Post by rockinronnie on Feb 28, 2014 21:03:29 GMT
Taken from the official messageboard in September 2008:
Per
Member
Member # 2328
7 September 2008
Hi Mr Eden!
I have some questions about the sound-quality on the RAOTW album that always has been puzzling me. This is certainly not critique, only pure interest to get to know more about the sessions and the mixing.
It´s a great album musicwise, but the mixing is quite strange and thin compared to the bands earlier albums IMO. I still remember the first time listening to it when it was released back in 1977, and immediatley starting to check out if there was some damage to the needle/pickup or if someone had turned the bass off.
For years I thought the thin sound on my vinyl-album may have something to do with the long playing time, but then I read here that Tim Turan who remastered all the albums some years ago said that RAOTW turned out to be his biggest challenge, because the sound was quite strange and also differed a lot between the songs (if I remember this correct).
During the RAOTW-sessions I read an interview with the band in a swedish newspaper (Göteborgs-Posten) that they where very pleased with the studio, especially JC praised the drum-both i the studio.
May I ask you Mr Eden, what´s your personal opinion about the mix on this album, and do you have memories from the sessions? Was the final result something the band aimed for (lots of albums from many artists during the late seventies has this, less "lively" sound than earlier ones IMO) or did something in the final production went wrong? If so, are there any working-mixes made with a more "beefy" sound? Quo never used that swedish studio again, did it turn out not being so good as they thought in the beginning?
I would love to get some info about this swedish recording-visit!
Best wishes
Per in Sweden
Precious Pup
Member
Member # 14582
10 September 2008
Hi Per there’s many areas that contributed to how R.A.O.T.W. turned out and certainly looking back I have to own up and accept some blame for the way it sounded.
I think that as far as listening to the vinyl album your description is pretty accurate. It sounds thin and lacking in a low end and I sincerely apologize to all that had trouble with the sound of the vinyl album. However I think the singles sounded great especially when heard on Radio 1 AM at the time.
From the sales point of view I’m glad it did well (I personally was on a flat fee!) but it launched the band into a new area of fans but I realize now alienated many dedicated fans from the earlier albums. To be quite honest I was oblivious to the impact it would have at the time. I was just lucky to be in chair next to Pip and working with a brilliant band.
Anyway I’d like to give background on how the album started, my memories and detail points along the way which when you consider the whole context may provide a better understanding of the points you raised.
In 1977 I was a 21 year old Pup and had been working mainly as Pip’s engineer for a couple of years. Our 1st meeting with Status Quo was at Alan Lancaster’s house in Coulsdon, Surrey. It was a good meeting, demos of the songs were played and I spent quite a bit of the meeting talking with John about drum sounds and how he wanted to add additional toms to his kit.
I think at this point there were definitive writing camps within the band and newer technology had enabled the writer demos to start to get quite well produced – something IMO that became a bit of a problem as time progressed.
The meeting ended great and I remember being very impressed on leaving seeing Rick drive away in a gorgeous Rolls Royce Silver Shadow. I still have this image of him in faded jeans getting into this car and thinking bloody hell I’d love to have a car like that. I was young and at a very impressionable time of my life and I was very chuffed to be about to start to work on a S.Q. album.
Well the studio that had first been booked for us to record in was in Dublin, Ireland. This had come about because Rory Gallagher had just done an album there and he was at the time with the same management as S.Q.
In 1972 I’d worked on an album as tape op with Rory Gallagher (Blueprint) at The Marquee Studios and because of this experience I really didn’t question the studio.
The bands gear went out by road and ferry to Ireland, and we flew out and checked into Jury’s Hotel, an interesting place full of American Tourists.
The 1st morning upon arriving at the studio it was a shock. The studio had a very low ceiling height and was pretty small. We started to set up sound here but it just wasn’t working, it was not a great monitoring environment or recording area for Quo. After the 2nd day of frustration we decided to call it a day and after looking around for other studios in town drew a blank.
The gear went back by road to England and we flew back to London to look for another studio somewhere outside the UK as the band had been advised by accountants for tax reasons to record outside of England. There were certainly many great London Studios we could have used but it just wasn’t an option.
Prior to Quo, Pip and I had previously been working at The Manor in Oxfordshire which was a Tom Hidley Westlake Audio Studio, in fact the 2nd Westlake Audio Room in the U.K. after Threshold Studios in West Hampstead. The great thing about these control rooms at the time was symmetry of monitoring and room design. There was a consistency of design between each room like nothing we had seen before. We both felt that it would be best to find another Hidley room in Europe because of the consistency. We would at least then a have a known standard that we had worked to before.
I had discussions with Tom Hidley about other studios he had designed in Europe that would be a short flight from London. He came up with a brand new studio in the South of France that had just been completed and it sounded perfect. Discussion took place with the studio and we looked pretty set to go there until the question of connecting the main power supply lines to the studio posed a problem. Apparently the French Power company was going on holiday for the month of August and they would not make the new connection until they returned in September!! Well we were already to go and we needed to find another studio quickly.
After a further discussion with either Hidley or Dave Hawkins (his European agent) Studio Bohus in Kungalv, Gothenburg, Sweden was put forward and became the studio that the album would be recorded in. This studio at the time was owned by a band call Streaplers a very popular cover band in Sweden. Just wonderful people there and everyone made us at feel at home.
This studio worked out great although it was a bit isolated. It was quite a distance from the hotel and the only other problem was that Sweden is one of the most expensive places I’ve been to and eating out every night was very expensive. Thankfully Dale, Alan’s wife came to the rescue and together with Lyne cooked some great meals for us at the studio which saved us from going out.
Bohus was technically top notch, a Harrison board, good compliment of microphones and Ampex Machines. We had a great iso room to the left of the control room for drums and a main studio area for the rest of the Band. The only thing I would have changed was a weird red carpet in the main recording room. It would have been much better with a hardwood floor but apart from that it had a great sauna for late night relaxation! (seem to remember a beautiful swedish blonde studio manager – any Sauna pictures Bob Y.?)
As Pip has said in interviews he was brought in to clean up the sound. At this point in time with studio design and recording there was a move towards isolation of individual instruments during recording. Recording areas where a lot deader in sound and had heavily trapped sections. This made it possible to drop in a guitar track without the sound changing because the guitar track did not have spill of the drums, bass or 2nd guitar on it. It was really a complete reverse in a way from how the earlier albums at IBC had been recorded where I had understood they all set up in the same room, the marshall stacks, bass, drums and sound went everywhere. (With hindsight arguably a better way for Quo and we did move back towards this after R.A.O.T.W.)
Well first day we spent setting up, tuning and micing John’s kit and started to run through the first song to be recorded. It started out great then all of sudden a huge clatter came over the monitors and John came storming through the control room and he walked out. Something had upset him, either the arrangement, his headphone mix, him being separated from the others it was not easy to tell at first. This was my first introduction to how John would communicate when he became frustrated by something. Well it turned out he was not happy with the new tom toms we’d added so we changed the kit arrangement and on we went.
I want to say that John and I spent many hours together during this album and those that followed and I always felt we got on well. Long after he left Quo we made the “Partners In Crime” album together and whilst totally unrelated in any Quo sense the album went really well with none of the walk out situation’s we ever experienced when he was in S.Q. He was a great drummer for Quo when he was on form and into the song.
I think though it was the inconsistency over time that frustrated Francis. On 1-9-8-2 from what I’ve read it was the same situation John got frustrated about something and walked out. I’ve sometimes wondered if I’d been there if it would have been the same outcome. In the past I was able to smooth things out and spend time with John and on we’d go but Alan I guess was really the driving force in wanting them to produce themselves at the point of 1982.
Oops I’m jumping on a few years, back to R.A.O.T.W. As has been well written doing J.F.s R.A.O.T.W. was Rick’s idea and came late in the recording. It was a brilliant idea of his to do this song and suddenly the title and marketing campaign was formed. After recording all the bands parts and we then headed back to London to continue with overdubs with other musicians in preparation for mixing.
When we got back to the UK we started to work even longer hours especially during mixing. R.A.O.T.W. was mixed at Threshold Studios and we finished this at around 8am in the morning. The board was an API with 3M M79 machines.
Great tape machines for dropping in because of a very narrow head gap between the erase and record heads but an awful transport. Tensioning went weird whilst we were mixing and almost chewed up the 24 track. We then moved onto the Marquee Studios and continued mixing there and for a while, so there was a change again.
Around this time I’d also gone on a diet with a Harley Street Doctor to lose weight ! Yeah right…. Well I wasn’t the only one at the time. I think the effects of the tablets made more mids and hi’s go on the mixes. Next we really placed emphasis on mixing mono for Radio One and used a small Auratone speaker for this which was like a good radio speaker. Now add to this at mastering we ended up with around 24 minutes of time per side it was no wonder low end was lost.
Okay well I’d better explain that a bit more. With Vinyl there is always a restriction on the length of songs on the side. In essence more bass/level on a mix, less time you have on the disc. So in order to get 24 minutes on a side, bass and or level has to be rolled off. An optimum running time max would be 19 minutes per side. Hence why I always felt the vinyl singles sounded better than the vinyl album.
Now at mastering a production master was made that reflected all the e.q. and level changes that had been made and this tape was then copied and used by Phonogram’s mastering rooms around the world to cut further masters. I don’t know Tim Turan but understand he did a great job of remastering for CD but I do wonder if he got back to all the source tapes and not just production masters?
I think at the time this was done it would have been a really great opportunity to remix R.A.O.T.W. for CD. and call it “The Raw Mix Version”. Pip and I could certainly have mixed it in a completely different way with emphasis on the basic tracks we came out of Sweden with. IMO there should have been only 10 songs on this album, but we have a publishing issue on the writers (within the band) getting there equal share - something Francis has written about. So with the outside songs it was 12 tracks - just too much for vinyl. That’s about it.. -
Now don’t ask so many questions next time you get my tail wagging too much!
My presence here is brought about by my wish to help the Forum of Status Quo Fans have a better understanding of some of the recording aspects and that they will see Pip’s great work with the Band in a better light. When I learned from Pip of his experiences here I was also indirectly affected. I have already indicated in my posts on the JS/NTL thread my respect from him. In addition he remains and always will a very dear friend. I hope that Pip will return and be given the same respects that this post and its responses show the members are capable of. I’ve said my bit now regarding R.A.O.T.W. in this post responding to PER. There is a great deal now that Pip can add to all of this and be given the same opportunity I have had.
Pip The Prod
New Member
Member # 16211
11 September 2008
OK. I guess RAOTW is a good place to (re) start!
I may have to continue this as a series of subsequent posts., depending on the rate of wine consumption!!!!
These days, I also teach on a BA degree course. I don't do this immediately for the money. I do it for the same reason I've returned to this board- ie. To put something back in to people that might be interested or might benefit. I've had a wonderful time in this business, made a few mistakes, but continue to enjoy what I do, remain very tongue in cheek and retain a very strong friendship with the guys in the band.....
so: I initially got a call from an old friend, David Oddie. He had supervised an album I'd done with Graham Bonnet in 1976 (GB was later to join Rainbow, Michael Schenker and Alcatraz). David Oddie had also been co-producer on a single recorded by my old semi-pro band The Sovereigns (around 1965 I think).
He called me out of the blue and asked if I'd be interested in working with Graham, who I knew well as the voice of The Marbles (Only One Woman).
The subsequent album, which was recorded in various locations and engineered by John, my great friend and the person who was my regular engineer, was immense fun and highly acclaimed critically (I'm still pretty proud of it and him!) did very well in Australia. (On another note, I'm currently talking to Graham, with a view to possibly doing something together again.)
Graham was then managed for Quarry Productions by David Oddie, part of the Quo management team. Anyway, David passed me over to Colin Johnson, the bands' personal manager. He told me that the guys had loved Graham Bonnet's album, particularly the guitar sounds, and would I be interested in producing Quo? Well, who wouldn't be?!! I had a meeting soon after, at Francis' new house in Surrey, with Frame and Rick. (It was a wonderful house, and I remember Frame saying he hoped he could afford to stay there. It had cost over 50k!!!)
The initial meeting was supposed to be for about an hour, but after 3 hours, the guys suggested I send my driver home! We really hit it off. We just chatted, made jokes, played verbal cat and mouse, and I realised we had the same (sick?) humour and it was obvious we could get along and work together. We talked about music and influences, but very little about the album to be. The idea of this meeting was purely to see if we could connect personally. I think this aspect is so important and often overlooked. If you can't get along on a personal level, then you've got a bloody hard time ahead!!
My manager David Walker and I then had a meeting with CJ (Colin Johnson), to establish what was required of the new album. Bear in mind that at this stage, it was just "the album". RAOTW came much later.
It was made very clear to me that we were going in with a totally blank canvas. They wanted the sound cleaned up, a more commercial slant and if possible, something that could appeal to the as yet unconquered US market.
The next meeting I had was at Alan's house in Coulsden. Just me and him. Again, we got on really well. Just played demos and favourite records.
Not long after, a further barnstorming session was arranged at Alan's. We set the band up, half in and half out of his garage, which overlooked his pool. This was the first time John (Eden) came along, to check out what he was in store for!!
I remember that after they'd set up, they just jammed for a while (I've a feeling it was one of the early shuffles, like Don't Waste My Time). I just thought "F--- me what a great feel". I'd loved Quo as a punter, but it was interesting to see at first hand EXACTLY what makes a Quo shuffle so unique. And believe me, the subtle interplay of techniques between Rick and Frame in a shuffle is what does it!
We then ran through a few of the demos and the guys offered up songs to be considered. I also began to suss the politics here, but that's another story! I pointed out to CJ that we would have severe sonic problems trying to fit everyone's songs onto the album, but.......
I remember that John (Spud) particularly liked playing Baby Boy, because it was not the norm, and he just loved playing that laid back, almost half time feel. RAOTW was not even in the frame at this stage.
After that, we agreed that we had to work together and the arrangements started to be made. As PP has said, we started the saga by going to Dublin. The location was great- Guiness and such a bizarre sense of humour! Francis and I still talk about being in Jury's Hotel restaurant, when I asked the waiter what the duck was like, and was told in all seriousness "It's a little bird, a bit smaller than a chicken.....!" And the Maitre D' setting fire to a young trainee who he was teaching to make Irish Coffees!!
It was a constant barrage of jokes and rhyming slang, but all this served to forge a very strong personal rapport.
Shame about the studio!! Let's just say it was basic. The monitors were very difficult to adjust to (can't even remember what they were), but I actually got my assistant Keith to collect my JBL 4320's and drive them over. Anyway, it still wasn't happening, so we abandoned things and went back to London to reconvene. (Further note: I often think, in retrospect, that Dublin might have produced different, more favourable results- rawer sound, less "production". But then, that wasn't what the brief was about!)
As JE has explained, we'd done a lot of work at The Manor (Richard Branson's lovely country home residential studio) and also, I had privileged access to Threshold, the Moody Blues' lovely private studio in the Decca building in West Hampstead. (I'd done a lot of work for Decca, and it's ironic that I later got to do a couple of albums with The Moodies).
The common denominator with those studios was the Tom Hidley, Westlake Audio design. Tom had been designing studios all over the USA (The Record Plant, Westlake Audio etc) and a few of his rooms were cropping up in Europe. The Manor and Threshold were the first. The fashion then (particularly in the States) was for very dead, good separation environments. (As a sidebar, remember that I'd had it drummed into me the need for a US friendly recording!) The rooms were all set up (voiced) to give as near as possible, a flat frequency response.
As echoey (very live) rooms could add so many other elements into the equation, this deadening down of the recording areas and the control room served to create a situation where you could build similar facilities anywhere in the world, and they would be compatible with one another. In other words, using a Westlake studio, we could record in Sweden, yet mix in London and still recognise what was on the tapes!
Enquiries were made, and eventually, we booked time at Bohus Studios in Gothenburg. As PP has stated, the owners were lovely, lovely people, and the studio was well up to scratch. At this point, I'd like to say that my first choice studio was Olympic in Barnes. This was a great studio technically, yet still had an open, live and vibrant main recording room. As I've said on many occasions, there were several more suitable locations to record in the UK (including Marquee, where PP worked and I'd had much success), but the option was not there. Quo had to record out of the country, and that was that.
Given this caviat, we all mutually decided to go where we could at least guarantee uniformity, and Bohus was booked. Remember, I wasn't in any way briefed to reproduce EXACTLY the previous Quo sound- this was a whole new ball game.
The commencement date was firmed up, flights, studio and hotels booked........then Spud got appendicitis!! When we eventually got to Gothenburg, we checked into the Esso Ramada Hotel, had a day to settle in, then, on the day of the first session, I got the morning wake up call from Bob Young- "Morning Pip, it's 9 o-clock and Elvis is dead!!!"
To be continued....
Pip The Prod
New Member
Member # 16211
16 Sept 2008
RAOTW- Continued.....
Oh yes, the wake up call! Morning Pip. It's 9 o'clock and Elvis is dead!
It took a while for everyone to take that fact in. But we still convened at Bohus, with the lovely red carpet! To tell the truth, I don't think PP and I particularly noticed it at first- we had much more important considerations. Not least our concern that Spud had had an operation for appendicitis only a very few weeks before. Ideally, the poor guy should have had six months off.
As an observation, I'm sure only Spud's adrenaline carried him through. I'm sure songs like Who Am I would have benefited from a fully match fit Spud, but he deserves a medal for his positive work on RAOTW.
Anyway, back to the first day. PP and I spent a lot of time sussing the best areas to set things up, and we decided to put JC in the drum booth. I was aware that the band had always set up in a more open fashion. I was also aware that Spud would possibly feel a little detached from the rest of the band.
However, we needed to gain instrument separation for this venture, so into the glass doored isolation room went Spud. I constantly asked John if he was happy in there and he indicated complete satisfaction. So, we spent a few hours tuning, subtly tweaking and getting a general drum sound as a starting point.
The first song on the agenda was Rockers Rollin'.
The rest of the band eventually arrived, got settled in and relaxed and we got some basic sounds and a rough headphone balance. At this point, I'd like to explain that it's a bit of a vicious circle getting a can (headphone) balance with Quo. They all want to hear something slightly different, which means that the poor engineer is subject to much abuse! It's a vicious circle because you can't give them their preferred balance until they play the track, but they don't like playing the track until the cans are right, so then they just stop before you've had a chance to set their balance!
So after a couple of run throughs, a huge clatter indicated that Spud had kicked the kit over! I had been warned that JC was known to get a bit impatient when setup procedures took a while, so I calmly said to him, "That was clever John, now we'll have to start all over again!"
I can't remember if we relocated the kit after that. I've a feeling we made a compromise and left him in the booth, but with the sliding glass doors open, so there was some feeling of contact with the others.
Anyway, we eventually got into Rockers Rollin'. The origin of this song was from a mad comedy tape that Jackie Lynton had made for the band. He was a close mate and had made this tape of bizarre tunes, very suited to Quo's equally bizarre humour! One such song was March Of The Slugs (Rolling our way back home). Rick did a masterstroke and turned this into Rockers Rollin'. It was maybe optimistic starting with this. I thought we should maybe ease into things more subtly, particularly given Spud's recent surgery.
Remember, this was my first experience of Quo going full tilt. We recorded a take to listen back to for reference. Up until now, I'd never experienced this quality of rock band performance in the studio and was grinning like mad at the playback, only to have Rick say "This song needs to Rock and that ain't f---ing
rocking!".
So now I had a yardstick for what was expected and what they were capable of.
I remember that on the final master take, I'd wanted it to go on for ages, but the best overall take broke down quite quickly at the end.
My memories of the rest of the sessions is that they went pretty smoothly. The material was very varied. I was even encouraged to submit a song (Who Am I) and I'll talk about that one elsewhere. The band were 100% enthusiastic and all into it (regardless of what was stated later, after the event!) Spud honestly loved playing Baby Boy- just listen to some of the great fills. Both he and Rick were turned on by my electric sitar, which I'd brought to Sweden and Rick played on Baby Boy.
I remember a lot of time was spent on For You, but it was surely worth it. Francis and I worked through the guitar solo and he played it brilliantly. The song was so different and it required a very structured solo, rather than a busk. So we both sat down with a guitar each and looped the playback of the track, over the solo section. We each traded licks and the solo was constructed. It was played by Frame on my 1973 Fender Tele De-Luxe (2 x Fender humbucking pickups. I think I swapped that guitar with Rick for one of his Travis Bean guitars. Alan now has that Tele.) Incidentally, Alan did a superb job on For You too. Again, a carefully constructed bass part.
Well guys, I need wine and feet up! More to follow!
Per
Member
Member # 2328
7 September 2008
Hi Mr Eden!
I have some questions about the sound-quality on the RAOTW album that always has been puzzling me. This is certainly not critique, only pure interest to get to know more about the sessions and the mixing.
It´s a great album musicwise, but the mixing is quite strange and thin compared to the bands earlier albums IMO. I still remember the first time listening to it when it was released back in 1977, and immediatley starting to check out if there was some damage to the needle/pickup or if someone had turned the bass off.
For years I thought the thin sound on my vinyl-album may have something to do with the long playing time, but then I read here that Tim Turan who remastered all the albums some years ago said that RAOTW turned out to be his biggest challenge, because the sound was quite strange and also differed a lot between the songs (if I remember this correct).
During the RAOTW-sessions I read an interview with the band in a swedish newspaper (Göteborgs-Posten) that they where very pleased with the studio, especially JC praised the drum-both i the studio.
May I ask you Mr Eden, what´s your personal opinion about the mix on this album, and do you have memories from the sessions? Was the final result something the band aimed for (lots of albums from many artists during the late seventies has this, less "lively" sound than earlier ones IMO) or did something in the final production went wrong? If so, are there any working-mixes made with a more "beefy" sound? Quo never used that swedish studio again, did it turn out not being so good as they thought in the beginning?
I would love to get some info about this swedish recording-visit!
Best wishes
Per in Sweden
Precious Pup
Member
Member # 14582
10 September 2008
Hi Per there’s many areas that contributed to how R.A.O.T.W. turned out and certainly looking back I have to own up and accept some blame for the way it sounded.
I think that as far as listening to the vinyl album your description is pretty accurate. It sounds thin and lacking in a low end and I sincerely apologize to all that had trouble with the sound of the vinyl album. However I think the singles sounded great especially when heard on Radio 1 AM at the time.
From the sales point of view I’m glad it did well (I personally was on a flat fee!) but it launched the band into a new area of fans but I realize now alienated many dedicated fans from the earlier albums. To be quite honest I was oblivious to the impact it would have at the time. I was just lucky to be in chair next to Pip and working with a brilliant band.
Anyway I’d like to give background on how the album started, my memories and detail points along the way which when you consider the whole context may provide a better understanding of the points you raised.
In 1977 I was a 21 year old Pup and had been working mainly as Pip’s engineer for a couple of years. Our 1st meeting with Status Quo was at Alan Lancaster’s house in Coulsdon, Surrey. It was a good meeting, demos of the songs were played and I spent quite a bit of the meeting talking with John about drum sounds and how he wanted to add additional toms to his kit.
I think at this point there were definitive writing camps within the band and newer technology had enabled the writer demos to start to get quite well produced – something IMO that became a bit of a problem as time progressed.
The meeting ended great and I remember being very impressed on leaving seeing Rick drive away in a gorgeous Rolls Royce Silver Shadow. I still have this image of him in faded jeans getting into this car and thinking bloody hell I’d love to have a car like that. I was young and at a very impressionable time of my life and I was very chuffed to be about to start to work on a S.Q. album.
Well the studio that had first been booked for us to record in was in Dublin, Ireland. This had come about because Rory Gallagher had just done an album there and he was at the time with the same management as S.Q.
In 1972 I’d worked on an album as tape op with Rory Gallagher (Blueprint) at The Marquee Studios and because of this experience I really didn’t question the studio.
The bands gear went out by road and ferry to Ireland, and we flew out and checked into Jury’s Hotel, an interesting place full of American Tourists.
The 1st morning upon arriving at the studio it was a shock. The studio had a very low ceiling height and was pretty small. We started to set up sound here but it just wasn’t working, it was not a great monitoring environment or recording area for Quo. After the 2nd day of frustration we decided to call it a day and after looking around for other studios in town drew a blank.
The gear went back by road to England and we flew back to London to look for another studio somewhere outside the UK as the band had been advised by accountants for tax reasons to record outside of England. There were certainly many great London Studios we could have used but it just wasn’t an option.
Prior to Quo, Pip and I had previously been working at The Manor in Oxfordshire which was a Tom Hidley Westlake Audio Studio, in fact the 2nd Westlake Audio Room in the U.K. after Threshold Studios in West Hampstead. The great thing about these control rooms at the time was symmetry of monitoring and room design. There was a consistency of design between each room like nothing we had seen before. We both felt that it would be best to find another Hidley room in Europe because of the consistency. We would at least then a have a known standard that we had worked to before.
I had discussions with Tom Hidley about other studios he had designed in Europe that would be a short flight from London. He came up with a brand new studio in the South of France that had just been completed and it sounded perfect. Discussion took place with the studio and we looked pretty set to go there until the question of connecting the main power supply lines to the studio posed a problem. Apparently the French Power company was going on holiday for the month of August and they would not make the new connection until they returned in September!! Well we were already to go and we needed to find another studio quickly.
After a further discussion with either Hidley or Dave Hawkins (his European agent) Studio Bohus in Kungalv, Gothenburg, Sweden was put forward and became the studio that the album would be recorded in. This studio at the time was owned by a band call Streaplers a very popular cover band in Sweden. Just wonderful people there and everyone made us at feel at home.
This studio worked out great although it was a bit isolated. It was quite a distance from the hotel and the only other problem was that Sweden is one of the most expensive places I’ve been to and eating out every night was very expensive. Thankfully Dale, Alan’s wife came to the rescue and together with Lyne cooked some great meals for us at the studio which saved us from going out.
Bohus was technically top notch, a Harrison board, good compliment of microphones and Ampex Machines. We had a great iso room to the left of the control room for drums and a main studio area for the rest of the Band. The only thing I would have changed was a weird red carpet in the main recording room. It would have been much better with a hardwood floor but apart from that it had a great sauna for late night relaxation! (seem to remember a beautiful swedish blonde studio manager – any Sauna pictures Bob Y.?)
As Pip has said in interviews he was brought in to clean up the sound. At this point in time with studio design and recording there was a move towards isolation of individual instruments during recording. Recording areas where a lot deader in sound and had heavily trapped sections. This made it possible to drop in a guitar track without the sound changing because the guitar track did not have spill of the drums, bass or 2nd guitar on it. It was really a complete reverse in a way from how the earlier albums at IBC had been recorded where I had understood they all set up in the same room, the marshall stacks, bass, drums and sound went everywhere. (With hindsight arguably a better way for Quo and we did move back towards this after R.A.O.T.W.)
Well first day we spent setting up, tuning and micing John’s kit and started to run through the first song to be recorded. It started out great then all of sudden a huge clatter came over the monitors and John came storming through the control room and he walked out. Something had upset him, either the arrangement, his headphone mix, him being separated from the others it was not easy to tell at first. This was my first introduction to how John would communicate when he became frustrated by something. Well it turned out he was not happy with the new tom toms we’d added so we changed the kit arrangement and on we went.
I want to say that John and I spent many hours together during this album and those that followed and I always felt we got on well. Long after he left Quo we made the “Partners In Crime” album together and whilst totally unrelated in any Quo sense the album went really well with none of the walk out situation’s we ever experienced when he was in S.Q. He was a great drummer for Quo when he was on form and into the song.
I think though it was the inconsistency over time that frustrated Francis. On 1-9-8-2 from what I’ve read it was the same situation John got frustrated about something and walked out. I’ve sometimes wondered if I’d been there if it would have been the same outcome. In the past I was able to smooth things out and spend time with John and on we’d go but Alan I guess was really the driving force in wanting them to produce themselves at the point of 1982.
Oops I’m jumping on a few years, back to R.A.O.T.W. As has been well written doing J.F.s R.A.O.T.W. was Rick’s idea and came late in the recording. It was a brilliant idea of his to do this song and suddenly the title and marketing campaign was formed. After recording all the bands parts and we then headed back to London to continue with overdubs with other musicians in preparation for mixing.
When we got back to the UK we started to work even longer hours especially during mixing. R.A.O.T.W. was mixed at Threshold Studios and we finished this at around 8am in the morning. The board was an API with 3M M79 machines.
Great tape machines for dropping in because of a very narrow head gap between the erase and record heads but an awful transport. Tensioning went weird whilst we were mixing and almost chewed up the 24 track. We then moved onto the Marquee Studios and continued mixing there and for a while, so there was a change again.
Around this time I’d also gone on a diet with a Harley Street Doctor to lose weight ! Yeah right…. Well I wasn’t the only one at the time. I think the effects of the tablets made more mids and hi’s go on the mixes. Next we really placed emphasis on mixing mono for Radio One and used a small Auratone speaker for this which was like a good radio speaker. Now add to this at mastering we ended up with around 24 minutes of time per side it was no wonder low end was lost.
Okay well I’d better explain that a bit more. With Vinyl there is always a restriction on the length of songs on the side. In essence more bass/level on a mix, less time you have on the disc. So in order to get 24 minutes on a side, bass and or level has to be rolled off. An optimum running time max would be 19 minutes per side. Hence why I always felt the vinyl singles sounded better than the vinyl album.
Now at mastering a production master was made that reflected all the e.q. and level changes that had been made and this tape was then copied and used by Phonogram’s mastering rooms around the world to cut further masters. I don’t know Tim Turan but understand he did a great job of remastering for CD but I do wonder if he got back to all the source tapes and not just production masters?
I think at the time this was done it would have been a really great opportunity to remix R.A.O.T.W. for CD. and call it “The Raw Mix Version”. Pip and I could certainly have mixed it in a completely different way with emphasis on the basic tracks we came out of Sweden with. IMO there should have been only 10 songs on this album, but we have a publishing issue on the writers (within the band) getting there equal share - something Francis has written about. So with the outside songs it was 12 tracks - just too much for vinyl. That’s about it.. -
Now don’t ask so many questions next time you get my tail wagging too much!
My presence here is brought about by my wish to help the Forum of Status Quo Fans have a better understanding of some of the recording aspects and that they will see Pip’s great work with the Band in a better light. When I learned from Pip of his experiences here I was also indirectly affected. I have already indicated in my posts on the JS/NTL thread my respect from him. In addition he remains and always will a very dear friend. I hope that Pip will return and be given the same respects that this post and its responses show the members are capable of. I’ve said my bit now regarding R.A.O.T.W. in this post responding to PER. There is a great deal now that Pip can add to all of this and be given the same opportunity I have had.
Pip The Prod
New Member
Member # 16211
11 September 2008
OK. I guess RAOTW is a good place to (re) start!
I may have to continue this as a series of subsequent posts., depending on the rate of wine consumption!!!!
These days, I also teach on a BA degree course. I don't do this immediately for the money. I do it for the same reason I've returned to this board- ie. To put something back in to people that might be interested or might benefit. I've had a wonderful time in this business, made a few mistakes, but continue to enjoy what I do, remain very tongue in cheek and retain a very strong friendship with the guys in the band.....
so: I initially got a call from an old friend, David Oddie. He had supervised an album I'd done with Graham Bonnet in 1976 (GB was later to join Rainbow, Michael Schenker and Alcatraz). David Oddie had also been co-producer on a single recorded by my old semi-pro band The Sovereigns (around 1965 I think).
He called me out of the blue and asked if I'd be interested in working with Graham, who I knew well as the voice of The Marbles (Only One Woman).
The subsequent album, which was recorded in various locations and engineered by John, my great friend and the person who was my regular engineer, was immense fun and highly acclaimed critically (I'm still pretty proud of it and him!) did very well in Australia. (On another note, I'm currently talking to Graham, with a view to possibly doing something together again.)
Graham was then managed for Quarry Productions by David Oddie, part of the Quo management team. Anyway, David passed me over to Colin Johnson, the bands' personal manager. He told me that the guys had loved Graham Bonnet's album, particularly the guitar sounds, and would I be interested in producing Quo? Well, who wouldn't be?!! I had a meeting soon after, at Francis' new house in Surrey, with Frame and Rick. (It was a wonderful house, and I remember Frame saying he hoped he could afford to stay there. It had cost over 50k!!!)
The initial meeting was supposed to be for about an hour, but after 3 hours, the guys suggested I send my driver home! We really hit it off. We just chatted, made jokes, played verbal cat and mouse, and I realised we had the same (sick?) humour and it was obvious we could get along and work together. We talked about music and influences, but very little about the album to be. The idea of this meeting was purely to see if we could connect personally. I think this aspect is so important and often overlooked. If you can't get along on a personal level, then you've got a bloody hard time ahead!!
My manager David Walker and I then had a meeting with CJ (Colin Johnson), to establish what was required of the new album. Bear in mind that at this stage, it was just "the album". RAOTW came much later.
It was made very clear to me that we were going in with a totally blank canvas. They wanted the sound cleaned up, a more commercial slant and if possible, something that could appeal to the as yet unconquered US market.
The next meeting I had was at Alan's house in Coulsden. Just me and him. Again, we got on really well. Just played demos and favourite records.
Not long after, a further barnstorming session was arranged at Alan's. We set the band up, half in and half out of his garage, which overlooked his pool. This was the first time John (Eden) came along, to check out what he was in store for!!
I remember that after they'd set up, they just jammed for a while (I've a feeling it was one of the early shuffles, like Don't Waste My Time). I just thought "F--- me what a great feel". I'd loved Quo as a punter, but it was interesting to see at first hand EXACTLY what makes a Quo shuffle so unique. And believe me, the subtle interplay of techniques between Rick and Frame in a shuffle is what does it!
We then ran through a few of the demos and the guys offered up songs to be considered. I also began to suss the politics here, but that's another story! I pointed out to CJ that we would have severe sonic problems trying to fit everyone's songs onto the album, but.......
I remember that John (Spud) particularly liked playing Baby Boy, because it was not the norm, and he just loved playing that laid back, almost half time feel. RAOTW was not even in the frame at this stage.
After that, we agreed that we had to work together and the arrangements started to be made. As PP has said, we started the saga by going to Dublin. The location was great- Guiness and such a bizarre sense of humour! Francis and I still talk about being in Jury's Hotel restaurant, when I asked the waiter what the duck was like, and was told in all seriousness "It's a little bird, a bit smaller than a chicken.....!" And the Maitre D' setting fire to a young trainee who he was teaching to make Irish Coffees!!
It was a constant barrage of jokes and rhyming slang, but all this served to forge a very strong personal rapport.
Shame about the studio!! Let's just say it was basic. The monitors were very difficult to adjust to (can't even remember what they were), but I actually got my assistant Keith to collect my JBL 4320's and drive them over. Anyway, it still wasn't happening, so we abandoned things and went back to London to reconvene. (Further note: I often think, in retrospect, that Dublin might have produced different, more favourable results- rawer sound, less "production". But then, that wasn't what the brief was about!)
As JE has explained, we'd done a lot of work at The Manor (Richard Branson's lovely country home residential studio) and also, I had privileged access to Threshold, the Moody Blues' lovely private studio in the Decca building in West Hampstead. (I'd done a lot of work for Decca, and it's ironic that I later got to do a couple of albums with The Moodies).
The common denominator with those studios was the Tom Hidley, Westlake Audio design. Tom had been designing studios all over the USA (The Record Plant, Westlake Audio etc) and a few of his rooms were cropping up in Europe. The Manor and Threshold were the first. The fashion then (particularly in the States) was for very dead, good separation environments. (As a sidebar, remember that I'd had it drummed into me the need for a US friendly recording!) The rooms were all set up (voiced) to give as near as possible, a flat frequency response.
As echoey (very live) rooms could add so many other elements into the equation, this deadening down of the recording areas and the control room served to create a situation where you could build similar facilities anywhere in the world, and they would be compatible with one another. In other words, using a Westlake studio, we could record in Sweden, yet mix in London and still recognise what was on the tapes!
Enquiries were made, and eventually, we booked time at Bohus Studios in Gothenburg. As PP has stated, the owners were lovely, lovely people, and the studio was well up to scratch. At this point, I'd like to say that my first choice studio was Olympic in Barnes. This was a great studio technically, yet still had an open, live and vibrant main recording room. As I've said on many occasions, there were several more suitable locations to record in the UK (including Marquee, where PP worked and I'd had much success), but the option was not there. Quo had to record out of the country, and that was that.
Given this caviat, we all mutually decided to go where we could at least guarantee uniformity, and Bohus was booked. Remember, I wasn't in any way briefed to reproduce EXACTLY the previous Quo sound- this was a whole new ball game.
The commencement date was firmed up, flights, studio and hotels booked........then Spud got appendicitis!! When we eventually got to Gothenburg, we checked into the Esso Ramada Hotel, had a day to settle in, then, on the day of the first session, I got the morning wake up call from Bob Young- "Morning Pip, it's 9 o-clock and Elvis is dead!!!"
To be continued....
Pip The Prod
New Member
Member # 16211
16 Sept 2008
RAOTW- Continued.....
Oh yes, the wake up call! Morning Pip. It's 9 o'clock and Elvis is dead!
It took a while for everyone to take that fact in. But we still convened at Bohus, with the lovely red carpet! To tell the truth, I don't think PP and I particularly noticed it at first- we had much more important considerations. Not least our concern that Spud had had an operation for appendicitis only a very few weeks before. Ideally, the poor guy should have had six months off.
As an observation, I'm sure only Spud's adrenaline carried him through. I'm sure songs like Who Am I would have benefited from a fully match fit Spud, but he deserves a medal for his positive work on RAOTW.
Anyway, back to the first day. PP and I spent a lot of time sussing the best areas to set things up, and we decided to put JC in the drum booth. I was aware that the band had always set up in a more open fashion. I was also aware that Spud would possibly feel a little detached from the rest of the band.
However, we needed to gain instrument separation for this venture, so into the glass doored isolation room went Spud. I constantly asked John if he was happy in there and he indicated complete satisfaction. So, we spent a few hours tuning, subtly tweaking and getting a general drum sound as a starting point.
The first song on the agenda was Rockers Rollin'.
The rest of the band eventually arrived, got settled in and relaxed and we got some basic sounds and a rough headphone balance. At this point, I'd like to explain that it's a bit of a vicious circle getting a can (headphone) balance with Quo. They all want to hear something slightly different, which means that the poor engineer is subject to much abuse! It's a vicious circle because you can't give them their preferred balance until they play the track, but they don't like playing the track until the cans are right, so then they just stop before you've had a chance to set their balance!
So after a couple of run throughs, a huge clatter indicated that Spud had kicked the kit over! I had been warned that JC was known to get a bit impatient when setup procedures took a while, so I calmly said to him, "That was clever John, now we'll have to start all over again!"
I can't remember if we relocated the kit after that. I've a feeling we made a compromise and left him in the booth, but with the sliding glass doors open, so there was some feeling of contact with the others.
Anyway, we eventually got into Rockers Rollin'. The origin of this song was from a mad comedy tape that Jackie Lynton had made for the band. He was a close mate and had made this tape of bizarre tunes, very suited to Quo's equally bizarre humour! One such song was March Of The Slugs (Rolling our way back home). Rick did a masterstroke and turned this into Rockers Rollin'. It was maybe optimistic starting with this. I thought we should maybe ease into things more subtly, particularly given Spud's recent surgery.
Remember, this was my first experience of Quo going full tilt. We recorded a take to listen back to for reference. Up until now, I'd never experienced this quality of rock band performance in the studio and was grinning like mad at the playback, only to have Rick say "This song needs to Rock and that ain't f---ing
rocking!".
So now I had a yardstick for what was expected and what they were capable of.
I remember that on the final master take, I'd wanted it to go on for ages, but the best overall take broke down quite quickly at the end.
My memories of the rest of the sessions is that they went pretty smoothly. The material was very varied. I was even encouraged to submit a song (Who Am I) and I'll talk about that one elsewhere. The band were 100% enthusiastic and all into it (regardless of what was stated later, after the event!) Spud honestly loved playing Baby Boy- just listen to some of the great fills. Both he and Rick were turned on by my electric sitar, which I'd brought to Sweden and Rick played on Baby Boy.
I remember a lot of time was spent on For You, but it was surely worth it. Francis and I worked through the guitar solo and he played it brilliantly. The song was so different and it required a very structured solo, rather than a busk. So we both sat down with a guitar each and looped the playback of the track, over the solo section. We each traded licks and the solo was constructed. It was played by Frame on my 1973 Fender Tele De-Luxe (2 x Fender humbucking pickups. I think I swapped that guitar with Rick for one of his Travis Bean guitars. Alan now has that Tele.) Incidentally, Alan did a superb job on For You too. Again, a carefully constructed bass part.
Well guys, I need wine and feet up! More to follow!