What's your role at Prime Loops?
I provide support to our customers. I offer advice on suitable file formats and help out with technical difficulties. I also interact a lot with our customers via social networks. There's a real community feel to what we do and it's great to hear suggestions and ideas from our followers.
How did you first get in to music?
When I was a kid my parents would play records in the house. When I was eleven I started playing guitar. A year later I picked up a four-track cassette recorder, which is when I became interested in engineering and production.
Do you find yourself using samples in your own recordings?
I've used sampled drums in the past. I made some recordings with a terrible drum kit. The snare drum had no snap so I dropped in a sample over every hit. I also found a bunch of grainy Mellotron samples recently that I've been using a lot.
Have you been to any notable music events recently?
On New Year's Eve I went to see Sonic Youth, Shellac and The Pop Group at the Hammersmith Apollo, which was fun. The acoustics in there are really great. Nice way to see off 2010.
Do you still buy C.D.'s?
The only C.D. player I have is in my Macbook and I can't remember the last time I used it. I have a load of C.D.'s gathering dust.
I try to buy vinyl when I can. It just sounds better and is a more collectible artefact than a C.D. I use Spotify a lot too.
What's the best music venue in London?
I really liked the Astoria, which is gone now. The Luminaire in Kilburn is one of my favourites but I hear that's closing down too. There's loads of new venues popping up all over the place, so that keeps me guessing what's next. They occasionally host music events in Shoreditch Church, which sounds interesting.
How do you hear about new music?
Mainly via the Internet. There's a million blogs out there, which will link you to interesting new music. I like to go to live shows and check out support acts i wouldn't have seen otherwise. Sometimes i just hit shuffle on my iTunes and hear stuff I've never heard before.
Now that it's so easy to make home recordings, does it still make sense to use commercial recording studios?
You can make a whole record in your bedroom and it will sound great. The advantage of using a commercial recording studio is that you can focus on the creative side, which is the music. You can leave the technical stuff to the engineer. Chances are, the studio has better gear than you too. It can be good to let someone else mix your stuff. When you do it yourself you tend to obsess over small things rather than looking at the bigger picture.
Analogue or digital?
Both. The beauty of the digital domain is the speed in which routing and editing is possible. I like to get some analogue in the chain before recording to disc. A nice valve mic preamp before hitting the DAW can warm things up a lot. Bussing out tracks to some nice outboard gear can also add a lot of character. Saying that, I've heard great recordings made with just Garageband. The most important thing is knowing your gear well, whether it's analogue or digital, and getting your music recorded.
