Recording

Aquabats are an unconventional trio dedicated to the creation and recording of unconventional improvised music — using unconventional and often improvised instruments — which they call Earth Music. Tim Turan tells the story.

After years of rumours and myth, the fruits of the Beatles' reunion for small screen and recording projects can now be experienced by mere mortals. For the past 18 months, Mark Cunningham has been keeping his ear to the ground, and can now reveal the fascinating details surrounding the Fab Four's Second Coming'...

In these days of practically unlimited MIDI sequencer tracks, just eight tape tracks can seem frustratingly few. David Mellor passes on a few tricks to help 8-track users expand their recording horizons — including how to get 20 tracks from 8...

For his latest musical project, Rick Wakeman chose to work with a travelling state circus. Jonathan Miller discusses the keyboard virtuoso's clowning glory, and delves into the man's 27-year recording career.

In an ideal world, studios would function without hum, hiss, glitches, or mysteriously absent signals, but as Paul White has discovered through experience — they don't!

If anyone epitomises the home recording DIY ethic, it's Bill Nelson. With over 40 albums to his credit, many of which emanated from his modest home studio, Bill continues to experiment. Nigel Humberstone explores his latest guitar-based creations.

Paul White examines the role of the keyboard submixer in the MIDI/tape recording studio.

It's clear from our readers' survey that while you like to read about those on the professional side of the recording industry, you'd also like to hear more from fellow mortals! In the first of this occasional series, Paul White talks to Rick Cordes, an SOS reader who's built himself a very tidy basement studio...

Paul White presents a few low-calorie tips on how to sweeten and edit your sounds after mixing them.

Duke Ashton provides a personal guide to setting up a good mix.

Stephen Bennett chucks his trusty 8-track tape setup in favour of one of the new hard disk multitrack systems — but not before doing some thorough research. Here he reveals the factors that influenced his decision...

Mark Thomas finds himself very much in demand writing and recording music for film, television and library albums. Much of the music involves orchestral instruments, and even 70-piece orchestras, but as Mark explained to Paul white, the bulk of the work can still be carried out in a home studio.

The Stone Roses seemed fit for world domination at the end of the '80s, but after releasing a successful debut album, they disappeared for nearly six years. Matt Bell talks to the producer of their new album, Simon Dawson, about his approach to recording the all-important follow-up.

Nothing beats the feel of a superb live performance captured on tape... but exactly how do you go about it? SOS's Demo Doctor and live recording veteran John Harris considers what you need to get that classic gig onto multitrack tape.

Down in the BBC vaults, we were told, they had stumbled upon a golden tape containing long lost recordings of The Beatles' radio performances. Richard Buskin spoke to the BBC Radio producer Kevin Howlett and Abbey Road Studios engineer Peter Mew to discover the truth behind the hype.

Those of us who can afford it probably master to DAT, but for the ADAT user, this isn't necessarily the best option, as Paul White reveals.

If you can't get a good performance from your vocalist, it could be your method of monitoring that's at fault. Paul White offers some helpful advice.

Digital recording is very different from analogue when it comes to setting the right recording level. Jerry Halatyn helps you to understand your DAT machine...