Kevin Paul
Welcome to the Sound On Sound People and Music Industry Podcast Channel with me Kevin Paul. In this episode I talk to Gareth Jones. Gareth is a pioneer of digital and analogue recording. He got his big break working with Depeche Mode on the album Construction Time Again and since then has been at the forefront of analogue and digital technology in the recording studio. Gareth is also part of analogue modular synthesiser group Sunroof with Mute Records owner Daniel Miller.  After initial training at the BBC in the late 70s, he started his journey at Pathway Studios in London and helped build the Garden Studio in Shoreditch.  In the early 80s, he moved to Berlin for 10 years and worked at the legendary Hansa Studio. His work goes all the way back to 1980 and includes artists such as Fadgadget, Depeche Mode, Wire, Nick Haven of Bad Seeds and Erasure. More recently he's worked with Stubbleman, The Leisure Society, Spiritual Friendship and Jan Tiersen.  It's fair to say that I could fill the entire podcast just mentioning the names of the artists he's worked with. Gareth is a pioneer in the use of digital equipment and combines this with analog recording techniques and his love of synthesizers. Gareth, welcome to Mixbus.

Gareth Jones
Thanks for having me here. How are you? Thanks, Kevin. It's, uh, really nice to welcome you back to my little shed in Shoreditch, after too many years. It's great to see you. I'm really well, and delighted to be a part of your podcast. Thank you. Yeah, it's been a long time. Hasn't changed much, if I'm honest.

Was it decorated with Jamie's work last time, or has it always been No, uh, this is an artist called, uh, uh, Ben.  I love Jamie Reade's artwork, and I got kind of quite inspired by it when I moved here first in the 90s. Yeah. Because in the Studio One in the Neve Room, it's like a Bedouin tent in there. Yes.

Have you been in the Neve Room yet? Not recently, but a long time ago. It's gorgeous, it's like lined with silks, it looks like silks. I thought, oh that's nice, uh, I don't have to have a grey or a brown studio, I could have colours. Yeah. But I couldn't afford Jamie Reade, and I met a lovely guy called Ben.

And I commissioned him to do these, uh, these paintings that are on the wall. Yeah, it's very nice, very cosy, very relaxed. Trippy, man. What drew you to the studio in the first place? Because you've dedicated yourself to recording. Your passion for recording is well known in the industry.  Where did it all start? 

It started at school, I suppose.  I mean, I got my love of recording music from my dad. When I went into rock and roll, I felt I was being a bit of a rebel. Because, you know, my dad was a school teacher and I was, uh, I should have been a doctor or a lawyer or something. Right. And, uh, But it turned, but many years later I thought, oh, the old man's hobby was like listening to his records, and he really loved it.

He had, he built a little speaker that went in, uh, like a bass reflex cabinet that went across the corner of the living room, and he, he, he mucked about with his hi fi, he had an old Rogers Valve hi fi. Uh, so anyway, uh, not only did I owe, like many of us, I owe like loads to my parents, but, but I got a definite love of, um, of music and recorded music, uh, from the old man.

So, and then somehow,  when I was at school, I did all the usual things that you do at school, I suppose, uh,  bunked off and, like Yeah. Yeah, anyway, uh, but, uh, but I liked mu I liked my music lessons. I liked, uh, sound effects. I played around with tape recorders. So I started editing and recording, and then I bought a beautiful, uh, sadly I don't have it anymore, I bought a Faragraph Series 4, uh, like a Tube, uh, based, uh, mono tape recorder, with, uh, from some money I made by, uh, Picking fruit in the summer for some reason.

I mean I was only a kid I don't know why I bought it But I felt that I needed to have a tape recorder and then I started recording my friends at school I think the mic I think was like total. I think it was a crystal mic like a real dodgy mic I found that super powerful once I looked realized you could actually cut the tape.

Okay? I don't think I was doing like the creative musical edits, but  Because I wasn't that On it, but I could, I was doing, you know, cutting a bit of music, and then cutting it into a sound effect, and then cutting it into a bit of speech. And this was like super Oh, I thought you were saying some early sort of radio editing, almost.

Kind of vibe, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, uh, like, um, Like we met and I made some things like like little radio dramas. I suppose you they might be I made a few  Weird little recordings with them with mates. Yeah. Yeah, I mean a lot of my Discovery of music and a love of music and enjoyment of music has been through recording music You know from being a student and listening to headphones through the night when I should have been Asleep so I could get to lectures early in the morning  and you know, so Making records is a, is a response to that, and I'm actually making stuff that's very, been very musically important to my, to my journey.

You know, some people come to, come to music by, by playing in a band, or, or loving gigs, or, or, or, you know, in the classical world, just, uh, giving great concerts, you know, but my, my vibe is always, I've always loved a, like, a couple of speakers, or, or a set of headphones. Yeah, and, and you've always, as long as I've known you, you've always push the envelope with your recording.

I mean, you know, you've told me many times about your time with Depeche Mode, for instance, where you were recording on balconies, uh, recording drum sounds just from the streets or putting something in a bin and recording the sound of something going into the bin and you've got a microphone there recording that and then trying to do something with it on the other end.

You know, is that just something that you just thought, I'm just gonna have a go at that? No, I basically, I didn't know what I was doing. That's why it seems like we were being adventurous. Right. Because I didn't know how to do it properly. So, uh, you know, I kind of got a very basic training, as you mentioned, at the BBC.

Right, okay. Which was hugely valuable at the time. And, and, but it was, it was, Super basic, but I never had the pleasure of being an assistant in a great studio. Okay, where where you get the opportunity to work with? masters of the art, you know both Musical musical geniuses men and women and and back in the 70s mostly Production and engineering geniuses are mostly men back then But I was kind of bit thrown in the deep end pathway You know, happily for me, uh, a guy gave me a break.

Mike, fine silver around the studio, gave me a break. I was looking for a job in a studio. And he gave me a break. And then I was thrown into, uh, like, doing it myself. So, I, I, a lot of learning by doing. And a lot of learning, actually, from, uh, musicians. Who said, oh, uh, we, we, I wanna do this. Or how about we try this, or something.

So, so I was always, because I didn't know, I mean, there's some hugely creative friends and colleagues who came up as assistants as well, of course. But I kind of feel, because I didn't know what I was doing, I was happy to try anything. And obviously, from trying anything, you were responsible for creating  some incredibly influential records.

Some, some things worked. I mean, the, the, even, even on a big record, the experiments you try that fail, Uh, are not suitable, they don't appear, you know, and of course they don't, but But actually, I don't think there's any failure involved in making art. The thing is to actually do it. And then, as you always learn, don't you?

Yeah, you learn if it works, or you learn if you don't work. And you learn that it doesn't work in this context, but it might work in another context. Right. That was one of the big discoveries I had. Because when I was younger, I was a lot more Ego driven so that if someone didn't like one of my ideas, I might be a bit offended, you know But as I grew up I realized that just because the idea is not appropriate in this musical context Doesn't mean it could also be a genius idea That you put it on the shelf and you pull it down five years later and use it Offer it in a different musical context.

How, how do you deal with that as a, as a producer when, when someone says they don't like something? When I was, uh, younger, then I would, uh, you say, how do you deal with it? When you, you sulk, because they, they, they, Is that, yeah. They don't like your idea. They're quiet for ten minutes. Yeah, yeah. What's the matter with him?

But I think as you, uh, as you, uh, broaden your horizons, Yeah. I mean, you know, we know, don't we? Especially, uh, there's a very clear, um, Yeah. aspect of this in mixing. A lot of my commission work now is, is mixing. Sure. Eh, eh, what's important in mixing is that, uh, the, the client likes the mix. I got a very broad palette, like, like we all have.

You know, there's a million things we can do. There's a million ways of getting to a good mix. And everyone gets there in their own way. Yes. But the point is It doesn't matter if I like the mix or not. What matters is that the person I'm making the mix for, and it is a kind of a humble job in many ways, what matters is that they should be delighted.

For, and for instance, like now, when the artist, when, usually the artist is the, is the, is the main visionary in saying if the mix is there, the client, usually the artist could be a, a very creative A& R person, but when the client, says they're happy with the mix, then I stop. Whereas, uh, when I was younger, sometimes I'd be like, Oh no, I definitely can make it better.

And I'd carry on for two more days. It's a total waste of time. This is something I've shared with many of my younger colleagues, where they are also driven. And I said, but hang on a minute, you told me that the singer said he loved the mix.  So, so, stop. So why are you playing around with it? Stop now.

Because it's not for you to say. There's a lot of, you have to put a lot of ego aside in great group work anyway. I don't think this is limited to, uh, music, probably. Well, probably art in general, really. Probably, yeah, yeah, it could be, uh Whether you're making a film or It could be, yeah, it could be, uh Probably many team, in, in many In football, even, you know, of course, uh, talented people have egos, but sometimes you have to put your ego aside and say it's better for me to pass the ball to my colleague than to try and take it myself, you know, so, so, so, ego generally gets in the way, but, you know, when you're 20 and full of testosterone, then, uh, uh, it's hard to, uh, have that perspective.

And God knows what else. God, yeah. It's not just testosterone we're full of at 20. How, how did you get involved with Mute? I helped John Fox build the garden studio, as you mentioned in your intro, which is round the corner from here, now, now closed down of course. Basically, I was engineering for John quite a lot, and, uh, he got a bit of money together and he wanted to build a studio, and I was his engineer, so I, I kind of advised on the gear.

I mean, I didn't really know anything about it. But,  like, looking back Do you had? Do you remember what I do remember. We bought an AMIC, uh, 2520, I think. Oh, wow. And, uh, MCI JH24. And, uh Very good. It was, the concept was a This is quite funny, actually, for the nerds. The concept was a tra It was marketed as, like, transformers were marketed as bad in this period in the 80s.

Okay. So the thing we built was a transformer less studio. Which is really funny now, because now you can't wait to put all the audio through, like, 12 transformers to make it sound fat. Yeah, completely, yeah. But, it doesn't matter. We built a, uh, uh, it, we built, John invested, and, and I,  Helps put together a bunch of gear.

So what we got basically is a cool artistic electronic music  electronic musician. He's built his own studio. So, uh, uh, Mute's working out of Blackwing a lot. Uh, it's, uh, uh, they got the difficult third album coming up for Depeche Mode. They are looking for, uh, another studio to work in. Just for, not that they fell out with Eric and, and John, but, but they just wanted a change.

They felt they needed some kind of change, they didn't know what. Which album was that? Was that Construction Time again? Yeah, it was, yeah. So they came to John's studio.  They thought, oh, they heard about, you know, there was probably pre internet. They, somehow they'd heard about John's studio and thought, oh, that could be cool.

And it wasn't like a rock and roll studio, it was like minimal and, uh, like, uh, electronic. We loved electronics, you know, so it kind of fitted. So,  they came to the studio, um, John, John Fox said to me, uh, Oh, this band Depeche Mode are coming down in the studio to check it out, uh, it'd be a good session for you to do.

Then I said, uh, I'm not doing that, John. They're on the radio. I don't  I just didn't seem right, you know. I was into jazz, weird jazz and reggae and I was doing, uh, some I was recording a systems group called The Lost Jockey. Uh, it wasn't really my music, I thought. You thought? Okay. So I said no. Yeah. And, um, uh, they, they came down and they checked the studio out with another engineer.

Yeah. And, uh, they liked the studio vibe, but they didn't like the engineer, luckily for me, because it turned into a lifelong friendship, particularly with, uh, the record company boss, Daniel, one of my dear friends and mentors, I suppose, but now I'm much more of a colleague and friend, and, um, so, so John came back to me, again, as my mentor, again, you know, and said, look, Gareth, they like the studio, but they didn't like the engineer that I got, he said, he said, go over there and meet him, you know, basically wagging his finger at me, Seemed like a lot, he was a lot more experienced, I mean, a lot, Seemed like a lot older, him, when I was in my twenties.

He's probably only about four, four years older, or five years older or something. At that time, he seemed like much, massively experienced. He'd made like four albums or something, you know. So anyways, so that, so I went over to, uh, Kensington Garden Square, I think it was then. And I met, uh, the band and Daniel.

And, uh, of course they were like, normal, nice, normal, weird people. And I was like, oh, cool. That's the perfect fit. So they luckily, I mean, I suppose we were kind of, Interviewing each other, really. I mean, I, you know, I didn't, I mean, not really. I wasn't, I just thought, okay, I'll go over there and met him. And, uh, we took it from there.

Would you say that that's kind of a very definitive moment for you? Yeah, so it's like sliding doors, isn't it? Like, you know, it's like, you got on the tube or you didn't get on the, you know. Yeah. But sure, that was, that turned into Uh, some very long friendships. I met some wonderful people, yourself included, through that, through that single meeting back then.

Yeah, thank you. I mean, we might have met anyway, but, you know, still, and, uh, uh, I met my wife through that connection, you know, uh, somehow, many years later, and so on, so. So, yeah, very important. A pretty important finger wagging from that, from your boss. Yeah, thanks, John.  Woo woo!  Well, I think, I just, I like this story, that's why it's so awesome, isn't it?

Because, actually, I didn't want to do it. Yeah. I was like, no, I'm not doing that. And beyond, and, I mean, there was a, I was incredibly fortunate to work with, um, such a creative bunch of people, and, who had massive, uh, Uh, you know, success due to the wonderful songwriting and the awesome marketing and everything they did.

I was obviously a small part of that. That was amazing. But beyond that, the creative relationships and the, the learning that I went, the curve that I went through was, uh, It's really funny how you say, This is why, Judgement is not helpful. We're, as little apes, we, you know, we always judge. Is it good? Is it bad?

Is it good? Is it bad? You can't tell if it's good or bad until afterwards. And in the studio, if you're trying to be creative, judgement actually can be the killer,  in some ways. I agree with that, Kevin, very much. We, uh, one of the things that, um, uh, the Spiritual Friendship Project that I, is with my friend Nick Hook in, in Brooklyn.

We're doing our own music, uh, which has been a wonderful, uh, uh, journey and, and, uh, growth experience for both of us. Uh, one of the early things that we hit On with that record was no judgment. So, so that, of course we, in, in, in, when we're creating stuff. So, so, because When you're writing? Yeah, I suppose.

Yeah. When you're writing? I mean, it's, it's There's no dismissing anything? No, no, everything, you're open to everything. Everything, if you're in the room with someone, all ideas get tried. And it's very easy to say, and it's so important, I feel, when you're collaborating as a creative team, to not shut each other down. 

So then you started with Depeche Mode, and you had Mute and them had great success. Yeah. Um,  And then you followed that up by working with Vince Clark  and Erasure. And you were doing something very unique back then when you were, with your work with Andy, I feel. Because you were primarily responsible for recording Andy. 

He would use you and only you, as far as I can remember, to record his vocals. Um, which nowadays, there are vocal engineers. Yeah. Yeah? But you were one of the first people to do that. That came about I met, uh, Vince and Andy through, um, Demander Gallas, actually. She  was kind enough to mention to Andy that she felt that I had some understanding of him.

Yeah.  recording voice. And really, I'm not even sure it is about the actual recording. I feel it was about giving the vocalists the space to express themselves. It always seemed a bit odd when I started recording that we'd spend like if we had a day to record a track Say we had a 14 hour day to record a track back in the 8 track We'd spend like 12 and a half hours on the band and then the vocalist would get like 20 minutes To do the vocal that always seemed to be very strange I just seemed a bit odd to me because because obviously as a listener I remembered when I was a young young boy Before I understood how, how records were made, or before I even worked out how songs were constructed, I can feel a memory somewhere about this thing with vocal and a bunch of noise behind it.

So it's like a 50 50 thing, you know. So it seemed pretty obvious to me that really, it's probably worth spending half the time on the vocals. You then started the mixing in the box revolution, because you were mixing in the box way before anyone I knew.  When did that start? I think That started, well actually partly just for the sheer bloody mindedness of it.

I thought, I, I realized quite early on,  I remember having a few plugins on an early laptop and thinking hang on a minute, basically, this is like Hansa Mixroom.  that I can carry around under my arm. I mean, it, it probably wasn't in the, as we all know,  everyone of my age knows anyway, in the early days, it wasn't that good.

Yeah. Uh, but now, obviously, it's incredible. But, but in the early days, it wasn't that good. But still, I had this idea. I thought, oh, wait a minute. I've got two Space Echoes. I've got I got three reverbs, I got four compressors, you know, and suddenly, it seemed like I'd almost got the whole outboard rack of the Hansa Mixroom in my laptop, so I thought I'd try and do some work like that, and there was probably a budget driven thing as well at some stage.

I probably got offered to do something, but when I didn't have a studio to mix in, and there was no budget really, and someone said, can you help, and I thought, right, I'll I'll try it on my laptop. Uh, in the same way that I've tried doing a bit of work on the iPad. The same, uh, same, same vibe where I've gone up.

I've been on holiday in Greece. I thought, okay, I'll do this remix on the iPad. Interesting. And, you know, just for the sheer fun of it, really, I suppose. Just mucking about. I think that is quite fair to say that you, uh, One of the very first people mixing solely in the digital domain. So I was very interested in computers all the way down.

Yeah. Uh, so that when, uh, and actually back to erasure for a moment, because I'm, I was lucky enough to make a few royalties, a bit of royalties off, uh, with, uh, Vince and Andy, I invested most of that money in early, um, Digital Computing Macs. I had a SE30 with a DigiDesign sound card and then a 4 channel sound card in my Mac 2FX, whatever it was.

This is all super vintage Macs, right? They cost a lot of money. Yes, they did, yes. Cost a lot of money. Thousands, thousands of thousands. Unbelievable. Yeah. But it was super fun and it was a great learning curve and now it doesn't really matter. But I, I, I had a instinct that, because there were a number of ways it might go.

There was a standalone. System called Radar, there was a stand alone digital recorder, it was quite good. And I never was that interested in that, I was, I, the idea of having, here, a studio vision, there's CDs on the wall there still, Uh, for the original studio vision, where it says Deluxe CD. Uh, the idea that you could have audio in the sequencer,  I just thought it was genius.

Yeah. Obviously. 'cause sequences are cool. Yeah. Because we, we, we were quite lucky. We, we grew up in that evolution. We, we were alive when that evolution took place. Yeah. And  yeah, it, it had its moments. I mean, you know, the computer would fall over on a regular basis. Sure. It's super challenging. Um, you know, first of all it was four tracks of audio.

Then it was. 8 track. Originally it was stereo, wasn't it? Stereo editing, rather than anything else. Yeah. Uh, with, what, sound tools. And then it eventually made its way into Logic and Cubase. Cubase Audio and Logic Audio. Yeah, and the first one was Studio Vision.  Which addressed the, which was also a Californian company, I think.

And it addressed, it was a great, there was a great software sequencer called Vision. Really, um, sadly defunct now. They worked out a way to talk to that stereo card that we used for sound tools. Okay. So that it appeared in the sequencer. And that was kind of mind blowing. That was revolutionary. Yeah, it was revolutionary.

I mean, in a way, it's all a bit retro now, because it seems everyone's used to, like, 300 tracks on their laptop. What I was getting at was that, because I was, I was natural, I was, even at col when I went to college, which was long before I ever worked in a recording studio, I was very interested in computing.

And so, when all this shit started arriving, I was very excited by it, and I never saw it as a threat to the old way of working. I always just thought it was incredible new horizons. I loved it. You completely embraced it. I really loved it, you know. I remember you turning up at mute with all, with your, with your Mac and your MIDI keyboard and we're going, oh, what is that?

And you're just going, yep, stereo out on the desk. Yeah. And we're like, really? Well, that's an easy session. But, you know, but, you know, whereas today, you know, everyone's doing, yeah, rocking up, as you say, with the laptop. It's another example of, Of your curiosity with recorded sound. Yeah, you know, yeah, and I find quite inspirational You know, because you, you're always looking for that.

Whereas a lot of people, as you say, are kind of shying away from it. Certainly, well, not now, because, because if, if, if you're in your twenties, you were born into it, and therefore it's not unusual to, to work from a computer and stuff like that. But even those, that, that generation of people are now suddenly going the other way and starting to,  Come into the analog domain and they're starting to see Actually analog actually has a place in their sound.

Yeah, you know and actually a  Workflow, are you using an analog front end in here? Yeah, I got I got 14 input  Fat busted which I like So I'm using 14 inputs like that and then I've got Clarophonic that I use on the Output of the busted as a bus EQ just like a nice treble. Yeah, like my my cheap version of um of uh, You know a mass and a massenburg that i'm not paying for the lower frequencies.

Um, it's only treble boost So that that's amazing equalizer. I like it a lot And then I've got a few bits and pieces that I use on hardware insets. And then I commit to. You know, they might be run, like, like, you know, they might be running for a while. And I do use the modular quite a lot. I've got, uh, Bucket Brigade delays and spring reverbs, and Echo Fon here, and Magneto, all these, like, super cool delay processors.

Yeah, I can see a lot of that in here, actually. So that, that kind of runs.  Again, it all gets committed, you know, if Right. You mainly Do you record it back into you? Yeah, of course, yeah. Okay. Mainly on a lead vocal, I might Right. build a special effect. I noticed on the Leisure Society album Yeah.  the vocals on there are unbelievable.

I mean, the singers, obviously, are fantastic singers. Yeah, yeah, they delivered great they did deliver great vocals, yeah. And that's an example, actually, where I Very much enjoyed, and it's always a bit of a gamble at first, you know, because before you start working with people, you build an effect. And it's a, it's another, it's another thing where you have to A, not judge, otherwise you'll never commit.

And also then you have to not be ego bound, because you have to be ready for them to say, oh, I don't like that. So with a combination of parallel drive from the, um, big trees Yeah, that's made by Steve, isn't it? Yeah. Steve, who used to work at Mute. Yeah. Yeah, he's he's he's a he's a lovely very very great genius and that's a real boutique company, isn't it?

Yeah, what are they called audio kitchen audio kitchen? Yeah, that's his own coming. He works with Mutronics didn't yeah mutator they made didn't they didn't make to help make the mutator Because again the vocal as we know the vocal so important. Yeah, and sometimes I will build outboard  effects And even outboard even sometimes I use the tweakers outboard compression I mean I noticed on that leisure society album.

I mean the vocal effects are unbelievable. Sometimes it's like really subtle delays Is that would that be all coming some of it could be yeah And and again spring reverbs and and maybe through the course of a song you would have two or three vocal effects Sometimes it'd be quite dry. Yeah  And then other times it would be very atmospheric But when they sing loud I put more effects on  Really?

That simple? Well,  yeah, in the choruses.  Are you going to mix it the way you've mixed every track you've mixed ever in your life? No, man, I'm gonna listen to the rough mix.  Uh, like, like, always, you know. And that's again something, uh, that took me about 20 years to, to, to 20 years to learn.  Yeah, because it Don't forget the rough mixes before were made on a cassette.

There's some, they weren't, but still they were very important. And I think, I could, you know, uh, I used to think, Oh, the rough mix is irrelevant, because they, uh, they've come to me to mix it. And therefore, and now, of course, the rough mix is sacred. So, you know, I've always got the rough mix in the rig and it's always on a button where I can refer to there's always something brilliant on the rough mix that I've missed.

You know, very rough mix lead. I just mixed a lovely record, a single track for a band from Norway called Major Parkinson. It's a beautiful song. And I, for some stupid reason, I got it into my head that the vocals sounded awesome dry. And it did sound awesome dry to me. But,  that didn't, that didn't wash with the band.

And of course it wasn't like that on the rough mix. And, and, and that was a little example where actually I, I wasted my own time. And I fell in love with something that was not appropriate. Because nowadays that rough mix,  We say it's rough, but actually sometimes it could be 75% of the song, if not more.

Yeah, man. And it could have been there for nine months. Yeah. It could have been there for a lo, you know, a long time. I mean, there's no point in talking about how we used to work. No. But because it's built in a, in, in, in a, in a DAW the rough mix is a huge part of the, I mean the, um. The apparat record LP5.

Yes. The rough mixes on that, that Sasha did with his producer Phil, uh, they're incredible! You know, one or two people have been kind enough to say how amazing, uh,  the apparat record sounds. But I mean, man, it sounded amazing when it arrived. Do you spend a lot of time outside of the studio listening to music?

Yeah, I still, uh, I was an early, uh, adopter of the Sony Walkman, actually, I bought one in, in San Francisco before they were available in Europe. Right. So, headphones. I'm still, uh, using Sony, uh, You've got your, you've got your Dr. Dre Sports Beats? Yeah, but I got, they're, they're, they're good for the gym, but I got some other, oh, these awesome little Sony, uh, these new little Sony earbuds.

I remember. I mean, it's all only Bluetooth, but they're still, they're amazing. So, yes. Okay. I try, I listen, I like, listen, I, I love listening to vinyl at home as well. Right, okay. Yeah. I listen to the radio a lot. Yeah. I'm a huge Radio three fan. I'm classical music was my first love. 'cause my dad's record collection Right.

Was classical, of course. Um, I've inherited his vinyl, actually. I've got it all at home and that is quite wonderful to play. If I play, because my dad didn't have a lot of money, so he only had one recording of each piece. He'd only, he wouldn't have, he wasn't like a collector who'd have 20 recordings of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

Right. But when I play, my dad's old vinyl, I just rediscovered, like, when he passed, I took, when my mum died, actually, we closed the house down, and I took the vinyl, and I played some of the early, I thought, that is somehow the definitive version of that, that piece. So, yeah, big Radio 3 fan, so, oh, very often on in our house, in the morning, I'll put, I'll put Radio 3 on, sometimes in the evening as well.

Vinyl I still love. Since I've discovered Tidal, with, with high quality streaming, um, I'm not listening to, I'm not buying so much vinyl, I'm ashamed to say. In the early days of streaming, when I was only listening to Spotify with its very compressed feed, uh, and Apple Music, again, very compressed feed. I was like thinking, if I liked it, I'd go and buy the vinyl, and enjoy the real thing, you know?

But now, I do that a lot less. Uh, if my friend makes a piece of vinyl, um, then I'll buy it, as a support, and to have, for love. Yeah. But, but, you know, the Tidal, especially now, the quality's extremely good. They've even gone to ma Master now, so you can get 96K,  uh, stuff, if you deliver 96K and tick the right box.

Do you record at 96K now? It depends on the track count. Uh, the spiritual friendship. Uh, my own stuff. That is, I know the track count is limited, is 96k. I'm not saying that I'm gonna pick what is the 320 mp3 and what is the 96k, Kevin. I'm not, I'm listening to the music like, I'm not a great technician. I don't think. 

So, I'm not trying to pretend that I find the one awesome and the other completely crap. Yeah. But I have noticed a little bit, I feel,  what, archiving analogue, uh, and, or anytime the stuff goes analogue, if you can bring it back in 96k, I think that's respectful for the future. Yeah, sure. So like a high quality archive.

Yeah. Multitrack, I'm not gonna archive that at 44. You know, because it just seems rude. Uh, and, And also, in working 96k, there's something about the intimacy and the way the high end, I can screw tops on, I don't know, there's something I kind of prefer about it. Yeah, I agree, 96k, for me, does sound better than 48.

If I had the computing power, Uh, then I would do, you know, and I was doing big projects, I'd do everything at 96K just for, for future proofing. And because it feels a bit, it feels a bit more like analogue to me. When I'm working at 96K, I don't, I just think, you know what,  I'm not that gutted that it's not on tape.

I think it's actually, it's, there's lots of detail, there's lots of depth. I just want to add one thing, uh, uh, a, a colleague of mine, Has spoke, we spoke about this, um, uh, Has had some projects delivered to him 96k. He couldn't play on his rig. And he's done several like this now. He's converted them to 44. 1.

And, and mixed, and no one's ever noticed. As well. That's the other side of the coin. So he's done the mixes. The mixes have been signed off on. And no one's ever said, so, so, it's, it is, it's a subtle thing, right? I like it, anyway, if I can do it, I like it. And I didn't, when it first came out, when, and it's all to do with prejudice, when my computer couldn't run 96k, I just thought, what a waste of time.

You thought, I'm not, I'm not gonna bother with that. No, it's pointless, I thought, no, it's, but since I've, since my computing power's expanded a bit and some track counts have gone down, then actually I'm thinking, Oh, that's nice, you know. On my little Mojo Chord, my little Chord Mojo D2A converter, that's my reference converter for home, I get a green light when it's  96K.

So as long as your mixes are green, you're happy? I like to see the green light come on. What's 48? What's 44. 1? Oh, no, definitely. Green every time.  When people want to come into the industry, what do you think, what's your thoughts on, um, Education. And when I say education, what I mean is universities and colleges who are teaching large numbers of people to use studio equipment.

Do you think that's a help or a hindrance to the students themselves? I think it depends on the student. Actually, there's a, there's been, there's a, an assistant or two here who came through that course, and they were great. Right. Really great. Uh, on the other hand, we've all worked with people who come out of, um, Other colleges.

Well, and in any college, they come and they think they know everything, and they haven't even made a record. Yeah, you know, I love it when you get a, uh, email from a, a, a young person who's still perhaps at college and in the sig it says producer and then you think, even have you even produced one record?

Even, you know, even one? And the other thing, of course, that happens is, you know, a lot of these, uh, colleges are wonderfully well equipped. With great teachers and great equipment. And I do, I have, uh, gone and lectured myself and I've been a part of the MPG accreditation for the different colleges as well.

Okay. Although that's not something I'm doing now. So, they've been working, say, on massive great SSL Dualities and big Neve consoles and everything and then they come to work with say me and Actually, they're in my little shed on a laptop. Were you at the mute when mute went into M EMI? Were you in that phase?

I mixed records in a cupboard at EMI I mixed a bunch of great records essentially in a cupboard Which is not very glamorous if you're a student And you have to you have to have the right kind of headspace to make that adjustment and go Oh, actually, This is the real world, the real world out here, there's not always a budget to be in Abbey Road or Ayr, you know, it's clearly a good business model, for the right student it can be a great help,  especially as the number of assistant placements that have gone down, you know, you're now, when I met you, you introduced me to some great Appreciate it.

assistance who became great engineers and assistants for me who who I would have if I remember most of those would have come from a university at some point because at that time even then it's just starting because if that's on their cv you think well at least they've been serious enough to study for one year two years three years but even more now The you, it's very hard to get a placement as an assistant.

Yeah. Without some kind of background. I think all the new assistants here have been through some kind of college. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas in the seventies and eighties, you as at 16, you would apply to a, a studio and you'd become a runner and you'd, you know, the classic T person. Yeah. Toilet cleaner, runner, whatever.

Anything. Sandwich. Fetch. Yeah. Anything. Anything. Yeah. And, and you'd come up that way. So it is a, it is an experience and, and another thing about it is. I mean, it's, it's useful to study anything. I think it helps, you know, you could go to college and study Latin, man. Seems stupid to say. That promotes new, uh, ways of thinking.

I, for instance, I went to college, I studied science. It's nothing to do with what I do now. I did have a very, uh, creative, successful, and passionate relationship with the computer department. But this was punch cards and printouts on great big Fortran machines, you know. It has nothing to do with the computers that I use now.

So the courses are valuable, as long as we realize there aren't the jobs to go with the courses. Uh, and, as long as we realize there's a difference between the college and the industry. When I started working in little studios, it was basically Punk. So, so, I wasn't a punk, actually. I was more like a psychedelic hippie guy.

But, the ethos of punk, this do it yourself thing, was, uh, was really inspiring for me. So, and I, the, the, because there was no question that you couldn't just do it. That was one of the things that I took from punk. You just have to step up and do it. And the other thing I wanted to add actually was our friend, uh, Bruce Gilbert from WIRE Yeah.

has a wonderful phrase, um, Beginner's luck. He has noticed over a very long, super creative career that if he comes to something that he doesn't know,  And, uh, interfaces with it. That first ten minutes or one hour. Or that first day with the new pedal. Or something. When you don't really know what's happening.

That, that, that, and I think that's wonderful. And he, he, he still, I bumped into him recently. And he spoke about that in the context of some new device he'd re Recently purchased not an expensive device. I can't remember what it was even, but he was like, I said, I really believe in this beginners luck thing, you know, as I, as I interface with it, isn't it good?

You know, that's a great way to describe it. Actually, that innocence almost that you don't know what you're doing and you don't know how it's supposed to work. And yet you can get. Yeah. But, of course, you have to be able to get sound through it, and that's one of the things I remember, as you said, now it's pretty easy with, uh, an audio interface, you just basically put the track on input, and sound comes out of the speaker.

Yeah. But it was a huge achievement for me in my early days, in the BBC. For all of us. In the BBC, I'm in a studio, and to get a mic to come out of the speaker, on your own. It was a process. Woah, man, I remember being in night sessions on the Uh, in the studio, flummoxed,  you know, puzzled, challenged. Something that simple is so funny.

Well, it was something allegedly that simple, but it wasn't, actually, if you, if you think about it. Do you have any particular things that you've always done? Or things that maybe you've done, but changed over the years, to give you the Gareth Jones sound? The first thing that comes to mind is I've totally built back into my mixing flow how I used to do it at the beginning, so I try and build a mix in a day and get it to the point where I can record it and take it home. 

How long does it take you to do a mix, Russell? Well, I try to get It depends It's so much about the prep, isn't it? If you get 300 tracks and it's chaos, you have to do some prep time. Or, or if you're lucky, you might be able to hire an assistant to do the prep for you. Yeah. Um, so But I try and get a mix done every day.

I try and get it up to a stage where everything's in, and sounding alright. Yeah. And then, as soon as I get it to that point, I record it, I bounce it, whatever, print it, actually, and then I go home. And then I play it in the morning and make some notes. Okay. So, which is how, what I used to do at the very beginning.

So, in other words, once I've got it to that point where the whole song is in, which in an ideal world is happened in a, in a, in a day's work. Yeah. Then, I take a break, I step back, I go home, I do something else, I wake up in the morning, I write my journal, I have a cup of tea, and I sit down, and I play the mix back on my little stereo at home, and I make some notes, and then I come back in, because I find that hugely more time effective, I used to get everything in, and then I would stay up till 6 in the morning, still mucking about,  but for me that's not time effective, as soon as everything's in, and I can, I get it.

And I mean, including the backing vocals, the whole song, where I could actually play it to the band. I don't play it to the band at that stage, but where actually the whole song is in, then as soon as I got that and I think, oh, that's pretty good, then I kind of, and I'm almost racing against a deadline to get that done by 10 o'clock, say, or whenever I'm leaving or whatever it is, you know, to get out, get on the tube, chill out, go home, get a bit of supper, and then play it.

And because I find that very.  time effective, the, the perspective. Because of course the longer I'm, the longer you work on a, uh, a mix, the harder it is to maintain perspective. Right. Okay. Some of the, uh, some of the great mix engineers around that I've seen working around in different studios, it's almost like they all seem to be, uh, in having a cup of tea or on the pool table.

Those perspectives are valuable, I think. And I try and, obviously, you know, It's all the things that everyone says, you know, obviously I don't, I don't go on the web. I don't answer emails I don't have the phone on. Yeah, I try and do it like a three hour session in the old musicians union rule If I can get three hours focus on something I can get a lot done Yeah, you know so if I can do three three hour focus sessions in a day and get the mix to a point where I can actually say Well, everything's in, and it stops me, and I think, well, hang on a minute, it's 9.

30, I've only got an hour, I need to get those bloody backing vocals in right now, and the string section, come on, and then I, I push to do that. I find that very helpful. Do you have a, a, a favourite piece of gear that you're, currently, that you're always using? Apart from maybe, your Barefoots. Barefoots. The barefoots?

Yeah, you love them, don't you? Yeah, and, and They're, they're a great sound. The other thing that's changed my monitoring vibe is, uh, Sonarworks. Sonarworks. I was very, when Trinoff came out, I was very suspicious of the DSP, the extra DSP. I've learnt to love the Trinoff now, cause some very Can you explain what, what that is to some people?

Well, uh, what it is, is it's a measurement microphones.  Calibrate the monitors. So it's room correction? It's room correction. Okay. It's room monitor interface correction. Okay. So, for instance, in this room, even though I know this room really well, I was constantly having feedback from clients that stuff was a bit bassy.

And then a friend of mine, James actually, it was James Aparicio, our mutual friend, who turned me on to Sonarworks, which is a cheap Measurement mic and  a bit of software that you put on the output and you ping, it takes you about 20 minutes to ping the room. Yeah, and it turned out around about 100 Hertz.

I had quite a big suck and dip in this room. So, and obviously I like bass. So even though I know the room and I was referencing other pieces of music, I was still putting too much bass on the tracks. So a good monitor system is invaluable, isn't it? Can you suggest anythings to avoid in the record making process or the mix process or the production process that you can suggest to people.

Don't listen to the critic. Don't listen to your own critic. Don't be shut down by your own critic. That little voice. That's so important. You know, let's face it, I am not Quincy Jones. I am not Glyn Johns. I am not,  you know there's a millions of, I'm not craft work. There are millions of great, great artists. 

Awesome studio workers that I'm not so I feel it's really important to shut your own personal critic down and as we said earlier, they'd like to be oh and Similarly don't shut anyone else down in the room Yeah Try everything if you and I decide to make a record together It's because we love each other and we trust each other and any idea that either of us throw into the room No matter how absurd is worth trying For a long time, you know, we're all working in the studio, and we're like a team, and we're mates, and, and we're working on the, you know, we feel very close, and we constructed this thing, whatever it is, and then the record company comes down, right, with their opinions, and it's like, oh, no, what, what, so, and, and for a long time, I found it very frustrating that people seemingly outside the process would come in with their opinions about what we were doing.

Mm And I've seen a lot of my younger friends and colleagues struggle with this and now what I say is hang on a minute You and me put 10 grand into making a record, right? We give it to an engineer and a band to go away and make the record and then they come back to us And what they play us We don't like there's something wrong with it and we put our own money.

We put five grand in each imagine Yeah, I say what would you what would you do? Obviously, you'd go down to the studio and sort it out. That's flipping it round, right? That comes back to your, uh No idea is a bad idea. Well, also it comes from background to the client's always right. The client's always right, yes.

I mean, you know, funny enough, I was saying that at a lecture, you've got gates that you have to go through. You've got to get through the artist, the producer,  the manager, the record company. The artist's partner. And then maybe your record will go out into the world. Yeah. And you've got to find ways to get through those gates.

Thanks so much for coming by, Kevin. It was great to see you. Great. Great to chat. Thank you very much. Cheers, brother.  Thank you for listening, and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode, where you'll find further information along with web links and details of all our other episodes.

And just before you go, let me point you to the Sound On Sound forward slash podcasts website page, where you can explore what's playing on our other channels.  This has been a Mixbus production by me, Kevin Paul, for Sound On Sound.