a cup
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: of tea and he said to everybody, this is the
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: song we're going to record tonight. I just wrote this
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: last night in the hotel room, and he proceeded to
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: play on the acoustic guitar, love the one You're with.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: It was such a magical place to find yourself as
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: for your first professional experience of working in a recording studio,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Island Records were one of the biggest independent record labels
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: of the time, and they were unique in as much
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: as they had their own recording studios as well. So
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: when I got my job there in January of nineteen
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: seventy as the tea boy and driving around in the
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: truck picking up all the cables for the newly built
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: studio and picking up microphones and headphones, and seeing the
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: studio start from scratch, and those early sessions, which amongst
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: them was was Stephen Stills, that were all the Island
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: artists of the day were going to record their traffic
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: free model Hoop or Cat Stevens. So although I was
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: my official position was one of tea boy, I was
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: already getting involved with helping the assistant engineers with duties
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: such as, you know, wrapping mike cables and set putting
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: up music stands and had setting up headphones in the
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: live room. So I and Chris Blackwell, who was the
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: owner of the label and the and the owner of
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: the studio, he was very key to let all this
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: young guys get involved as early as we could. So
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: within six months Eric I was not only engineering sessions,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: I was producing my first album. That's how and meteorically
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: fast it was to climb the career at Island, thanks
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: in no small part to the generosity of Chris Blackwell.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you speak highly of him, and he had a
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: certain vision, he had a certain ability that few had.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: He just he could hear something special, yes he could.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: In it was a unique record label in so many respects,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: such a broad roster of artists. You had all folk,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: the folk acts that he signed such as fair Pool Convention,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Sandy Denny, Cat Stevens, John Martin, and then you had
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: the more what we would refer to in those days
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: as the more underground rock bands such as Free Motoo
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: or Spooky Tooth, and then you had the more sort
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: of poppy stuff like Rocks and Music Robert Parker So
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: as a as a young fledgling engineer, learning the ropes
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: of how to conduct recording sessions and the different approaches
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: that different styles of music might require, there was it
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: was like a kid in a candy store. I was
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: just exposed to so many different types of music.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: It was Traffic's freedom writer, great song. This was your
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: first professional edit. A traumatic experience for.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: You, right, it was indeed, going back to nineteen sixty nine,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: sixty eight, sixty nine, before I moved to London and
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: started working professionally in a professional studio, I had a
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: little recording set up in my bedroom which is a
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: little mono tape machine and one microphone and a quarter
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: inch tape which I used to splice together using scissors
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: and seller tape. Wine Ford twelve month, eighteen months. And
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: I'm assisting for the engineer, the late great Brian Humphreys,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: who recorded much of the Traffic stuff. And I'm assisting
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: for Brian on these traffic sessions. We did the recording,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: and we did the mix of the track. It's early evening,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: seven or eight o'clock in the evening, Brian's gone home.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Chris is standing there listening to the mix, and he
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: without going into too much detail here, but Chris wanted
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: an edit. He wanted to just change a couple of
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: bars in the middle of the mix. Brian wasn't there anymore.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: So I was taken back to my bedroom and tape
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: sello tape and scissors in my mind, and Chris said,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: you know how to edit, and I bravely suggested that
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: I did, although I'd never done an edit in a
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: professional recording studio. But there was all the spicing tape
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: and the razor blades, and I courageously attempted the edit,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: with beads of sweat dropping off my brow onto the
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: editing block and I did the edit. Chris didn't have
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: much confidence in my ability, especially when he saw my
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: hand holding the razor but blade shaking with nerves, but
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: I stuck at it. I got the edit done, played
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: it to Chris. He liked it. He said, right, put
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: the tape in the box, fill out the worksheet. See
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: you tomorrow. No word to thank you, no, no praise,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: no just I thought, well, there you go, that's the
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: business you're in. Job done, get it done, no song
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: and dance, And fortunately I kept my job.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I can relate to the experience because I worked in
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: radio at the tail end of the real to real era.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: So for those maybe a little young and too young
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: to understand what that process is and how maddening it
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: can be. And I mean nowadays, if you make a mistake,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: you can just redo or hit control Z and it
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: goes back and all there it is. You could just
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: recut it, but you had to. You had to splice
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: it at just the right point and then tape it together.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: And if you did make a mistake, if you cut
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: it in the wrong place, there's no turning back. I mean,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: unless you had a duplicate recording of it and another
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: reel to reel you could try it again. Otherwise that's it.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Which you wouldn't have had at the time. Know what
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: you would do is you'd buy a technique of revolving
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: the spools back and forth. You could hear the sound
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: where you did it on a bass drum or, a
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: snare drum or, and you could find where that was
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: on the playback head, make a mark with a China
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: graph pencil, pull the tape off, laid in the block,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: splice through. Yeah, if you got it wrong, you had
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: to put it all back together again. Whin it was
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: with disaster potentially.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: You mentioned Free such an underrated band. Paul Rodgers later
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: of Bad Company fame the lead great Paul kasaf on guitar,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Simon Kirk of Bad Company as well on drums, Andy
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Fraser on Beast. You're a big fan by the time
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: you worked with them on Free at Last, the album
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: from seventy two. Talk about your experience working with Free.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Paul Kassoff had your back in one incident where things
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: got heated with you and Paul Rodgers.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah again, just quick briefly dipping back into the late
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: sixties there, I'd quite a number of Island records in
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: my record collection at home, and amongst them with the
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: first couple of Free albums, So I was a massive fan.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: And then yeah, zoom forward a couple of years and
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: I'm actually in the studio with these guys and it's
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: those it's those pinch yourself moments that you remember and great,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: but you guys. We were all about the same age,
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: late teen's early twenties, had an affinity to their music
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: straight away. I assisted initially. My first involvement with Free
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: was on the Highway album as an assistant engineer to
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: the late great Andy Johns. And when they came back
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: to do their next album, Free at Last, they asked
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: if i'd sit behind the desk and be the main engineer,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: and yeah, do you want me to tell you about moment?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, before you tell that, we shouldn't know too.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: This is They already had the huge hit all right Now, Yes, yeah.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: That came up the Fire and Water album, which was
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: and then I think the Highway album never had a
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: hit to match. So the kind of pressure was on
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: having had a hit on their third album. Now there's
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: a thing we're worth mentioning two young musicians and recording
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: artists today. It was a record label that had done
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: two albums with Free, with no hits, no radio airplay, nothing,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: just live performances and a couple of albums out there.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: And on the third album there was one track all
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: right Now, which they edited it down, made it single
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: length for the radio, and that changed everything. So what
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: record labeled today, if you could even find a record
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: label today would stay with an artist till their third
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: album when they had the hit. So the pressure was on.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: After that hit and the fourth album, Highway, I don't
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: think there were any There were a couple of singles,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: but no hits. So then three at Last, I don't
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: think we had a single. Maybe maybe with a little
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: bit of Love was on Free at Last or Heartbreak
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Homes con Real Last.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's see seventy to no standout singles. Maybe a
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: little bit of Love? Would that have been a single
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: that was a single and.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: It got in the charts, but it never it never
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: reached scaled the heights that all Right Now had. So
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: there you are another day in a studio with the band,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: you know, invariably late night sessions, working right through the
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: night till summer. You know, a couple of weeks into
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: the album, everybody's getting a bit, you know, it's the
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: pressures on. We can sense from the label that they
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: want this record to so so it can get very
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: emotional in the in the creative atmosphere of the recording studio.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: And I don't know what is it two three o'clock
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: in the morning. Paul Rodgers is by the microphone and
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: he's about to do a vocal on one of the tracks,
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: and I'm fiddling around on the desk getting the headphone
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: balance for him. That he's happy, always liked plenty of drums,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: plenty of basis and worth noting Cossy would never put
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: his lead guitar solo work on until the vocal was recorded.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: That was his golden rule, he said, I never I
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: always want to wait till the lead vocal has been sung.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Then I'll put my guitar parts on and I'll work
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: my weave my way around it, which was that's how
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Costy was interesting. Yeah, so Paul's out there at the microphone.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: We're getting ready to run the tape, checking the micro level,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: and I'm filling around, maybe with a bit of reverb
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: in the headphones. Anyway, I obviously made the mistake of
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: putting too much reverb on Paul's voice, so he flung
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: the headphones off his head, threw them onto the floor,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: came storming into the control room and eyeballed me and
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: finger pointed me, and he just lost it. He said, Digby,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: don't and I won't repeat the language, but essentially what
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: the message was Digbie, don't ever put that much riverb
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: on my voice in the headphones again, I can't sing
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: with that much reverb. And he was quite aggressive. Would
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: be too strong a word, but he was vehement in
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: his protestations. Little Paul Kossof literally stood between me and
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Paul Rogers and COSSI said to Paul, he said, don't
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: ever talk to Digby like that again. He said, Digby,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: he is the most important man in the room. He's
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: capturing what we play and what we feel and how
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: we go about it, and he's encouraging us. So don't
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: ever do that again, Rogers, I mean, I mean short
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: of us, but all well enough. It was like point made,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: and I said, oh, sorry, Paul, I want I want
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: to do that with the river beginning. He said, oh,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: that's okay. Well I didn't need to share. So we
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: had group hugs and and everything was great, and Paul
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: went back out to the vocal microphone. I switched all
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: the river Buffy's vocal just to be sure, and Paul
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: then delivered the definitive vocals and all was well, yeah,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: that just.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Shows you a lot of pressure that everybody is under
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: to come up with it, to come up with just
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: a good recording, and the artists won't make make sure
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: everything sounds good. You want to make sure everything sounds good,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: and those things can happen. Credit to all three of
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: you guys, or actually cross off mostly right. I mean,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: he's the one who came in and.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, what a what a, what a gentleman he was.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: I had another time with Simon the drummer, just to say,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: after that instance, it's amazing. Sometimes, you know, like with
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: any relationships, sometimes you know, words are said, it breaks,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: it breaks the tension, and it sometimes it's like a
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: release felve and everyone's the better for it. There was
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: another time on a track that had sort of two
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: sections to it, and when it was at the end
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: of the first section was a sort of a two
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: bar palls or one bar pause, and then Simon's drum
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: fill and then we go into the outro section of
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: the song. I forget the title. The name escapes me,
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: but we got the track all recorded and all the
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: guitar overdubs and the vocals, and it's all good to mix.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: The idea was we were just going to overdub some
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: tambourine on the track and rather than one person played
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: the tambourine. The idea was that three people were going
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: to play a tambourine each out in the live room.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: So I had to set up like three or even
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: a couple of ambient mics, three or four microphones and
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: record this orchestral tambourine performance in stereo. So such was
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: the desk and the routing of the signal path that
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: there was only groups one and two that you could
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: patch into the stereo. But I didn't want to record
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: on tracks one and two because that was Simon's drums.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: So what I was supposed to do is come out
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: of the patch bag, out of groups one and two
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: and plug into I don't know, tracks thirteen and fourteen
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: or something. Of course I did all that, but mistakenly,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: again it's probably four or five o'clock in the morning,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: we're all a bit the worse for wear. I put
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: tracks one and two into record, and of course, when
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: it came to that part of the song three four
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: and I hit record to record, the tambourines and Simon's
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: drums disappeared. Because I did I did, I do erase
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: the base frum and the snap Oh my god, I
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: hit I hit stop on the table shoes as quickly
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: as I could, and saw my life flash before me.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: I'm dead. I am dead. This is it's been nice
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: working here fasted. Uh, it's going to be back back
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: to the bedroom and the cello tape and the scissors,
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: and and I think it was something said, why do
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: you stop tape? Digby? I said, I just didn't know.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I thought, well, you just got to. Sometimes in the
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: world of engineer and if if you make a mistake,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: if it's pilot error, you can sometimes bluff your way
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: around it and say, oh, the channel switch cut out,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: or it's it didn't go and record, you know, the
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: buttons faulty, or but this there was no way out, Eric,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: there was no to fess. So I called them up.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: I said, can you come back into the control room, guys,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: And Simon said, what's happened? And I I just said
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: to Simon, I thought I just got to tell him.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: I said, I've erased your drums, oh boy. And I
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: thought he's a tough looking guy, Simon, you know, and
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: he's fit, you know, behind the kit there. Yeah, I
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: just thought, this is it, man, this is it. Simon said,
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: The drum mics still set up Dickwie, and I looked
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: out into the into the live room and I said, yeah,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: they are. And I looked on the desk. Yeah, all
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: the drum faders were still where they were. Simon said,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: I'll re record him. He said, I wasn't very happy
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: with the drumming on the outro of the track. Anyway,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: he says, I don't worry about it, Dickwie, It's fine,
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: he said, we all make mistakes, man, And he just
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: walked out, put his headphones on. I wind back it recording.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Simon just replaced the drums effortlessly, faultlessly, one.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Take and you sigh of relief, a huge.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Each sigh of relief. And uh, and I kind of
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: if I wasn't already. I felt a bonding with with
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Simon from then, and I've kept in touch with him,
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: you know, casually, over the years. And he's still working
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: and playing and teaching and stuff. And he's another what
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: a what a gentleman.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: You've worked with some great engineers. You mentioned Andy Johns,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Glynn Johns you worked with as well. You describe both
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: of them as artisan craftsmen at work. What made them
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: so good?
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Again, You've got to you got to take your mind
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: back to the state of state of the art as
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: it was in the you know, before I started professionally,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: but back in the sixties, probably Jeff Emeric at E.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: M I Studios later to become Abbey Road was probably
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: one of the first pioneers with all the advent of
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: the improvements in the technology and the addition of multi
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: tracking eight track, sixteen track, twenty fours. As the technology evolved,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: and more and more audio signaling toys to play with
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: that could create special effects and sounds, and the amount
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: of manipulation that you could do with sound and with
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: the recording process. Was was was racing ahead at break
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: breakneck speed, and the old school engineers would have been
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: just technical guys. They would have just literally they would
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: be called balance engineers. They would get at the balance
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: of the band and record it probably on a three
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: or four track tape machine. And that was it. It was,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: it was, it was. It was pure engineering. But when
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: these guys like Glenn and Andy came along with these
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: new desks, they started doing things with the desk like
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: overdriving the MI camps and the pre amps, you know,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: turning the tape over and doing things in reverse and
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: and over compressing guitars and vocals to make them sort
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: of give them a distortion that was was quite pleasing
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: to the ears. So yeah, it was as the technology advanced,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: the new breed of engineers of which I was coming
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: in on the tail end of, was started to do
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: amazing things with with audio. And you hear it on
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: the records of the day.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Oh. Absolutely, so they're working that mixing board like Jimmy
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Hendrix would work the guitar.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: You're absolutely right there, Eric, And I think I referred
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: to it in there as at the end of the evening,
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: when when it'd be time to do the final mix
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: of the track, you've been working on, listening to over
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: and over and over and over again all day, all night,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: and now you've got to do the final stereo mix.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: So many you'd have backing vocals on the same track
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: as the tambourines, you'd have different guitars on different tracks,
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: and the piano would suddenly become the organ where you
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: recorded it just instead. So now to do the mix
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: was like the desk was. As the engineer, the desk
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: was your musical instrument. And now when you're doing the
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: finam it's your time to play and to do a performance,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: and if you got the performance right, the guys in
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: the band would be so ecstatic. Occasionally, ergonomically it would
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: just be impossible that it would be just too many
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: moves to make. You'd have to be, you know, lifting
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: the backing vocals at this during the middle eight, at
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: the same time as the drums need to come down
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: a bit, so you physically couldn't stretch that far over
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: the desks. So invariably you get a couple of musicians
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: to join in and give them a couple of faders
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: to move. And golden rule it would be that don't
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: ever give the drummer the drum faders. Don't ever give
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: the lead guitarists the lead guitar fader. Don't ever give
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: the vocalist the lead vocal fader, because invariably you'll get
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: you'll get mission creep. You know, the drummer will keep
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: lifting his drums.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: And I'm fascinated with all of that stuff. I always
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: love doing production, working radio and the happy accidents that
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: would come along, Like if you take two of the
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: same tracks and put them on two different separate tracks,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: and you move one just slightly, all of a sudden
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: you get this reverb sound. If you move it a
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: little more, it's going to have a different sound to
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: It's almost an echo. All those things I'm endlessly fascinated with.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: And actually I was going to ask you where then
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: you have the accident stories that you have where you
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: just stumble upon something you say, WHOA, that's cool, let's
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: keep that.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I think one time, on one mix, we
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: were doing it and there was a couple of bars
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: that we didn't get quite right. So I said, well, listen,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: we can just we can just let's just focus on
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: that I don't know, those four bars in the third
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: chorus where where the guitar parts are slightly different or something.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Let's let's just mix that section of the song and
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: then we'll splice it in and we mix that section
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: of the song. And so there's loads of tracking of tape.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: There's bits of tape hanging here, bits of tape hanging there,
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: and stick the bit of tape to the machine, and
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: then they grab the bit of tape that you want
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: and lay it in and splice it in, wind the
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: tape back press play. I think on one occasion I
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: inadvertently put the tape the wrong way around, So when
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: you hit play and it came to that section, it
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: was suddenly in reverse. So that's just like I don't
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: know what it would be just so so and you go, wow,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: that's amazing. You think, No, I've made a mistake. I'll
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: put the tape in the wrong way. I'll have to
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: take it up. No, no, no, let's let's use that.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: That's brilliant. So you might end up just using one
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: bar of it. But accidents like that, and yeah.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: What was this story about? On Zeppelin Too with a
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: whole Lot of Love? That part where you hear Robert
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Plant foreshadowing the lyric, it sounds like it's very faint.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Do you want to.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Cree down inside? Right? Yeah? That's Eddie Kramer and Jimmy
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Page stumble down something.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Just as quick as non technical as possible that some
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: of your viewers or understand this, but try and keep
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: it as simple as possible. With old fashioned magnetic recording tape,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: it has oxide. It has metal oxide on the tape,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: and the reaction of the the recording head and the
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: magnetic oxide on the tape is what records the audio,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: which today we would look at a has been a
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: wab on logic or protos you'd see as a wave form.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: That's the waveform is recorded on the oxide. In the
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: oxide it's buried into the it alters the metallic structure
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: of the oxide, and that's where the audio is captured
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: in the metal of the oxide of the tape. So
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: when you wind the tape back, it's layering on top
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: of each other, isn't it. Each fall revolution, another piece
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: of tape sticks to the back of the previous bit
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: of tape, so it and you get what's called print through.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Sometimes if you've accidentally particularly if you've accidentally over recorded
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: something like a vocal, perhaps where you've put too much
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: magnetic energy into the oxide, so the oxide's somewhat saturated
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: with the audio and when the when you wind the
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: tape back, it leaks through. It prints through. So if
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: you solo the vocal, you probably find that pre echo
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: of the vocal. It's probably there a lot of the time,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: but so quiet that you wouldn't notice it in amongst
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: all the guitars, But in that section of the song
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: where the vocals pretty much on its own, you can
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: hear it.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: And what a phantom It's like a phantom track.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: And what Andy would have done going back to this,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: this using the equipment creatively and thinking, oh ship, what
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: are we going to what are we going to do
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: with that? You can hear the vocal before it comes in.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, We'll have to keep dipping the fader down.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: We'll have to keep muting it because you didn't have
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: automation in those in those days, but you did have
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: multi tracking. So Jimmy probably thought, well, rather than turn
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: it down and try and get rid of it, what
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: about if we lift the fader and put a bit
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: of reverb on it and make it sound haunting? And yeah,
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: and I hear that today. It was a mistake that
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: proved beneficial.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: When I think of Island Records, the first artist that
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: comes to mind is Bob Marley. You worked with Bob
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Marley and the Whalers. They were relatively unknown at that time,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: though when was this and what was that experience? Like?
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: They were totally unknown Erica. Again, going back working for Ireland,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: I omitted this category at the beginning of this conversation
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: as well. Was the folk, the rock, the pop that
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: was of course the reggae, and even when I started
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: at Ireland in nineteen seventeen, they had Jimmy Cliff to
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: to the Maytels. There was a lot of stuff that
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: was coming out on Tough Gong and Mango Records, Trojan
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: that was been like the Island were licensing so obviously
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: with Chris Blackwell and these Jamaican routes and the connection there.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: So there was very much a reggae presence at the label.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Although I'm worth mentioning at this point that as well
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: as all the roster of Island artists of the day,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: the studios were open to the general public, not least
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: of all. It's while we had Lyn Zeppelin and the
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: band and Stephen Steele's or Joe Cocker, we had all
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: sorts of artists that weren't signed to the label. That's
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: how I got to be working We led Zeppelin, and
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: I was working with an artist who wasn't on the
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: label who was signed to CBS, the guy called Johnny Nash.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: I was working on Johnny Nash is I can See
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Cleaning Now in his album, and Johnny was signed to CBS.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Johnny Nash's keyboard player was a guy called John Rabbit Bundrick,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Texan keyboard player. Johnny and John and Johnny went way
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: back and so when Johnny Nash booked the studio to
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: do some keyboard overdubs on his album, he had John
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: Rabbit Bundrick did the keyboards, and I'd engineered a lot
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: of stuff with Rabbit, so Rabbit got me to be
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: the engineer on the Johnny Ash stuff. And it was
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: you know, it was in one one afternoon on one
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: of the Johnny n Ash sessions. Another another day in
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: the studio, another overdub, and Johnny Ash turns up with this.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: I say, little guy, short guy with short dreads, not
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: even down to his shoulder blades, but cut short dreads.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: And Johnny Nash turned to me and he said, this
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: is my friend Bob. He's a reggae singer. And I said,
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: nice to meet you, Bob. And we played a couple
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: of tracks and Bob was nod in his head and
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: listening to the music. And then Bob, who I later
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: found was to be known it was called Bob Marley,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: but when I first maybe it was just Bob, and
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: so Bob, Johnny and Johnny Nash's manager, a guy called
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Danny Simms, and I think Danny Simms was managing Bob
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Marley as well at the time. They all left me
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: and Rabbit in the control room on our own to
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: get on with some keyboard work, and Johnny, Bob and
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Danny went upstairs sat and meet him with Chris Blackwood,
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: and I think that was probably the day that Blackwell
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: signed Bob Wow. So then I don't know why. Forward
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: another couple of months and we're getting these. We would
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: typically get tapes from Jamaica. They would be eight track
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: one inch analogued eight track recordings. Many of them would
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: have been recorded at least Scratch Perry's studio in Kingston,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: a couple of other studios out there. They're pretty rough
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: and ready, pretty funky sounding tapes. You invariably there wouldn't
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: be a track listing to tell you what's all. It
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: just be a box with an artist's name on and
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: you just put put in on and we'd get an
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: eight track machine in and then transfer all the content
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: contents of the eight track reel to reel. We'd transfer
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: them over to a sixteen track multi track, thereby giving
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: you eight extra tracks to play with. So the Bob
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Marley Catcher Fire album the first his first album. I
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: don't know whether that was actually on island or whether
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: it was tough gone, but it was licensed as an
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: Island record and myself and a couple other house engineers.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: Tony Platt was another engineer Ireland who went on to
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: do great things.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Like ec DC. I know that name from the one
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: you should get him on if you get it.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't. I don't hear from him these days.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: But a lovely, lovely, lovely gentleman. And uh so we
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: we'd get these tapes and we get something like Rabbit
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: to come in and put some extra keyboards on. We
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: get you know, Steve Winwood was in the building. You
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: get into, put some stuff on, rebop the gun and
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: conga players around. We get him into and then of
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: course you'd get bobbed. A couple of the whalers would
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: come in put some extra stuff, and then you'd when
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: you then when you were mixing them, you've got you
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: had sort of the original old recordings and us a
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: bunch of new overdubs. And Blackwell's idea was to try
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: and just popularize the music a little more, make it
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: a little more western eyes, make it a little more
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: poppy or rocky. But you had to be mindful that
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: you you you didn't you didn't untangle the original feel
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: that came from those original eight track tapes with all
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: the rough and ready basic sounds on them. You wanted
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: to enhance it, not not alter it. And that Yeah,
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: that's how I found myself in the studio with Bob Marley.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: But we had no idea at the time, Eric that
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: we were writing the first chapter of a of a
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: very important book in the history of popular music.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: I was as excited about working with him and his
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: band on particularly that album. I did a little bit
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: of work on the next album, Burning but not an
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: awful but to catch a fire. We were all involved
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: with that. But I would be as equally excited if
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: on a Wednesday evening when the Island Records football team
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: the Island Records soccer team would go over the park
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: on a Wednesday evenings and we'd always have a kick around.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: And Bob used to come and play football with us.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: So I played football with him two or three times.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: He was a good player, right, he was fantastic. He
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: was a great I think I mentioned in the book. Actually,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: there's there are many analogies between well sport in general,
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: if not just football. You know the importance of being
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: even if you're you're the quarterback, or you're the center forward,
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: you're the main goalscorer. It's important that you realize you're
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: just part of a team and that you need everybody
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: to be working together and end in the same direction.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: And I always say, and I think I mentioned it
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: in the book, that the way Bob Marley played football
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: was the way he was in the studio. No ego,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: no light, look at me, I'm the main guy. It's like,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: it's all part. He's part of a great team and
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: if you want to win, you've got to all play together.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: The Book Down Rock podcast is part of the Boneless
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: podcasting network. If you're a fan of classic rock and
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: classic film like I am, go to Boneless dot lovable
• 39:28
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• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Boneless dot lovable dot app. Or just go to bookdown
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Rock dot com. Click on the logo. It'll take you
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: right to the Boneless podcasting network. It is what you
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: want to be Listen with confidence. You work with Air Clapton,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Paul McCartney, Little Feet, Sparks, the London Symphony Orchestra. What
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: were the projects you worked down with McCartney and Clapton.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: Were Clapton was on the Stephen Stills albums. And also
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: there was a couple of days that when Stephen Stills
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: his engineer, Bill Helveson, his biggest kind of fame was
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: recording all the Cosby, Stills and Nash stuff. Hence he
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: was Stephen's engineer. And when we'd finished the Stephens Stills
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: his second solo album, which I was by now assisting
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: as an engineer with Bill. When the Stephen Still's album
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: recording had finished, Bill was in town for a couple
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: more days. And while he was in town, Eric he
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: was recording a solo album with Eric Captain at the
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: time as well. And while Bill was in London and
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Eric Claptain must have been in London, Eric came into
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: the studio for a couple of days and did some
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: work on his solo album. I can picture the album sleeve.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: I can't remember the.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Tite what you would have been two seventy.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: Three, two seventy three two. There's a track called red Red, Red,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: bottle of red.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Wine, Bottle of red wine.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Eric did the vocal to that. There I recorded that
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: would Bill Oh.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: That's from his debut solo record nineteen seventy time seventy.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: Was as early as that? Then? Oh my gosh, yeah, okay,
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: it must have been after Stevens's first solo album then.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Ok yeah and McCartney, what was the project with Paul that.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: That came about? Paul's older brother Chap called Mike. He
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: goes by the name of Mike mcghear. He is a
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Liverpool poet, but at the time he was also writing
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: music and as fate would have it, Mike McGear was
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: signed to Island Records to do a solo album called
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: Woman and Myself. I think probably Tony as well. A
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: couple of them. Of us were engineering on the Mike
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: mcghear solo album. The in the office, you'd get the
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: week's schedule of what sessions you'd be working on as
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: an engineer, so you go in and look and check.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: You know, you've got working with Free on Monday, Tuesday
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: and Wednesday, maybe Bob Marley on Thursday or Friday, Spooky
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: too from Saturday whatever. So I looked up on the
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: bookings board in the studio office and it's got two
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: days Saturday and Sunday. I'm down as engineer on the
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Mike mcghear sessions, which it was nothing unusual, but it
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: meant I was going to be working the weekend. But hey,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: that's the go with the territory. So I turn up
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: on the Saturday morning and Mike turns up and we
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: put the kettle on. We're making a cup of tea.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about what are we going to do in
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: the studio today. We've got a game planned, Mike. He said, yeah,
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: and out of his bag he brought out a little
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: seven inch plastic school of tape. He said, last night,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: me and my brother and his wife were we were
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: jamming and we recorded it on this on a little
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: tape machine at home. So her brothers coming and his
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: wife are coming down later to put a bit of
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: guitar on and do some singing. We're going to put
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: some overdubs. So I said, oh, that sounds interesting, and
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: I handed mikey's tea and off he went into the
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: control And I remember pausing for a second thinking, I
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: know Mike Kiars got a younger brother, and I'm wondering,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: is it going to be who I think it might be.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: Is it going to be that the guy that shouted
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: out the caw in on the first Beatle album that
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: sent shivers down my spine and was the basis for
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: the title of the book. I thought that would I
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: just had to kind of gather my thoughts and put
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: my professional hat on and try and walk up the
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: stairs without dropping the tray of tea. And anyway, I
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: walked into before I was actually sitting in the reception area,
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: and a yellow rolls Royce pulls up outside, which you
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: don't see every day, and out comes steps this guy,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: handsome guy with dark hair in a yellow suit, and
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: he marches towards the door of the studios with his
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: wife dutifully walking behind him. She was carrying all the
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: guitars by the way in Well, he wasn't a night
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: then Paul McCartney and I did the studio one at
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Basis Street. We went and over a couple of days
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: recorded vocal, bass, guitar, guitars, keyboards, more vocals, more bass,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: and by now Eric I was thinking, I'm really I'm
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: really going to impress this guy. Now, you know, you're
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: at the best studio in London and one of the
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: newest studios in London, and we're the we're the best,
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to give them my best. He was
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: very quick in the studio here like a one take,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: one take on the bass, right over to the piano,
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: A couple of like record bo so as quick as
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: he could switch instruments, and and and that. I was
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: changing tracks on the desk. I was doing the headphone mix.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: I was whinding the tape back, ready to go into
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: record if he wanted to say, play the tape from
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: the second chorus onwards. I had all the numbers of
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: where the where the musical arrangement was so I could
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: wind back. But I was I was hot. I was
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: hot for a couple of dames. And you just forget,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm not. I'm thinking, I don't care if
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: this is this could be the King of England in
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: in that you just go, I'm going to do a
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: good job, and I and the in between takes. Him
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: and Linda would sit on the sofa in the control room,
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: listening back to what we recorded. The two of them
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: would be kissing and cuddling on the sofa like a
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: couple of teenage love birds, singing and practicing the harmonies.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: You'd be saying, look, this is this is the harmony
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: I want you to sing. And I have to say
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: she was good Eric. I know she got them for
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: a lot of criticism, par thinking, can you have a
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: woman who's not even a musician in the band? You
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: know it wings? No, she was good and what she
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: didn't know, she could pick it up. She had a
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: good she had a good musical ear, and she made
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: gallons of tea for us all and I just felt
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: like part of the family. And it was There's a
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: there's a story that follows on behind that, but I'll
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: leave that food for the book.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Which we should mention the title of the book one, two,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: three four The Life and Times of a recording studio
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Engineer Digby Smith. The book is out and you can
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: get it just in time for the holidays. Makes for
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: a great holiday gift. Led Zeppelin. I love the quote
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: you said, so where do you start when writing about
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: your recollections with regard to being party to the privileged
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: inside the world of led Zeppelin. You worked with them
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: during the Zeppelin three Final mixes. You also worked with
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: them during the four sessions. You also talk about since
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: I've been loving you, the story about Robert plant One
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: take nails the vocals. But I do want to ask
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: you about Celebration Day because I'm going to now listen back,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: and at twenty three seconds into that track, there's something
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: that you do there that is kind of like your
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: signature moment. What happens?
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're listening to the song, and it would
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: have been, you know, the first time anybody's heard it
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: other than Andy Jones, the engineer, and the guys in
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: the And so I was assisting for Andy Johns on
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: ZEPS three and four. But in those days, as as
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: you described as it might be just as a tape operator,
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: but as an assistant engineer, you know, you you'd often
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: find yourself, you know, hands on the desk and helping
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: with a mixer saint where and a couple of extra
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: fingers are needed, and dropping in a couple of times
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: when there were Jimmy Page would have done two or
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: three guitar takes and trying to comp the best bits
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: to you know, make a montage of the best of
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: the three takes to make to make one take and
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: based Andy. But Andy probably thought I was a bit,
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: a bit of an impostor, or a bit preposterous or
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: a bit pushy. But I could I could never keep
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: keep my ideas to myself. And when I heard the
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: intro to celebration and how the drums make their entrance.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: We'd recently I mentioned it previously about reverse tape trying
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: things by turning the tape over. The one new idea
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: that was knocking around in mixing circles amongst some of them,
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: some of us more progressive engineers wanting to try new things.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: As well as playing the music in reverse, you could
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: get the reverb to be in reverse. So instead of
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: the attack and the impact and then the diffusion of
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: the reverbs out, you start off with the diffused sound
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: and it reduces to a to a to a stop.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: And the way you do that with that, again without
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: getting two technical is you turn the tape over, you
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: add reverb to the drums, a really nice long reverb,
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: and then you record that the consequence of that reverb,
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: just the reverb. If you've got an empty track or
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: two on the multi tra machine, you record the reverb
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: on its own on the tracks, and you turn the
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: take back over to its normal direction. And then when
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: you lift up the faders that you recorded the reverb on,
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: the reverb starts big and ends up going small. Start
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: off with the diffusion of the reverb and you end
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: up with it where the reverb began. And I suggested
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: Jimmy and to Andy that the intro would sound fantastic
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: if you had some reverse reverb that would suck you
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: into the into the drums as they come in. Jimmy
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: always had his hand on his chimney. He was always
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: always pacing around the control. I'm always thinking, always, always.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: The genius.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: You we're here, it werering away. Jimmy was thought that, yes,
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: that's a good idea. We had to be interested here
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: what that sounds. Andy was probably like, oh God, there's
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: this young kid, you know, just going on my job,
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: you know. But no Andy, Andy just stepped aside and
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: he said, you go ahead and do what you've got
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: to do. And again you've got to be very careful
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: that you don't put the wrong tracking record and be
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: mindful of, you know, the ergonomics and the mathematics of
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: turning a piece of tape upside down, because now track
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: one is track sixteen and track two is track fifteen,
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: because they're all the other way up now. So if
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: you're empty tracks of tracks one and two, make sure
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: you record it on track fifteen sixteen. Don't record it
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: on one and two. Like I did with Simon. Yeah,
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: so suitably cautionary. I went through the procedure and I
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: recorded the Reaper with the drums on a couple of
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: extra tracks. Turn the tape back over and I wound
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: it back press play, and Jimmy just said, Yep, love it.
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: I've moved away from the desk and let and Andy Andy.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: I'll let Andy back in at that point. But even Andy,
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: to his credit, he said, that's a fantastic idea. He said,
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: it really really works.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: What a thrill for you.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Oh it was. It was definitely a feather in the cap.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, we'll get back to the show, but first
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: I want to tell you about an exclusive deal for
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Booked on Rock. Listeners get fifteen percent off any purchase
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: at old glory dot com. Over three hundred thousand officially
• 52:34
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• 52:43
  Speaker 1: Floyd led Zeppelin, and many many more. Go to old
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: glory dot com, make sure to use the promo code
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Booked on Rock. Also find a link in this episode
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: show notes, or just go to Booked on rock dot
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Com and click on my deals. You moved to Los
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Angeles at the age of twenty four to work as
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: a freelance engineering producer Albert Lee. You worked with Robert Palmer,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: you worked with and you also worked with Booker T
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: and the MG's And unfortunately we just lost Steve Cropper, yes, guitarist,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: so probably a good time to ask you about him
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: and your experience working with the band, and do you
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: have any good stories Steve Cropper stories.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Not too many specific personal recollections other than it was
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: on a record with it was one of these lost records.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: I think it was for Electra Psylum with a duet
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: called Packler Meredith was Jimmy Packler and Jimmy Meredith as well. Anyway,
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: the album was called Packler Meredith and the producer was
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: a chat from Alabama because Steve Steve Smith, famous producer,
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: he worked with Steve Robert Palmer stuff. Steve Smith produced
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: a lot of the Robert Palmer stuff and was a
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: very sim access or a producer. And it was engineering
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: for Steve on this Pakla Meredith on the Robert Palmer
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: album which we've done some months before. Steve got all
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: the guys from Little Feet to be the session musicians.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: So there you are in a studio in Los Angeles
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: and I've got the little Fit rhythm section. It makes sure,
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you the difference it makes, Eric, when you
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: lift those faders up on the drums and the guitars
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: and when you've got proper musicians out there playing, it's
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: basically just put the faders up in a straight line
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: and hit record. You know, there's.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: Really rarefied air. Yeah, you don't get better than that.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: It was, and then with Steve asked me, he said,
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: I'm recording this album for Electra Pakla Meredith. I got
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: a good bunch of musicians lined up to play on it,
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: and so we turn up. I think that was at
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: Clover Studios in Los Angeles. I think that was always
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: steve a favorite place to work. It was either at
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: Clover or United Western. Anyway, Yeah, we turn up. Who's
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: the band? Best part of Booker T and the mgs
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: And again the same and again Eric and I emphasized
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: this to perhaps more of your younger listeners who are
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: probably if they're aspiring to get into the record industry
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: and producing and recording and things. The temptation is firstly
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: to faint when you when you turn up the studio
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: and there's book t in the MG a rhythm section
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: for the for the next two or three days, you know,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: so you know, and then you flash back to all
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: those records you got at home when you when you
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: were an eighteen year old kid in Birmingham, you know,
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: listening to these forty five RPMs on your sister's mono
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: record player, and in the sounds that were leaping out
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: of those off those records. And now he while with
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: the with the guys in that's this is where it
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: came from. These these are the guys. So you have
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: to really take a deep breath, make sure you got
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: your professional head on and just go about. You know,
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: you don't want to be talking to see, Oh what
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: was it like working with notice ready? And he's probably
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: fed up of everybody asking him. Sure it's a story
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: about Doc of the Bay? Is that true that you mix?
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: You will working till five o'clock in the morning doing
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: the mix, and that you took it over to the
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: You know, I didn't want to and plus you haven't
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: got time. You haven't got time because there's a song
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: beem routine there's a singers there. People are sitting around
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: the piano and looking at chord charts and chord sheets,
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: and people are writing notes and scribbling things out and practicing,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: you know, the basslines and what's the kind of right
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: guitar sound we're looking for here, a lot of experimenting,
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: plugging a different amp, try a different guitar. Yeah that works,
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: that works. So there's a lot.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: You're there as a professional, so you got to remind
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: yourself that because you're there in your head it's half fan,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: half professional, going back and forth in your head.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you have to put the little half fan bit.
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: You have to kind of put that to one.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: Side, put them in a box for a little while,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: a little while.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: And before you know it, like I say, it's five
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning, everybody's gone home, and then you
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: turn up the next day. First thing is tidy up
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: the studio, make sure the headphones are still working, get
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: a fresh rul of tape on. Listen, what the song
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: we're going to do today. You go through, so it's
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: only in subsequent years that you look back, which is
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: where the idea for the book came from. And I'm
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: telling people these stories and people. And I think my wife,
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: in particular, Kim, she probably got fed up for hearing
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: these stories. Just write them down and be done with
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: you and then and then we're won't have to suffer
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: listening to them.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: Exactly right now, I know, I know the feeling. I
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: always want to talk about all this stuff with people,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: and sometimes some of them are really into it. Some
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: of them are just like, yeah, okay, you've told me
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: this before.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: I don't know what happens. A couple of glasses of
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: beer and they start coming out. So it's only in
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: subsequent years, in fact, many many years later, that you
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: look back and think, God, I was in the stereo,
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: I was recording Steve Cropper, and then when I splash
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: up on Facebook a couple of days ago, I'm just thinking,
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: I wish I could have got to know him better.
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: But you know, we we were doing it, we were
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: at work.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: Well these days, let's finish with what you're up to
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: these days, what you've been doing recently? You remixed two
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: Bad Company albums, the self titled debut, which is a classic,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: and Straight Shooter, another great album. You also mix their
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: first official live album. You did so work on Black
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: Sabas Volume four Deluxe box set. You took the original
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: sixteen track analog tapes remixed the music. For those who
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: may up be familiar, we often hear about an album
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: remixed and an album remastered. What is the difference between
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: the two.
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: When an album is remastered, invariably they'd taken hold of
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: the original for the most part, stereo quarter each tape
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: that would have had the original mixes on as mixed
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: by the engineer and producer and the artist at the time,
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: from which the original album would have been pressed, probably
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: onto vinyl, and go back to those sorts of records.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: When an album is remastered, they take those original stereo
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: recordings the mix and reprocess it through some equalization, some
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: additional compression, maybe some that use some digital equipment. It's
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: revariably the be available as on CD and as an
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: MP three as a download for streaming and stuff. So remastering,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: he's taken the original mix and just polishing it and
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: refining it, perps, trying to improve the fidelity, the audio
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: fidelity of it. When an album is remixed, you go
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: back to the multi tracks, you go back to the
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: you go back to the raw ingredients, you go back
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: to the kitchen with the knife and the chopping board
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: and all the carrots and the onions, and you remake
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: the cake.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: So each individual instrument and vocal track all of that separated,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: and you can now move up, move down, do whatever.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: So are you there with the artist or somebody on
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: behalf of the artists say this is what we want.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: The original recording didn't have enough of that base pedal
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: in it. Can you move? Can you push that up?
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: What's that process like?
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: It's a complete, legually different process today, a completely different world.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: Eric.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: I'm here in my little home based project studio. I
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: got logic Pro, my keyboards, my guitars. If I get
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: a commission to remix an album, I'm not likely to
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: be playing any instruments on it's differ project.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they send you the stems and say you do
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: your thing.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: They transfer it from the original multi track recordings, whether
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: it's a live performance or a studio performance. In verably,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: if it's a studio recording of a famous song, the
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: record labels and the management company are always interested if
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: there's perhaps an alternative vocal take that wasn't used on
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: the final master, or if there was an alternative guitar
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: solo that you know, they had a choice of two
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: guitar solos. They went with guitar solo be the second take,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: but when you listen it, guitar so ay, the first take,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: it's pretty good, no mistakes. But they just chose so
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: you might be asked to feature alternative takes or alternatively
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: the brief might be no one the same guitar sellers
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: to make sure you find the right one, but you
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: basically go back to the based on the snare, the
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: O read to Tom's, the bass guitar, the guitars, the keyboards,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: the vocals, the harmony vocals. Because it's all recorded on
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: separate tracks on the multi track, invariably sixteen track, most
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: of those.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: Is Paul Rodgers and Simon or they do they have
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: input on what they want? Does you know Tony Naomi
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: with the Sabbath Boxer, do they have say in what
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: you are going to end up doing with these mixes?
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: No, because unlike the sessions I've described, We've talked about
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: being in the studio with Steve Gopper being in the studio,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: with for McCartney being in the studio with Stephen Steele's
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: being there while the music's being created, recorded, and the
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: ideas are springing up as and when and they're captured there.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: Then these is stuff that's already been recorded, and I'm
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: here on my own with just the stems, and I
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: do the mix. I'll do a mix of one side
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: of the album, and I send it invariably to the
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: management company. They'll listen to it for a couple of days,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: they'll play it to the artists, the surviving band members,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: if they're already still alive, they'll play it to the
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: surviving artists. Then they'll come back to me with a
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: list of stuff, little fine finer. You know, I've been
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: doing this so long now, Eric, I know how to
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: make it. I know how to make it.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: I was about to say, they have their faith in you.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: They know you're going to do the job that they're
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: not concerned about that. But at the same time they
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: also can say, oh, yeah, I really like that. Can
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: you change that? So yeah, that makes sense the.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: Kind of things they'd want to change. It's it's all
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: micro tuning. It's all it gets. The the only downside
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: of today's modern recording technology, which I have to say
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: i'm a huge fan of. I love having I love
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: having the stems. I love being able to see what
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: I'm hearing as well as it. Back in the day
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: you couldn't have to just hear it. And guess you know.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: I love the accuracy. I love the non destructive editing.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: I'm never going to erase Simon's drums again, am I? Right?
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: Right? Well, that's the thing. There are pluses to modern technology.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: And the downside of it is, yeah, people can get
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: too forensic two microscopically detailed, whereas back in the day, Yeah,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: the vocal kind of got a bit loud just on
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: those couple of words there, but hey, that's how he
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: performed it. You try to kind of catch it on
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: the mix and so it doesn't jump out. But you know,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: you don't always catch everything, you know, and there's little
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: clicks and bumps and things.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: Right, you want that captures the human element. You don't
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: want to mess with.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: That im And so the downside is that.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: Some and.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: They should remain nameless to protect to protect the guilty.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: Some management companies and artists will get back to you
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: with what you can only define as been microscopic alterations
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: like it rarely is it something really definitive. It might
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: be that the tambourines a bit too loud, or could
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: you just take a little bit of reverb off the
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: lead vocal, or oh there's a click at one minute thirteen.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: So you listen to the tape and you go one
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: thirteen and I can, I can get it to go
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: on repeat, back and forth from one tent to one fifteen,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: and I'm listening for this click, and you're thinking, where
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: the hell is Right when you've listened to it about
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: the fiftieth time, you realize it's the guitar. It's just
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: kind of it's just hit. You know, it's just a
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: click that's come off the guitar pick or something. You know.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, thanks so much for checking out the Booked
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: on Rock podcast. If you've just found the podcast, welcome.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: If you've been listening, thank you so much for your support.
• 1:06:21
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• 1:06:23
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• 1:06:27
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• 1:06:29
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• 1:06:32
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• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel Find it
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: to the show. As a van Halen fan, I want
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: to know, I'm gonna ask you a question, just being
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: as a selfish fan Healin fan here, there's one album
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: that all fans all we talk about from nineteen eighty eight,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Oh You Eate one two. It's it's one of my favorites.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: But all of the fans, I mean, I don't know
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: of any fan who hasn't said there's no bass in it.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: They need to remix it. Well. Alex van Hillen remastered
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: it recently, but we would love to have him go
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: in there and get the stems and pull the bass up,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: pull the make it bigger, be fiery. Why won't an
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: artist do it?
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: When you're remastering, you're taking the original if the bass
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: guitar wasn't loud enough in the mix, which see in
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: the general consensus, If you then go into the original
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: mix and you try it and you remaster it, you've
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: got some very sophisticated eq you can use these days
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: where you might be able to get in there and
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: find out what are the frequencies that the bass guitar
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: is kicking around, and you might be able to pull
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: them out a little bit and bring them to the
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: bring them to the foe a little bit. But it's
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: inevitable that the parts of the bass drum are going
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: to also have that same sonic quality. They are also
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: going to be down there in the same sort of
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: frequency department. So variably, if you try and pull that
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: bass guitar a bit louder in the in the mix,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: when you remaster it, you're probably going to be lifting
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: the bass drum as well.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: So it's affecting other aspects, other parts of the song.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: Down there in the same frequency range. I know it's
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: easy or not easy, but there is there is software
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: where you can actually separate the vocal from the from
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: the rest of the track. And it may well be
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: I haven't come across it yet, but it may well
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: be software that little the AI within the software will
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: recognize the bass guitar and maybe it could be done
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: that way. The best way of doing it would be
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: to go back to the original multi.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: Tracks right well, the master it sounds better. It's just
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: that we know that if they remixed it and took
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: all of the individual parts and really just maybe pulled
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: up that piece. Our thought is it's going to sound better.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: What they should do, Eric, is that they should get
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: the original multi tracks, transfer them over digitally, send me
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: the stems.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: Alex, are you listening?
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: Jobs? Are good?
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: Digby is ready.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: Ready at any time?
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah? So what are you up to these days? I
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: read and I think it was on your website. Still
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: working as a freelance engineer. You facilitate music courses for
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: young musicians and sound engineers. Are you still doing that?
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: Not doing quite so much of that at the moment,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: but for a couple of years when we first moved
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: down here to the southwest of England and we moved
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: down to Devon, I got involved with one of the
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: local music colleges and did a lot of work with
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: some of the young musicians and introducing them to recording tech,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: knowology of the days. Did that for a couple of years.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: Occasionally get called back to do that, and I'm always
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: impressed with the young guys and girls. You know, when
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: I was growing up, I had maybe fifteen twenty years
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: worth of musical history to draw back on. These guys
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: and girls today they've got, like I don't know, they've
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: got the best part of a hundred years worth of
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: music and certainly certainly fifty sixty years of what we
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: call rock and roll to go back. And I'm always
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: impressed with the young guys and girls their knowledge of music.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: They're always more interested in the fact that I worked
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: with bands like led Zepp and obviously Bob Marley and
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: that than they are with any modern bands I've ever
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: worked with. You know, they want to know all about
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: they want to know about the roots stuff. You know.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: It's so there's a lot of enthusiasm out there, and
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: I wish I hope the industry doesn't implode on it
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: self and and the people who are behind the money
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: supply in the music business. And I won't name names
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: because we'll get into trouble, but streaming platforms specifically, that
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: could make it so that for young people wanting to
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: get into music, write song, to perform and record, that
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: they can make it financially worth their while so they
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: don't have to sell, they don't have to have a
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: million streams just to inform a bucks, you know what
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: I mean. It's crazy.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: That's one of the big problems the other one is AI.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on AI?
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: AI, like all computers, Eric, when the fight? Can I
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: go back far enough?
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: Now?
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: I can remember when the first cassette machines came along,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: you know, all the purists and the recordings, and that's
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: the end, guys, that's the end. People will just be
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: copying music from cassette to cassette. And then when the
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: first drum machines come and that's the end of drummers.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: You won't have anybody playing drums anymore. It's that you
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: can do it all on a machine. For years, that
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: was the end of That was the death of the drama.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: Didn't happen. First synthesizers came along, and then with MIDI
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: and sequencing, that's the end of keyboard players didn't happen.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: So yeah, we just got to be mindful of it
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: and make sure that we focus on what will be
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: the undoubted benefits that will come from AI. But we've
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: got to legislate and be mindful of the wrong wrongdoing
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: that it's capable of. And as with all technology, technology
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: throughout the history of mankind. You know, the wheel was
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: a curse when it was invented, you know, so let's
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: just keep on top of it.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: Find the Bookdown Rock website at bookdown Rock, Dark carm.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: There you can find all the back episodes of the show.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: I had this episode in video and audio links to
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: all of the platforms where you can listen to the podcast.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: Plus all the social media platforms were on Blue, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: and x. Also check out the booked on Rock blog.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: Find your local independent bookstore. Find out all the latest
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: hot rockbook releases. And before you go, check out the
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: booked on Rock online store. Pick up some booked on
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: Rock merch. It's all at booked on Rock dot com.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: Digbie Smith one, two, three four The Life and Times
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: of a Recording studio Engineer. People can get it on hardcover, paperback,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: audiobook Kindle so they could go to Amazon dot com.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: Also, Bonds and Noble is another good site.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, and people can find out more about you through
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: your website. What's the website.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: TQ one Music, Tango, quebec one Music, capitalm dot com, Digbi.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: This was so great, Thank you so much. I want
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: to thank Also we want to thank Chris Sutton, who
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: is the author of a great book on sparks and
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: that's for Sonic Bond Publishing and he set this in
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: to view up. So thanks to Chris, and thank you
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: sir for doing this and imparting your wisdom onto us
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: music fans.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: You're too kind. Thank you, my pleasure, Arry.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: It's in the books.