Mixing / Production

If you remember seeing fresh-faced popsters Altered Images bouncing around the TOTP stage back in the '80s, you may already have seen Stephen Lironi. Nowdays, though, he's all grown up and carving himself a production career with the likes of Space, Jon Bon Jovi and Brian Wilson's singing daughters, The Wilsons. Richard Buskin finds out about the new image.

Leading ambient housemeister Banco de Gaia has just completed his eagerly awaited new studio album. Jonathan Miller finds him changing tracks as he steams towards greater success.

In his first interview since winning the coveted 'Best Producer' award at this year's Brits, John Leckie joins Mark Cunningham in Abbey Road Studio 2 to discuss his 27-year career and the making of Cast's new album, Mother Nature Calls.

A deeply private man, ex-Gillian keyboard player turned film music composer Colin Towns recently made a rare appearance to promote his latest project, Colin Towns' Mask Orchestra. Sam Molineaux discovers the true story behind his varied musical career.

You've probably heard the amazing story of how Britain's recent number one single 'Your Woman' was recorded by one man, Jyoti Mishra, working alone on an 8-track cassette recorder. Paul Tingen talks to the man behind White Town's extraordinary success, and finds out how he put together his new album using a bare minimum of equipment.

'70s band Magic Carpet waited 25 years to release a follow-up to their 1972 debut album — and '90s technology enabled them to do it all at home this time around. Alisha Sufit, who played, sang and engineered the sessions, explains how it all happened...

Butch Vig came to fame for his work on the seminal Nirvana album Nevermind, going on to make a name for himself in post-punk indie production. Now he's hit the big time as both artist and producer, as part of internationally-successful band Garbage. Richard Buskin caught up with him to talk about roots, reincarnation, and rubbish...

Musicians, arrangers and producers Jean-Phillipe Rykiel and François Breant are well known in their native France as pioneers of Western and African crossover music, and for their willingness to use technology to produce new and challenging forms of music. Paul Tingen paid them each a visit at their Parisian studios to discuss their working methods.

He's an accomplished producer, remixer, writer, programmer, guitarist, bassist and keyboard player — is there no end to Danny Saber's abilities? Richard Buskin talks to him about his blending of pop, rock, hip-hop and trip-hop sensibilities, as well as the commercially unorthodox results that have placed him in international demand.

West Productions' innovative work on the audio post-production of cult TV series 'The X-Files' netted the company two Emmy awards in 1996. Paul White talks to company founder David West about the sound element of major TV programmes, including X-Files creator Chris Carter's new series, 'Millennium'.

It was once taken for granted that freelance engineers would use the standard outboard provided by the studio they were working in. But the explosion in the amount of gear available means that now they often have to assemble personal rack to be sure of getting access to their tools of choice. Dan Daley explores the phenomenon...

This American classical composer writes rock songs as well as concertos and has a home studio complete with contemporary synths and a computer-based sequencer. Paul Tingen talks to him about the best of both worlds.

Mark Snow's quirky yet haunting X-File theme tune was last year's surprise worldwide chart hit, and his atmospheric scoring plays an important part in setting the mood for this darkly compelling television phenomenon. Derek Johnson discovers that the music is out there...

When techno gurus Eat Static's last album entered the UK charts at number 11 the techno duo threatened to overshadow the achievements of their previous group, Ozric Tentacles. On the eve of their follow-up, Jonathan Miller teleports to darkest Somerset to face conspiracy theories relating 'recovered' alien spacecraft to developments in music technology...

Aphex is celebrating 21 years in business, during which time the company has diversified from Aural Exciters into signal processing such as compression. However, Aphex President Marvin Caesar feels that the subject of compression is still widely misunderstood. Paul White asks him to set the record straight.

Despite topping over one million world-wide album sales with an established record label, America's First Lady of New Age music, Suzanne Ciani, has opted for an alternative independent route. Jonathan Miller asks why...

After much high-profile production work in the 1980s, David Lord retreated from the stress of the pop world to concentrate on chosen projects which would exercise his considerable composing and arranging talents. Paul Tingen runs him to earth at Terra Incognita studios, for a long-overdue update.

TV music composer David Lowe tells Paul White how a British Airways World commercial took him halfway around the world — and back...

Richard Buskin talks to top engineer Jon Jacobs and learns about his partnership with legendary man-behind-the-board, Geoff Emerick, and the novel techniques they employed during the making of the latest album by Elvis Costello and The Attractions.

One-time lords of synth-pop, OMD have had a chequered 18-year history, but frontman Andy McCluskey genuinely believes their 10th and latest album ranks among the band's best work. Nigel Humberstone talks to McCluskey and producer Matthew Vaughan about the making of Universal.

Hugh Padgham is one of a select band of producers whose work is always in demand by top musicians, and whose style always seem current and relevant. Richard Buskin catches up with him on a rare break in his busy schedule, to talk about his latest project with Sting and Phil Collins.