Recording Studio blog
I’m the chief engineer at Circle Recording Studios in Birmingham. If you’ve made it here you may have previously read my column over on Supajam: Machiavelli’s Guide to the Music Industry. While Machiavelli’s Guide is aimed squarely at helping artists/musicians to develop so they can get ahead in the music business, this one is a bit more of a personal ramble.
Somedays it will be all about the music, on others it will be a wider rant on the state of the business, sometimes it might just be a review of a mic, guitar or amp we have used, occasionally it will be a bit of a geek-out on the analogue/digital issue and how it’s affected this industry. Whichever it is feel free to have your say in the box at the bottom of each blog!
Cheers, Trev
Trev
Chief Engineer
Recording engineer & record producer. Owner of Circle Recording Studios, Birmingham, England. Grammy 2015.
A Philosophy of Drum Recording: we don’t need no steenkin’ sample replacement
I guess we are really lucky here at Circle Recording Studios in Birmingham, England. I recently overheard a conversation between a handful of younger engineers along the lines that they really hated sample replacement of drums but it was a necessary evil 'in this day...
Mastering engineers in Birmingham
So you have made your record and now you are thinking of getting it mastered. But what mastering studio should you use? or indeed, do you need one at all? It's come to our attention recently that an increasing number of recording studios (and indeed most studios in...
London or Birmingham Recording Studios
Other than private recording studios in the hands of music legends like UB40 and Ocean Colour Scene, Birmingham Studios have never really featured as a destination for the serious London recording musician. Circle Studios facility, with it's four large live rooms, two...
Recording drums – why recording studios all sound different
Recording drums tests a recording studio to extremes. And while half the musicians in the country now have their own recording set up few have access to a great sounding room that can really make their music shine. That's why when we first decided to build Circle...
Recording equipment: our API console and Neve sidecar
Circle Studios' API recording console first arrived in Birmingham while our refurbishment was still underway about 3 years ago. If you are interested you can watch the v-log of that over on youtube. Here's the first of thirteen videos which showed the journey to...
Recording drums: recording studio v toilet
We are always surprised that people don't seem to get how huge the difference is between recording drums, or indeed any acoustic instrument, in a great sounding recording studio and recording in a carpet-walled toilet. Our new video series will set the record...
Gibson Les Paul Junior (Billie Joe Armstrong Signature) Guitar Review
When I was a kid I hated Gibson's Les Paul Junior guitar. It looked like a cheap fake version of the venerable Les Paul to me. It's skinny headstock didnt seem to scream rock and roll in the way that Peter Townshend's burgundy red Deluxe did. Not to my mind anyway. My...
The Music Industry: a cruel and shallow money trench where thieves and pimps run free
The Music Industry is a cruel and shallow money trench where thieves and pimps run free? But how did it get like this? Fundamentally there are two key issues at play: 1. The music business is a cool sexy industry where, for musicians and songwriters, fortunes are made...
Why mixing Bhangra is different from mixing pop music
Life is varied at a commercial recording studio. We literally don't know what's going to come in next. This is great because it keeps us on our toes and helps to keep our perspective wide. A couple of weeks ago I received my first Bhangra song to mix. While I had done...
From Mixing Rock Music to Recording Orchestras
As recording engineers go, I guess I've always been a 'focus on what's coming' rather than a 'rest on past glories' type. So I hadn't even thought what my last 5 years in the recording studio might look like. The new facebook video feature made me review that. And...