Man On Earth

Ken Lewis at www.protoolsmixing.com is a talented and an organised guy!  The stuff I’ve worked on with him has been rock – and the Americans do that so well.  Small Town Sleeper‘s album will be finished later this year and Man On Earth is a New York band that Ken is producing at the moment.  To see how to use your fanbase, check their site!  They’re not shy of asking their fans to do the big sell on the band, and I guess fan’s are pleased to be involved.

But Ken is also known for hip-hop and has a string of fantastic credits.  He’s multi-talented; hot on recording, producing and all things musical, and immensely passionate about the artists he works with.  Everything I’ve heard of his is both meticulously produced and musically distinctive, so I’ve big hopes there’ll be some more amazing tracks to work on.

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phuture lounge

Wow, what a week. I can’t complain about this work being run of the mill, with work coming in from the States, Austria and at home. Today Dave Jones (aka Zed Bias and Phuture Lounge) asked me to put strings on a couple of tracks for a writer he is producing. And on the same day a jazz fiddle transcription and recording for Martin Kyle at Heritage Studio, for a cruise ship production recording.

Dave Jones is prolific; look at his output at Phuture Lounge. And a great craftsman, creating an intense sound, great grooves and textures. He’s also an absolute pleasure to work with, and like so many talented musicians, very modest.

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Poplab

Great track came in this week from Poplab in Austria – the songwriting and production team of Natascha Hagen and Martin Frainer. The track was called Run and a perfect, high-energy, edgy, dramatic pop song. Time was short so I offered to do a midi-only arrangement but in the end I created the audio with East West and some samples I built myself, specifically for this song. As usual I threw loads of ideas at the track (start to finish) knowing that some would get rejected, but I was pleased with what Poplab decided to keep!

They were very fussy about every last note, and so they should be. They had clearly put a lot of effort and passion into producing the song, so the arrangement went backwards and forwards a few times before we settled on a final version.

The Mannsfield 12

Ken Lewis at protools mixing referred Aaron D Spears to me.  Aaron is an actor and musician, involved with a new movie – The Mannsfield 12 .  I guess the song he sent me is part of the sound track.  It’s a powerful hip-hop tune and Aaron was really passionate about what he wanted the strings to do.  He had some samples and lines on the track already, but wanted me to add even more intensity and dynamic, including a ‘freestyle’ section.  I tried to make the arrangement edgy and dramatic and he loved it!  The movie website includes a trailer – looking forward to seeing this one released.

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Chris Taylor

This one was a fast turnaround for Chris who is preparing recordings for a major tour. As ever, he’s dead organised and sent me a rough mix, midi and scored parts. Not many producers send anything notated these days! Chris is an incredibly versatile musician, with a skill-set that every musician should aspire to – great player and arranger, with recording skills. Also a dead nice bloke!

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Playground Studio

Scott Rosser of Playground Studio in Crewe came back to me with a job recently.  He is producing an amazing artist called Kenny Thomas – with the most incredible soul voice, and the production is sounding premier league too.  Scott had the arrangement all worked out and was dead efficient in sending the midi plus rough mix plus strings mix plus the original version of the song.  So I was really clear about what I had to do.  I added plenty of ‘performance’ like slides and dynamics so hopefully brought the string arrangement to life.  Scott was really please anyway – looking forward to hearing the track.  It’s a remake of Keep the Fires Burning.

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