Run The Jewels/Moby/New Order.

Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?

A: The Smiths’ The Queen Is Dead. It came during my formative years as an engineer, when I was a Tape op. I was still learning, but working with them and Stephen Street taught me everything I needed, and hearing that, 40 years on, it still stands up.

Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?

A: A generator, a few Rupert Neve Designs RMP-D8 preamps, Neumann KH 350 self-powered speakers, a pair of Neumann U67s, a Shure SM58, a pair of Shure KSM137s, [missing item] and a chair.

Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?

A: I started out in Manchester in 1986 at Strawberry Studios, learning the ropes under Martin Hannett. After a year as an assistant engineer I landed my first session of my own, and spent the next five years recording some of the finest English artists around. Then I went freelance, working across both the studio and the stage, and in 1993 I started working with Moby, a run that lasted 20 years. Along the way I’ve worked with New Order, Happy Mondays, Faithless, The Streets, Robyn, Röyksopp, Avicii and Run The Jewels. Forty years on, I split my time between LA and the UK, still working with electronic and pop bands in the studio and on the road.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Organically powerful. I want a record to feel like real people playing in a real room, But, organic doesn’t mean polite. I mix records the way I mix shows: punchy, decisive and built to hold up on any system.

Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?

A: Nine Inch Nails, because they are always innovating and using new Tech.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Two, actually, because they’re both about keeping the life in a recording. Go for feel, not tuning perfection. A performance with real emotion and great timing will always beat a perfectly tuned take with no life in it. Tools like Melodyne are brilliant for fixing the odd note, but if you correct everything, you polish the character right out of the performance. People connect with feel, not perfect pitch. Don’t record tracks too hot. The habit of pushing levels comes from the days of tape and early digital, when you needed to stay well above the noise floor. With 24-bit recording, that isn’t necessary anymore. Leave plenty of headroom: you avoid clipping, which can’t be undone, and you give yourself room to process and mix later without anything distorting.

Q: What type of music do you usually work on?

A: Electronic-based rock and pop, where live instruments and electronics meet. Over the years, that’s meant working with artists like New Order, Moby and Run The Jewels.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Production and sonics. On the production side, the work starts before anyone hits record. I’ve spent 40 years shaping sound in nearly every setting: recording and mixing albums for artists like New Order, Moby, and X Ambassadors; mixing stereo and 5.1 broadcast mixes of live shows; I’ve taken studio techniques into the live world to get results most people don’t think are possible there, and records I worked on decades ago still stand up today..

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I bring depth, power and a sense of energy. I started in Manchester in 1986, learning my craft at Strawberry Studios under Martin Hannett, and I’ve spent the past 40 years in the studio and on the road with artists like New Order, Moby and Run The Jewels. Mixing front of house teaches you what makes a song hit people in the chest, and I bring that back into the studio. That’s why I record the band playing together, with the drums as the foundation, so the energy of a real performance is there from the first take. Then I build the depth and detail around it, so the finished record still has the power of a band in the room.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: Start by working the songs up in a rehearsal setting, then plan exactly where and how we’ll record each one. Next, I get the drums sounding the way we want them, and we track with the whole band playing together. The drums are the main focus at that stage, but I listen to everything, and I keep any parts that are already solid. From there, we build up the backing track, then record the vocals. I clean up as I go during tracking where I can, and finish any remaining cleanup before mixing. Then I mix, listen back, and have a Guinness.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: Pro Tools 26, Logic 12, Ableton 12 Suite, Cubase 15, Reason 14, iZotope RX 12, Smaart 9. Neumann Microphones and Monitoring, Sanken Microphones.

Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?

A: My biggest early influence was Martin Hannett, whom I worked under at Strawberry Studios — "Play it again, faster, But Slower". Today, I’m inspired by everything from Deadmau5 to Gojira and anything by Plaid, from bold electronic sound design to great guitar bands with real vocals.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: Run The Jewels 5.

Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?

A: Not that I know.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Digital. Easier to Manipulate and less Connections to set up anywhere.

Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?

A: It will be fun, and there will be a lot of Professionalism.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: The Product and the Journey.

Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A: The big one is “How long will it take?”. My response: It mostly depends on your budget and how far you want to take each song. And then, "Add another day per song".

Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?

A: Auto Tune will Sort it out...

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What is the Budget?

Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A: Look for someone Who has enough Experience in the Field You need.

Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.

A: I record my clients’ live shows multitrack, straight from my AVID FOH console into Pro Tools, then mix them to stereo so they can sell them online or at the merch table immediately after the show. It gives artists a profitable extra income stream that they fully control, with no record label involved.