Behind The Boards with Zeppelin, Marley, McCartney & Clapton with Engineer Digby Smith [Episode 341]

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking you into the studio and behind the mixing board.
Legendary engineer Digby Smith has worked with Led Zeppelin, Free
Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Bob Marley, Steven Stills. The list
goes on and on. He has got so many great
stories that he's going to share with you in this episode,
and it's coming up next. I'm Booked on Rock.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
We're totally rock and roll. I mean gotta leave you.
You're reading. Little Hands says it's time to rock and roll.
Roll up three, I totally booked.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the podcast for those
about to read and rock. Excited to have this episode's guest.
He's a first time guest on the show. He is
the author of the book one, two, three four, The
Life and Times of a Recording Studio Engineer. It is
Digby Smith. His career spans four decades, beginning at nineteen

(00:56):
years old when he joined Island Studios in London as
a staff engineer. Digby, Welcome to the podcasts. Great to
meet you. How are you.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
I'm fine, Eric, Thank you for thank you for speaking
with me much.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Thanks so much for being on so many great stories
in this book. I want to get to some of them. Today,
you say, right up front of the books forward, it
wasn't the fame or the leads that pulled you into
a career as an engineer. Talk about when you fell
in love with rock and roll and what led you
down the path towards engineering and producing as well.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
You go way back to when I was about thirteen
or fourteen years of age, and my slightly older sister
was coming home with her early rock and roll records,
Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and the Everly Brothers, and we
had a tiny little record player with the speaker and
the lid, and there's only a mono little turntable, but

(01:51):
the Sandlers records coming out of my sister's record player
just act evaated me that I just had to be
part of what I was listening to. So I did
what a lot of us did at that age back
in the mid sixties. I bought myself an acoustic guitar.

(02:13):
I started learning all the chords, and then subsequently, by
the time I was about seventeen, my sister was getting
into the Beatles, and I remember hearing Paul McCartney count
out the one, two, three four on the first track

(02:34):
on the first side of the Beatles first album in
the UK, which was Please Please Meet. And when I
heard that, I knew that I just wanted to be
a part of what I was listening to.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
There's a great story from very earlier in your career
about Stephen Stills and his song love the one You're with.
You were standing right next to him for the first
performance ever of this song.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
It must have been because it was the previous night
when Stephen was at his hotel in London on Park Lane.
He booked into the studio where I was now working
as a chief tea boy and mail room operator and
starting to get my push my nose in and hang

(03:22):
out on the sessions. And Steven had booked the studio
for a couple of weeks to do his first solo album.
And well, I list the musicians that were present on
that record in the book. I mean it was who's
who of everybody that was anybody at the time, And
it was I don't know, day three or four into

(03:44):
the sessions. They were nighttime sessions. They would start about
eight o'clock in the evening. Stephen came running into the
control of about seven point thirty with his acoustic guitar
that he'd taken with him back to the hotel the
night before. He gathered everybody around him in the control room,
and I made my presence felt. I entered on queue

(04:07):
with a tray of tea for everybody, and I stood
right next to Stephen as I handed him a cup
of tea and he said to everybody, this is the
song we're going to record tonight. I just wrote this
last night in the hotel room, and he proceeded to
play on the acoustic guitar, love the one You're with.

(04:29):
It was such a magical place to find yourself as
for your first professional experience of working in a recording studio,
Island Records were one of the biggest independent record labels
of the time, and they were unique in as much
as they had their own recording studios as well. So

(04:50):
when I got my job there in January of nineteen
seventy as the tea boy and driving around in the
truck picking up all the cables for the newly built
studio and picking up microphones and headphones, and seeing the
studio start from scratch, and those early sessions, which amongst
them was was Stephen Stills, that were all the Island

(05:13):
artists of the day were going to record their traffic
free model Hoop or Cat Stevens. So although I was
my official position was one of tea boy, I was
already getting involved with helping the assistant engineers with duties
such as, you know, wrapping mike cables and set putting

(05:37):
up music stands and had setting up headphones in the
live room. So I and Chris Blackwell, who was the
owner of the label and the and the owner of
the studio, he was very key to let all this
young guys get involved as early as we could. So
within six months Eric I was not only engineering sessions,

(06:01):
I was producing my first album. That's how and meteorically
fast it was to climb the career at Island, thanks
in no small part to the generosity of Chris Blackwell.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, you speak highly of him, and he had a
certain vision, he had a certain ability that few had.
He just he could hear something special, yes he could.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
In it was a unique record label in so many respects,
such a broad roster of artists. You had all folk,
the folk acts that he signed such as fair Pool Convention,
Sandy Denny, Cat Stevens, John Martin, and then you had
the more what we would refer to in those days

(06:47):
as the more underground rock bands such as Free Motoo
or Spooky Tooth, and then you had the more sort
of poppy stuff like Rocks and Music Robert Parker So
as a as a young fledgling engineer, learning the ropes
of how to conduct recording sessions and the different approaches

(07:12):
that different styles of music might require, there was it
was like a kid in a candy store. I was
just exposed to so many different types of music.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
It was Traffic's freedom writer, great song. This was your
first professional edit. A traumatic experience for.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
You, right, it was indeed, going back to nineteen sixty nine,
sixty eight, sixty nine, before I moved to London and
started working professionally in a professional studio, I had a
little recording set up in my bedroom which is a
little mono tape machine and one microphone and a quarter

(07:51):
inch tape which I used to splice together using scissors
and seller tape. Wine Ford twelve month, eighteen months. And
I'm assisting for the engineer, the late great Brian Humphreys,
who recorded much of the Traffic stuff. And I'm assisting

(08:14):
for Brian on these traffic sessions. We did the recording,
and we did the mix of the track. It's early evening,
seven or eight o'clock in the evening, Brian's gone home.
Chris is standing there listening to the mix, and he
without going into too much detail here, but Chris wanted

(08:35):
an edit. He wanted to just change a couple of
bars in the middle of the mix. Brian wasn't there anymore.
So I was taken back to my bedroom and tape
sello tape and scissors in my mind, and Chris said,
you know how to edit, and I bravely suggested that
I did, although I'd never done an edit in a

(08:55):
professional recording studio. But there was all the spicing tape
and the razor blades, and I courageously attempted the edit,
with beads of sweat dropping off my brow onto the
editing block and I did the edit. Chris didn't have

(09:16):
much confidence in my ability, especially when he saw my
hand holding the razor but blade shaking with nerves, but
I stuck at it. I got the edit done, played
it to Chris. He liked it. He said, right, put
the tape in the box, fill out the worksheet. See
you tomorrow. No word to thank you, no, no praise,

(09:39):
no just I thought, well, there you go, that's the
business you're in. Job done, get it done, no song
and dance, And fortunately I kept my job.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
I can relate to the experience because I worked in
radio at the tail end of the real to real era.
So for those maybe a little young and too young
to understand what that process is and how maddening it
can be. And I mean nowadays, if you make a mistake,
you can just redo or hit control Z and it
goes back and all there it is. You could just

(10:11):
recut it, but you had to. You had to splice
it at just the right point and then tape it together.
And if you did make a mistake, if you cut
it in the wrong place, there's no turning back. I mean,
unless you had a duplicate recording of it and another
reel to reel you could try it again. Otherwise that's it.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Which you wouldn't have had at the time. Know what
you would do is you'd buy a technique of revolving
the spools back and forth. You could hear the sound
where you did it on a bass drum or, a
snare drum or, and you could find where that was
on the playback head, make a mark with a China
graph pencil, pull the tape off, laid in the block,

(10:53):
splice through. Yeah, if you got it wrong, you had
to put it all back together again. Whin it was
with disaster potentially.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
You mentioned Free such an underrated band. Paul Rodgers later
of Bad Company fame the lead great Paul kasaf on guitar,
Simon Kirk of Bad Company as well on drums, Andy
Fraser on Beast. You're a big fan by the time
you worked with them on Free at Last, the album
from seventy two. Talk about your experience working with Free.
Paul Kassoff had your back in one incident where things

(11:27):
got heated with you and Paul Rodgers.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah again, just quick briefly dipping back into the late
sixties there, I'd quite a number of Island records in
my record collection at home, and amongst them with the
first couple of Free albums, So I was a massive fan.
And then yeah, zoom forward a couple of years and
I'm actually in the studio with these guys and it's

(11:51):
those it's those pinch yourself moments that you remember and great,
but you guys. We were all about the same age,
late teen's early twenties, had an affinity to their music
straight away. I assisted initially. My first involvement with Free

(12:14):
was on the Highway album as an assistant engineer to
the late great Andy Johns. And when they came back
to do their next album, Free at Last, they asked
if i'd sit behind the desk and be the main engineer,
and yeah, do you want me to tell you about moment?

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah? Yeah, before you tell that, we shouldn't know too.
This is They already had the huge hit all right Now, Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
That came up the Fire and Water album, which was
and then I think the Highway album never had a
hit to match. So the kind of pressure was on
having had a hit on their third album. Now there's
a thing we're worth mentioning two young musicians and recording
artists today. It was a record label that had done

(13:05):
two albums with Free, with no hits, no radio airplay, nothing,
just live performances and a couple of albums out there.
And on the third album there was one track all
right Now, which they edited it down, made it single
length for the radio, and that changed everything. So what

(13:26):
record labeled today, if you could even find a record
label today would stay with an artist till their third
album when they had the hit. So the pressure was on.
After that hit and the fourth album, Highway, I don't
think there were any There were a couple of singles,
but no hits. So then three at Last, I don't

(13:47):
think we had a single. Maybe maybe with a little
bit of Love was on Free at Last or Heartbreak
Homes con Real Last.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah, let's see seventy to no standout singles. Maybe a
little bit of Love? Would that have been a single
that was a single and.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
It got in the charts, but it never it never
reached scaled the heights that all Right Now had. So
there you are another day in a studio with the band,
you know, invariably late night sessions, working right through the
night till summer. You know, a couple of weeks into

(14:32):
the album, everybody's getting a bit, you know, it's the
pressures on. We can sense from the label that they
want this record to so so it can get very
emotional in the in the creative atmosphere of the recording studio.
And I don't know what is it two three o'clock

(14:53):
in the morning. Paul Rodgers is by the microphone and
he's about to do a vocal on one of the tracks,
and I'm fiddling around on the desk getting the headphone
balance for him. That he's happy, always liked plenty of drums,
plenty of basis and worth noting Cossy would never put
his lead guitar solo work on until the vocal was recorded.

(15:18):
That was his golden rule, he said, I never I
always want to wait till the lead vocal has been sung.
Then I'll put my guitar parts on and I'll work
my weave my way around it, which was that's how
Costy was interesting. Yeah, so Paul's out there at the microphone.
We're getting ready to run the tape, checking the micro level,

(15:39):
and I'm filling around, maybe with a bit of reverb
in the headphones. Anyway, I obviously made the mistake of
putting too much reverb on Paul's voice, so he flung
the headphones off his head, threw them onto the floor,

(16:00):
came storming into the control room and eyeballed me and
finger pointed me, and he just lost it. He said, Digby,
don't and I won't repeat the language, but essentially what
the message was Digbie, don't ever put that much riverb
on my voice in the headphones again, I can't sing

(16:22):
with that much reverb. And he was quite aggressive. Would
be too strong a word, but he was vehement in
his protestations. Little Paul Kossof literally stood between me and
Paul Rogers and COSSI said to Paul, he said, don't
ever talk to Digby like that again. He said, Digby,

(16:46):
he is the most important man in the room. He's
capturing what we play and what we feel and how
we go about it, and he's encouraging us. So don't
ever do that again, Rogers, I mean, I mean short
of us, but all well enough. It was like point made,

(17:07):
and I said, oh, sorry, Paul, I want I want
to do that with the river beginning. He said, oh,
that's okay. Well I didn't need to share. So we
had group hugs and and everything was great, and Paul
went back out to the vocal microphone. I switched all
the river Buffy's vocal just to be sure, and Paul

(17:27):
then delivered the definitive vocals and all was well, yeah,
that just.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
Shows you a lot of pressure that everybody is under
to come up with it, to come up with just
a good recording, and the artists won't make make sure
everything sounds good. You want to make sure everything sounds good,
and those things can happen. Credit to all three of
you guys, or actually cross off mostly right. I mean,
he's the one who came in and.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Absolutely, what a what a, what a gentleman he was.
I had another time with Simon the drummer, just to say,
after that instance, it's amazing. Sometimes, you know, like with
any relationships, sometimes you know, words are said, it breaks,
it breaks the tension, and it sometimes it's like a

(18:17):
release felve and everyone's the better for it. There was
another time on a track that had sort of two
sections to it, and when it was at the end
of the first section was a sort of a two
bar palls or one bar pause, and then Simon's drum

(18:39):
fill and then we go into the outro section of
the song. I forget the title. The name escapes me,
but we got the track all recorded and all the
guitar overdubs and the vocals, and it's all good to mix.
The idea was we were just going to overdub some
tambourine on the track and rather than one person played

(19:02):
the tambourine. The idea was that three people were going
to play a tambourine each out in the live room.
So I had to set up like three or even
a couple of ambient mics, three or four microphones and
record this orchestral tambourine performance in stereo. So such was

(19:22):
the desk and the routing of the signal path that
there was only groups one and two that you could
patch into the stereo. But I didn't want to record
on tracks one and two because that was Simon's drums.
So what I was supposed to do is come out
of the patch bag, out of groups one and two
and plug into I don't know, tracks thirteen and fourteen

(19:44):
or something. Of course I did all that, but mistakenly,
again it's probably four or five o'clock in the morning,
we're all a bit the worse for wear. I put
tracks one and two into record, and of course, when
it came to that part of the song three four
and I hit record to record, the tambourines and Simon's
drums disappeared. Because I did I did, I do erase

(20:09):
the base frum and the snap Oh my god, I
hit I hit stop on the table shoes as quickly
as I could, and saw my life flash before me.
I'm dead. I am dead. This is it's been nice
working here fasted. Uh, it's going to be back back
to the bedroom and the cello tape and the scissors,

(20:29):
and and I think it was something said, why do
you stop tape? Digby? I said, I just didn't know.
I thought, well, you just got to. Sometimes in the
world of engineer and if if you make a mistake,
if it's pilot error, you can sometimes bluff your way
around it and say, oh, the channel switch cut out,

(20:51):
or it's it didn't go and record, you know, the
buttons faulty, or but this there was no way out, Eric,
there was no to fess. So I called them up.
I said, can you come back into the control room, guys,
And Simon said, what's happened? And I I just said
to Simon, I thought I just got to tell him.
I said, I've erased your drums, oh boy. And I

(21:14):
thought he's a tough looking guy, Simon, you know, and
he's fit, you know, behind the kit there. Yeah, I
just thought, this is it, man, this is it. Simon said,
The drum mics still set up Dickwie, and I looked
out into the into the live room and I said, yeah,
they are. And I looked on the desk. Yeah, all

(21:36):
the drum faders were still where they were. Simon said,
I'll re record him. He said, I wasn't very happy
with the drumming on the outro of the track. Anyway,
he says, I don't worry about it, Dickwie, It's fine,
he said, we all make mistakes, man, And he just
walked out, put his headphones on. I wind back it recording.
Simon just replaced the drums effortlessly, faultlessly, one.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Take and you sigh of relief, a huge.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Each sigh of relief. And uh, and I kind of
if I wasn't already. I felt a bonding with with
Simon from then, and I've kept in touch with him,
you know, casually, over the years. And he's still working
and playing and teaching and stuff. And he's another what
a what a gentleman.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
You've worked with some great engineers. You mentioned Andy Johns,
Glynn Johns you worked with as well. You describe both
of them as artisan craftsmen at work. What made them
so good?

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Again, You've got to you got to take your mind
back to the state of state of the art as
it was in the you know, before I started professionally,
but back in the sixties, probably Jeff Emeric at E.
M I Studios later to become Abbey Road was probably

(22:55):
one of the first pioneers with all the advent of
the improvements in the technology and the addition of multi
tracking eight track, sixteen track, twenty fours. As the technology evolved,
and more and more audio signaling toys to play with

(23:16):
that could create special effects and sounds, and the amount
of manipulation that you could do with sound and with
the recording process. Was was was racing ahead at break
breakneck speed, and the old school engineers would have been

(23:40):
just technical guys. They would have just literally they would
be called balance engineers. They would get at the balance
of the band and record it probably on a three
or four track tape machine. And that was it. It was,
it was, it was. It was pure engineering. But when
these guys like Glenn and Andy came along with these

(24:02):
new desks, they started doing things with the desk like
overdriving the MI camps and the pre amps, you know,
turning the tape over and doing things in reverse and
and over compressing guitars and vocals to make them sort
of give them a distortion that was was quite pleasing

(24:24):
to the ears. So yeah, it was as the technology advanced,
the new breed of engineers of which I was coming
in on the tail end of, was started to do
amazing things with with audio. And you hear it on
the records of the day.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
Oh. Absolutely, so they're working that mixing board like Jimmy
Hendrix would work the guitar.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
You're absolutely right there, Eric, And I think I referred
to it in there as at the end of the evening,
when when it'd be time to do the final mix
of the track, you've been working on, listening to over
and over and over and over again all day, all night,
and now you've got to do the final stereo mix.

(25:09):
So many you'd have backing vocals on the same track
as the tambourines, you'd have different guitars on different tracks,
and the piano would suddenly become the organ where you
recorded it just instead. So now to do the mix
was like the desk was. As the engineer, the desk
was your musical instrument. And now when you're doing the

(25:33):
finam it's your time to play and to do a performance,
and if you got the performance right, the guys in
the band would be so ecstatic. Occasionally, ergonomically it would
just be impossible that it would be just too many
moves to make. You'd have to be, you know, lifting

(25:53):
the backing vocals at this during the middle eight, at
the same time as the drums need to come down
a bit, so you physically couldn't stretch that far over
the desks. So invariably you get a couple of musicians
to join in and give them a couple of faders
to move. And golden rule it would be that don't

(26:16):
ever give the drummer the drum faders. Don't ever give
the lead guitarists the lead guitar fader. Don't ever give
the vocalist the lead vocal fader, because invariably you'll get
you'll get mission creep. You know, the drummer will keep
lifting his drums.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
And I'm fascinated with all of that stuff. I always
love doing production, working radio and the happy accidents that
would come along, Like if you take two of the
same tracks and put them on two different separate tracks,
and you move one just slightly, all of a sudden
you get this reverb sound. If you move it a
little more, it's going to have a different sound to
It's almost an echo. All those things I'm endlessly fascinated with.

(26:57):
And actually I was going to ask you where then
you have the accident stories that you have where you
just stumble upon something you say, WHOA, that's cool, let's
keep that.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah. Yeah. I think one time, on one mix, we
were doing it and there was a couple of bars
that we didn't get quite right. So I said, well, listen,
we can just we can just let's just focus on
that I don't know, those four bars in the third
chorus where where the guitar parts are slightly different or something.

(27:27):
Let's let's just mix that section of the song and
then we'll splice it in and we mix that section
of the song. And so there's loads of tracking of tape.
There's bits of tape hanging here, bits of tape hanging there,
and stick the bit of tape to the machine, and
then they grab the bit of tape that you want
and lay it in and splice it in, wind the
tape back press play. I think on one occasion I

(27:51):
inadvertently put the tape the wrong way around, So when
you hit play and it came to that section, it
was suddenly in reverse. So that's just like I don't
know what it would be just so so and you go, wow,
that's amazing. You think, No, I've made a mistake. I'll

(28:14):
put the tape in the wrong way. I'll have to
take it up. No, no, no, let's let's use that.
That's brilliant. So you might end up just using one
bar of it. But accidents like that, and yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
What was this story about? On Zeppelin Too with a
whole Lot of Love? That part where you hear Robert
Plant foreshadowing the lyric, it sounds like it's very faint.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Do you want to.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
Cree down inside? Right? Yeah? That's Eddie Kramer and Jimmy
Page stumble down something.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
Just as quick as non technical as possible that some
of your viewers or understand this, but try and keep
it as simple as possible. With old fashioned magnetic recording tape,
it has oxide. It has metal oxide on the tape,
and the reaction of the the recording head and the
magnetic oxide on the tape is what records the audio,

(29:07):
which today we would look at a has been a
wab on logic or protos you'd see as a wave form.
That's the waveform is recorded on the oxide. In the
oxide it's buried into the it alters the metallic structure
of the oxide, and that's where the audio is captured

(29:29):
in the metal of the oxide of the tape. So
when you wind the tape back, it's layering on top
of each other, isn't it. Each fall revolution, another piece
of tape sticks to the back of the previous bit
of tape, so it and you get what's called print through.

(29:50):
Sometimes if you've accidentally particularly if you've accidentally over recorded
something like a vocal, perhaps where you've put too much
magnetic energy into the oxide, so the oxide's somewhat saturated
with the audio and when the when you wind the

(30:10):
tape back, it leaks through. It prints through. So if
you solo the vocal, you probably find that pre echo
of the vocal. It's probably there a lot of the time,
but so quiet that you wouldn't notice it in amongst
all the guitars, But in that section of the song

(30:32):
where the vocals pretty much on its own, you can
hear it.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
And what a phantom It's like a phantom track.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
And what Andy would have done going back to this,
this using the equipment creatively and thinking, oh ship, what
are we going to what are we going to do
with that? You can hear the vocal before it comes in.
Oh my god, We'll have to keep dipping the fader down.
We'll have to keep muting it because you didn't have
automation in those in those days, but you did have

(31:01):
multi tracking. So Jimmy probably thought, well, rather than turn
it down and try and get rid of it, what
about if we lift the fader and put a bit
of reverb on it and make it sound haunting? And yeah,
and I hear that today. It was a mistake that

(31:24):
proved beneficial.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
When I think of Island Records, the first artist that
comes to mind is Bob Marley. You worked with Bob
Marley and the Whalers. They were relatively unknown at that time,
though when was this and what was that experience? Like?

Speaker 2 (31:38):
They were totally unknown Erica. Again, going back working for Ireland,
I omitted this category at the beginning of this conversation
as well. Was the folk, the rock, the pop that
was of course the reggae, and even when I started
at Ireland in nineteen seventeen, they had Jimmy Cliff to

(32:00):
to the Maytels. There was a lot of stuff that
was coming out on Tough Gong and Mango Records, Trojan
that was been like the Island were licensing so obviously
with Chris Blackwell and these Jamaican routes and the connection there.
So there was very much a reggae presence at the label.
Although I'm worth mentioning at this point that as well

(32:24):
as all the roster of Island artists of the day,
the studios were open to the general public, not least
of all. It's while we had Lyn Zeppelin and the
band and Stephen Steele's or Joe Cocker, we had all
sorts of artists that weren't signed to the label. That's
how I got to be working We led Zeppelin, and

(32:47):
I was working with an artist who wasn't on the
label who was signed to CBS, the guy called Johnny Nash.
I was working on Johnny Nash is I can See
Cleaning Now in his album, and Johnny was signed to CBS.

(33:08):
Johnny Nash's keyboard player was a guy called John Rabbit Bundrick,
Texan keyboard player. Johnny and John and Johnny went way
back and so when Johnny Nash booked the studio to
do some keyboard overdubs on his album, he had John
Rabbit Bundrick did the keyboards, and I'd engineered a lot

(33:30):
of stuff with Rabbit, so Rabbit got me to be
the engineer on the Johnny Ash stuff. And it was
you know, it was in one one afternoon on one
of the Johnny n Ash sessions. Another another day in
the studio, another overdub, and Johnny Ash turns up with this.

(33:51):
I say, little guy, short guy with short dreads, not
even down to his shoulder blades, but cut short dreads.
And Johnny Nash turned to me and he said, this
is my friend Bob. He's a reggae singer. And I said,
nice to meet you, Bob. And we played a couple

(34:12):
of tracks and Bob was nod in his head and
listening to the music. And then Bob, who I later
found was to be known it was called Bob Marley,
but when I first maybe it was just Bob, and
so Bob, Johnny and Johnny Nash's manager, a guy called
Danny Simms, and I think Danny Simms was managing Bob

(34:37):
Marley as well at the time. They all left me
and Rabbit in the control room on our own to
get on with some keyboard work, and Johnny, Bob and
Danny went upstairs sat and meet him with Chris Blackwood,
and I think that was probably the day that Blackwell
signed Bob Wow. So then I don't know why. Forward

(34:59):
another couple of months and we're getting these. We would
typically get tapes from Jamaica. They would be eight track
one inch analogued eight track recordings. Many of them would
have been recorded at least Scratch Perry's studio in Kingston,
a couple of other studios out there. They're pretty rough

(35:22):
and ready, pretty funky sounding tapes. You invariably there wouldn't
be a track listing to tell you what's all. It
just be a box with an artist's name on and
you just put put in on and we'd get an
eight track machine in and then transfer all the content
contents of the eight track reel to reel. We'd transfer

(35:45):
them over to a sixteen track multi track, thereby giving
you eight extra tracks to play with. So the Bob
Marley Catcher Fire album the first his first album. I
don't know whether that was actually on island or whether
it was tough gone, but it was licensed as an
Island record and myself and a couple other house engineers.

(36:08):
Tony Platt was another engineer Ireland who went on to
do great things.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Like ec DC. I know that name from the one
you should get him on if you get it.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
Yeah, I don't. I don't hear from him these days.
But a lovely, lovely, lovely gentleman. And uh so we
we'd get these tapes and we get something like Rabbit
to come in and put some extra keyboards on. We
get you know, Steve Winwood was in the building. You
get into, put some stuff on, rebop the gun and
conga players around. We get him into and then of

(36:44):
course you'd get bobbed. A couple of the whalers would
come in put some extra stuff, and then you'd when
you then when you were mixing them, you've got you
had sort of the original old recordings and us a
bunch of new overdubs. And Blackwell's idea was to try

(37:04):
and just popularize the music a little more, make it
a little more western eyes, make it a little more
poppy or rocky. But you had to be mindful that
you you you didn't you didn't untangle the original feel
that came from those original eight track tapes with all

(37:25):
the rough and ready basic sounds on them. You wanted
to enhance it, not not alter it. And that Yeah,
that's how I found myself in the studio with Bob Marley.
But we had no idea at the time, Eric that
we were writing the first chapter of a of a
very important book in the history of popular music.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
It was.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
I was as excited about working with him and his
band on particularly that album. I did a little bit
of work on the next album, Burning but not an
awful but to catch a fire. We were all involved
with that. But I would be as equally excited if

(38:10):
on a Wednesday evening when the Island Records football team
the Island Records soccer team would go over the park
on a Wednesday evenings and we'd always have a kick around.
And Bob used to come and play football with us.
So I played football with him two or three times.
He was a good player, right, he was fantastic. He
was a great I think I mentioned in the book. Actually,

(38:32):
there's there are many analogies between well sport in general,
if not just football. You know the importance of being
even if you're you're the quarterback, or you're the center forward,
you're the main goalscorer. It's important that you realize you're
just part of a team and that you need everybody
to be working together and end in the same direction.

(38:55):
And I always say, and I think I mentioned it
in the book, that the way Bob Marley played football
was the way he was in the studio. No ego,
no light, look at me, I'm the main guy. It's like,
it's all part. He's part of a great team and
if you want to win, you've got to all play together.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
The Book Down Rock podcast is part of the Boneless
podcasting network. If you're a fan of classic rock and
classic film like I am, go to Boneless dot lovable
dot app to find over twenty great shows there that's
Boneless dot lovable dot app. Or just go to bookdown
Rock dot com. Click on the logo. It'll take you
right to the Boneless podcasting network. It is what you

(39:41):
want to be Listen with confidence. You work with Air Clapton,
Paul McCartney, Little Feet, Sparks, the London Symphony Orchestra. What
were the projects you worked down with McCartney and Clapton.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Were Clapton was on the Stephen Stills albums. And also
there was a couple of days that when Stephen Stills
his engineer, Bill Helveson, his biggest kind of fame was

(40:15):
recording all the Cosby, Stills and Nash stuff. Hence he
was Stephen's engineer. And when we'd finished the Stephens Stills
his second solo album, which I was by now assisting
as an engineer with Bill. When the Stephen Still's album
recording had finished, Bill was in town for a couple

(40:39):
more days. And while he was in town, Eric he
was recording a solo album with Eric Captain at the
time as well. And while Bill was in London and
Eric Claptain must have been in London, Eric came into
the studio for a couple of days and did some
work on his solo album. I can picture the album sleeve.

(41:04):
I can't remember the.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Tite what you would have been two seventy.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Three, two seventy three two. There's a track called red Red, Red,
bottle of red.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
Wine, Bottle of red wine.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
Eric did the vocal to that. There I recorded that
would Bill Oh.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
That's from his debut solo record nineteen seventy time seventy.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Was as early as that? Then? Oh my gosh, yeah, okay,
it must have been after Stevens's first solo album then.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
Ok yeah and McCartney, what was the project with Paul that.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
That came about? Paul's older brother Chap called Mike. He
goes by the name of Mike mcghear. He is a
Liverpool poet, but at the time he was also writing
music and as fate would have it, Mike McGear was

(42:04):
signed to Island Records to do a solo album called
Woman and Myself. I think probably Tony as well. A
couple of them. Of us were engineering on the Mike
mcghear solo album. The in the office, you'd get the

(42:27):
week's schedule of what sessions you'd be working on as
an engineer, so you go in and look and check.
You know, you've got working with Free on Monday, Tuesday
and Wednesday, maybe Bob Marley on Thursday or Friday, Spooky
too from Saturday whatever. So I looked up on the
bookings board in the studio office and it's got two
days Saturday and Sunday. I'm down as engineer on the

(42:50):
Mike mcghear sessions, which it was nothing unusual, but it
meant I was going to be working the weekend. But hey,
that's the go with the territory. So I turn up
on the Saturday morning and Mike turns up and we
put the kettle on. We're making a cup of tea.
Let's talk about what are we going to do in

(43:11):
the studio today. We've got a game planned, Mike. He said, yeah,
and out of his bag he brought out a little
seven inch plastic school of tape. He said, last night,
me and my brother and his wife were we were
jamming and we recorded it on this on a little
tape machine at home. So her brothers coming and his

(43:33):
wife are coming down later to put a bit of
guitar on and do some singing. We're going to put
some overdubs. So I said, oh, that sounds interesting, and
I handed mikey's tea and off he went into the
control And I remember pausing for a second thinking, I
know Mike Kiars got a younger brother, and I'm wondering,

(43:54):
is it going to be who I think it might be.
Is it going to be that the guy that shouted
out the caw in on the first Beatle album that
sent shivers down my spine and was the basis for
the title of the book. I thought that would I
just had to kind of gather my thoughts and put
my professional hat on and try and walk up the

(44:15):
stairs without dropping the tray of tea. And anyway, I
walked into before I was actually sitting in the reception area,
and a yellow rolls Royce pulls up outside, which you
don't see every day, and out comes steps this guy,
handsome guy with dark hair in a yellow suit, and

(44:37):
he marches towards the door of the studios with his
wife dutifully walking behind him. She was carrying all the
guitars by the way in Well, he wasn't a night
then Paul McCartney and I did the studio one at
Basis Street. We went and over a couple of days

(44:58):
recorded vocal, bass, guitar, guitars, keyboards, more vocals, more bass,
and by now Eric I was thinking, I'm really I'm
really going to impress this guy. Now, you know, you're
at the best studio in London and one of the
newest studios in London, and we're the we're the best,

(45:19):
and I'm going to give them my best. He was
very quick in the studio here like a one take,
one take on the bass, right over to the piano,
A couple of like record bo so as quick as
he could switch instruments, and and and that. I was
changing tracks on the desk. I was doing the headphone mix.
I was whinding the tape back, ready to go into

(45:39):
record if he wanted to say, play the tape from
the second chorus onwards. I had all the numbers of
where the where the musical arrangement was so I could
wind back. But I was I was hot. I was
hot for a couple of dames. And you just forget,
you know, I'm not. I'm thinking, I don't care if
this is this could be the King of England in

(46:00):
in that you just go, I'm going to do a
good job, and I and the in between takes. Him
and Linda would sit on the sofa in the control room,
listening back to what we recorded. The two of them
would be kissing and cuddling on the sofa like a
couple of teenage love birds, singing and practicing the harmonies.
You'd be saying, look, this is this is the harmony

(46:22):
I want you to sing. And I have to say
she was good Eric. I know she got them for
a lot of criticism, par thinking, can you have a
woman who's not even a musician in the band? You
know it wings? No, she was good and what she
didn't know, she could pick it up. She had a
good she had a good musical ear, and she made
gallons of tea for us all and I just felt

(46:45):
like part of the family. And it was There's a
there's a story that follows on behind that, but I'll
leave that food for the book.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
Which we should mention the title of the book one, two,
three four The Life and Times of a recording studio
Engineer Digby Smith. The book is out and you can
get it just in time for the holidays. Makes for
a great holiday gift. Led Zeppelin. I love the quote
you said, so where do you start when writing about
your recollections with regard to being party to the privileged

(47:16):
inside the world of led Zeppelin. You worked with them
during the Zeppelin three Final mixes. You also worked with
them during the four sessions. You also talk about since
I've been loving you, the story about Robert plant One
take nails the vocals. But I do want to ask
you about Celebration Day because I'm going to now listen back,

(47:38):
and at twenty three seconds into that track, there's something
that you do there that is kind of like your
signature moment. What happens?

Speaker 2 (47:48):
Yeah, yeah, you're listening to the song, and it would
have been, you know, the first time anybody's heard it
other than Andy Jones, the engineer, and the guys in
the And so I was assisting for Andy Johns on
ZEPS three and four. But in those days, as as
you described as it might be just as a tape operator,

(48:11):
but as an assistant engineer, you know, you you'd often
find yourself, you know, hands on the desk and helping
with a mixer saint where and a couple of extra
fingers are needed, and dropping in a couple of times
when there were Jimmy Page would have done two or
three guitar takes and trying to comp the best bits
to you know, make a montage of the best of

(48:35):
the three takes to make to make one take and
based Andy. But Andy probably thought I was a bit,
a bit of an impostor, or a bit preposterous or
a bit pushy. But I could I could never keep
keep my ideas to myself. And when I heard the
intro to celebration and how the drums make their entrance.

(49:00):
We'd recently I mentioned it previously about reverse tape trying
things by turning the tape over. The one new idea
that was knocking around in mixing circles amongst some of them,
some of us more progressive engineers wanting to try new things.
As well as playing the music in reverse, you could

(49:25):
get the reverb to be in reverse. So instead of
the attack and the impact and then the diffusion of
the reverbs out, you start off with the diffused sound
and it reduces to a to a to a stop.
And the way you do that with that, again without
getting two technical is you turn the tape over, you

(49:46):
add reverb to the drums, a really nice long reverb,
and then you record that the consequence of that reverb,
just the reverb. If you've got an empty track or
two on the multi tra machine, you record the reverb
on its own on the tracks, and you turn the

(50:07):
take back over to its normal direction. And then when
you lift up the faders that you recorded the reverb on,
the reverb starts big and ends up going small. Start
off with the diffusion of the reverb and you end
up with it where the reverb began. And I suggested

(50:28):
Jimmy and to Andy that the intro would sound fantastic
if you had some reverse reverb that would suck you
into the into the drums as they come in. Jimmy
always had his hand on his chimney. He was always
always pacing around the control. I'm always thinking, always, always.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
The genius.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
You we're here, it werering away. Jimmy was thought that, yes,
that's a good idea. We had to be interested here
what that sounds. Andy was probably like, oh God, there's
this young kid, you know, just going on my job,
you know. But no Andy, Andy just stepped aside and

(51:11):
he said, you go ahead and do what you've got
to do. And again you've got to be very careful
that you don't put the wrong tracking record and be
mindful of, you know, the ergonomics and the mathematics of
turning a piece of tape upside down, because now track
one is track sixteen and track two is track fifteen,

(51:32):
because they're all the other way up now. So if
you're empty tracks of tracks one and two, make sure
you record it on track fifteen sixteen. Don't record it
on one and two. Like I did with Simon. Yeah,
so suitably cautionary. I went through the procedure and I

(51:52):
recorded the Reaper with the drums on a couple of
extra tracks. Turn the tape back over and I wound
it back press play, and Jimmy just said, Yep, love it.
I've moved away from the desk and let and Andy Andy.
I'll let Andy back in at that point. But even Andy,
to his credit, he said, that's a fantastic idea. He said,

(52:14):
it really really works.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
What a thrill for you.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
Oh it was. It was definitely a feather in the cap.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Hey, guys, we'll get back to the show, but first
I want to tell you about an exclusive deal for
Booked on Rock. Listeners get fifteen percent off any purchase
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(52:46):
glory dot com, make sure to use the promo code
Booked on Rock. Also find a link in this episode
show notes, or just go to Booked on rock dot
Com and click on my deals. You moved to Los
Angeles at the age of twenty four to work as
a freelance engineering producer Albert Lee. You worked with Robert Palmer,
you worked with and you also worked with Booker T

(53:08):
and the MG's And unfortunately we just lost Steve Cropper, yes, guitarist,
so probably a good time to ask you about him
and your experience working with the band, and do you
have any good stories Steve Cropper stories.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Not too many specific personal recollections other than it was
on a record with it was one of these lost records.
I think it was for Electra Psylum with a duet
called Packler Meredith was Jimmy Packler and Jimmy Meredith as well. Anyway,

(53:43):
the album was called Packler Meredith and the producer was
a chat from Alabama because Steve Steve Smith, famous producer,
he worked with Steve Robert Palmer stuff. Steve Smith produced
a lot of the Robert Palmer stuff and was a
very sim access or a producer. And it was engineering

(54:04):
for Steve on this Pakla Meredith on the Robert Palmer
album which we've done some months before. Steve got all
the guys from Little Feet to be the session musicians.
So there you are in a studio in Los Angeles
and I've got the little Fit rhythm section. It makes sure,

(54:25):
I'll tell you the difference it makes, Eric, when you
lift those faders up on the drums and the guitars
and when you've got proper musicians out there playing, it's
basically just put the faders up in a straight line
and hit record. You know, there's.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
Really rarefied air. Yeah, you don't get better than that.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
It was, and then with Steve asked me, he said,
I'm recording this album for Electra Pakla Meredith. I got
a good bunch of musicians lined up to play on it,
and so we turn up. I think that was at
Clover Studios in Los Angeles. I think that was always
steve a favorite place to work. It was either at
Clover or United Western. Anyway, Yeah, we turn up. Who's

(55:06):
the band? Best part of Booker T and the mgs
And again the same and again Eric and I emphasized
this to perhaps more of your younger listeners who are
probably if they're aspiring to get into the record industry
and producing and recording and things. The temptation is firstly

(55:31):
to faint when you when you turn up the studio
and there's book t in the MG a rhythm section
for the for the next two or three days, you know,
so you know, and then you flash back to all
those records you got at home when you when you
were an eighteen year old kid in Birmingham, you know,
listening to these forty five RPMs on your sister's mono

(55:53):
record player, and in the sounds that were leaping out
of those off those records. And now he while with
the with the guys in that's this is where it
came from. These these are the guys. So you have
to really take a deep breath, make sure you got
your professional head on and just go about. You know,

(56:15):
you don't want to be talking to see, Oh what
was it like working with notice ready? And he's probably
fed up of everybody asking him. Sure it's a story
about Doc of the Bay? Is that true that you mix?
You will working till five o'clock in the morning doing
the mix, and that you took it over to the
You know, I didn't want to and plus you haven't
got time. You haven't got time because there's a song

(56:37):
beem routine there's a singers there. People are sitting around
the piano and looking at chord charts and chord sheets,
and people are writing notes and scribbling things out and practicing,
you know, the basslines and what's the kind of right
guitar sound we're looking for here, a lot of experimenting,
plugging a different amp, try a different guitar. Yeah that works,

(57:00):
that works. So there's a lot.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
You're there as a professional, so you got to remind
yourself that because you're there in your head it's half fan,
half professional, going back and forth in your head.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
Yeah, and you have to put the little half fan bit.
You have to kind of put that to one.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Side, put them in a box for a little while,
a little while.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
And before you know it, like I say, it's five
o'clock in the morning, everybody's gone home, and then you
turn up the next day. First thing is tidy up
the studio, make sure the headphones are still working, get
a fresh rul of tape on. Listen, what the song
we're going to do today. You go through, so it's
only in subsequent years that you look back, which is

(57:44):
where the idea for the book came from. And I'm
telling people these stories and people. And I think my wife,
in particular, Kim, she probably got fed up for hearing
these stories. Just write them down and be done with
you and then and then we're won't have to suffer
listening to them.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
Exactly right now, I know, I know the feeling. I
always want to talk about all this stuff with people,
and sometimes some of them are really into it. Some
of them are just like, yeah, okay, you've told me
this before.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
I don't know what happens. A couple of glasses of
beer and they start coming out. So it's only in
subsequent years, in fact, many many years later, that you
look back and think, God, I was in the stereo,
I was recording Steve Cropper, and then when I splash
up on Facebook a couple of days ago, I'm just thinking,

(58:37):
I wish I could have got to know him better.
But you know, we we were doing it, we were
at work.

Speaker 1 (58:44):
Well these days, let's finish with what you're up to
these days, what you've been doing recently? You remixed two
Bad Company albums, the self titled debut, which is a classic,
and Straight Shooter, another great album. You also mix their
first official live album. You did so work on Black
Sabas Volume four Deluxe box set. You took the original
sixteen track analog tapes remixed the music. For those who

(59:07):
may up be familiar, we often hear about an album
remixed and an album remastered. What is the difference between
the two.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
When an album is remastered, invariably they'd taken hold of
the original for the most part, stereo quarter each tape
that would have had the original mixes on as mixed
by the engineer and producer and the artist at the time,
from which the original album would have been pressed, probably

(59:37):
onto vinyl, and go back to those sorts of records.
When an album is remastered, they take those original stereo
recordings the mix and reprocess it through some equalization, some
additional compression, maybe some that use some digital equipment. It's

(59:59):
revariably the be available as on CD and as an
MP three as a download for streaming and stuff. So remastering,
he's taken the original mix and just polishing it and
refining it, perps, trying to improve the fidelity, the audio
fidelity of it. When an album is remixed, you go

(01:00:22):
back to the multi tracks, you go back to the
you go back to the raw ingredients, you go back
to the kitchen with the knife and the chopping board
and all the carrots and the onions, and you remake
the cake.

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
So each individual instrument and vocal track all of that separated,
and you can now move up, move down, do whatever.
So are you there with the artist or somebody on
behalf of the artists say this is what we want.
The original recording didn't have enough of that base pedal
in it. Can you move? Can you push that up?
What's that process like?

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
It's a complete, legually different process today, a completely different world.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Eric.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
I'm here in my little home based project studio. I
got logic Pro, my keyboards, my guitars. If I get
a commission to remix an album, I'm not likely to
be playing any instruments on it's differ project.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
Sometimes they send you the stems and say you do
your thing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
They transfer it from the original multi track recordings, whether
it's a live performance or a studio performance. In verably,
if it's a studio recording of a famous song, the
record labels and the management company are always interested if
there's perhaps an alternative vocal take that wasn't used on

(01:01:47):
the final master, or if there was an alternative guitar
solo that you know, they had a choice of two
guitar solos. They went with guitar solo be the second take,
but when you listen it, guitar so ay, the first take,
it's pretty good, no mistakes. But they just chose so
you might be asked to feature alternative takes or alternatively

(01:02:13):
the brief might be no one the same guitar sellers
to make sure you find the right one, but you
basically go back to the based on the snare, the
O read to Tom's, the bass guitar, the guitars, the keyboards,
the vocals, the harmony vocals. Because it's all recorded on
separate tracks on the multi track, invariably sixteen track, most
of those.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
Is Paul Rodgers and Simon or they do they have
input on what they want? Does you know Tony Naomi
with the Sabbath Boxer, do they have say in what
you are going to end up doing with these mixes?

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
No, because unlike the sessions I've described, We've talked about
being in the studio with Steve Gopper being in the studio,
with for McCartney being in the studio with Stephen Steele's
being there while the music's being created, recorded, and the
ideas are springing up as and when and they're captured there.
Then these is stuff that's already been recorded, and I'm
here on my own with just the stems, and I

(01:03:12):
do the mix. I'll do a mix of one side
of the album, and I send it invariably to the
management company. They'll listen to it for a couple of days,
they'll play it to the artists, the surviving band members,
if they're already still alive, they'll play it to the
surviving artists. Then they'll come back to me with a

(01:03:33):
list of stuff, little fine finer. You know, I've been
doing this so long now, Eric, I know how to
make it. I know how to make it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
I was about to say, they have their faith in you.
They know you're going to do the job that they're
not concerned about that. But at the same time they
also can say, oh, yeah, I really like that. Can
you change that? So yeah, that makes sense the.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Kind of things they'd want to change. It's it's all
micro tuning. It's all it gets. The the only downside
of today's modern recording technology, which I have to say
i'm a huge fan of. I love having I love
having the stems. I love being able to see what
I'm hearing as well as it. Back in the day
you couldn't have to just hear it. And guess you know.

(01:04:15):
I love the accuracy. I love the non destructive editing.
I'm never going to erase Simon's drums again, am I? Right?

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
Right? Well, that's the thing. There are pluses to modern technology.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
And the downside of it is, yeah, people can get
too forensic two microscopically detailed, whereas back in the day, Yeah,
the vocal kind of got a bit loud just on
those couple of words there, but hey, that's how he
performed it. You try to kind of catch it on

(01:04:47):
the mix and so it doesn't jump out. But you know,
you don't always catch everything, you know, and there's little
clicks and bumps and things.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Right, you want that captures the human element. You don't
want to mess with.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
That im And so the downside is that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
Some and.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
They should remain nameless to protect to protect the guilty.
Some management companies and artists will get back to you
with what you can only define as been microscopic alterations
like it rarely is it something really definitive. It might

(01:05:27):
be that the tambourines a bit too loud, or could
you just take a little bit of reverb off the
lead vocal, or oh there's a click at one minute thirteen.
So you listen to the tape and you go one
thirteen and I can, I can get it to go
on repeat, back and forth from one tent to one fifteen,

(01:05:51):
and I'm listening for this click, and you're thinking, where
the hell is Right when you've listened to it about
the fiftieth time, you realize it's the guitar. It's just
kind of it's just hit. You know, it's just a
click that's come off the guitar pick or something. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
Hey, guys, thanks so much for checking out the Booked
on Rock podcast. If you've just found the podcast, welcome.
If you've been listening, thank you so much for your support.
And make sure you tell a friend, a family member,
share on social media and let people know about Booked
on Rock, And if you do like the podcast, make
sure you subscribe give a five star review. Wherever you
listen to the Booked on Rock podcast, run Amazon, Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Spreaker,

(01:06:37):
tune in, and on YouTube music. You can check out
the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel Find it
at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
to the show. As a van Halen fan, I want
to know, I'm gonna ask you a question, just being
as a selfish fan Healin fan here, there's one album

(01:06:59):
that all fans all we talk about from nineteen eighty eight,
Oh You Eate one two. It's it's one of my favorites.
But all of the fans, I mean, I don't know
of any fan who hasn't said there's no bass in it.
They need to remix it. Well. Alex van Hillen remastered
it recently, but we would love to have him go
in there and get the stems and pull the bass up,

(01:07:20):
pull the make it bigger, be fiery. Why won't an
artist do it?

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
When you're remastering, you're taking the original if the bass
guitar wasn't loud enough in the mix, which see in
the general consensus, If you then go into the original
mix and you try it and you remaster it, you've
got some very sophisticated eq you can use these days

(01:07:48):
where you might be able to get in there and
find out what are the frequencies that the bass guitar
is kicking around, and you might be able to pull
them out a little bit and bring them to the
bring them to the foe a little bit. But it's
inevitable that the parts of the bass drum are going
to also have that same sonic quality. They are also

(01:08:08):
going to be down there in the same sort of
frequency department. So variably, if you try and pull that
bass guitar a bit louder in the in the mix,
when you remaster it, you're probably going to be lifting
the bass drum as well.

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
So it's affecting other aspects, other parts of the song.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Down there in the same frequency range. I know it's
easy or not easy, but there is there is software
where you can actually separate the vocal from the from
the rest of the track. And it may well be
I haven't come across it yet, but it may well
be software that little the AI within the software will

(01:08:48):
recognize the bass guitar and maybe it could be done
that way. The best way of doing it would be
to go back to the original multi.

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
Tracks right well, the master it sounds better. It's just
that we know that if they remixed it and took
all of the individual parts and really just maybe pulled
up that piece. Our thought is it's going to sound better.

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
What they should do, Eric, is that they should get
the original multi tracks, transfer them over digitally, send me
the stems.

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
Alex, are you listening?

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
Jobs? Are good?

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
Digby is ready.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
Ready at any time?

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Yeah? So what are you up to these days? I
read and I think it was on your website. Still
working as a freelance engineer. You facilitate music courses for
young musicians and sound engineers. Are you still doing that?

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Not doing quite so much of that at the moment,
but for a couple of years when we first moved
down here to the southwest of England and we moved
down to Devon, I got involved with one of the
local music colleges and did a lot of work with
some of the young musicians and introducing them to recording tech,
knowology of the days. Did that for a couple of years.
Occasionally get called back to do that, and I'm always

(01:10:05):
impressed with the young guys and girls. You know, when
I was growing up, I had maybe fifteen twenty years
worth of musical history to draw back on. These guys
and girls today they've got, like I don't know, they've
got the best part of a hundred years worth of
music and certainly certainly fifty sixty years of what we

(01:10:29):
call rock and roll to go back. And I'm always
impressed with the young guys and girls their knowledge of music.
They're always more interested in the fact that I worked
with bands like led Zepp and obviously Bob Marley and
that than they are with any modern bands I've ever
worked with. You know, they want to know all about

(01:10:50):
they want to know about the roots stuff. You know.
It's so there's a lot of enthusiasm out there, and
I wish I hope the industry doesn't implode on it
self and and the people who are behind the money
supply in the music business. And I won't name names

(01:11:10):
because we'll get into trouble, but streaming platforms specifically, that
could make it so that for young people wanting to
get into music, write song, to perform and record, that
they can make it financially worth their while so they
don't have to sell, they don't have to have a
million streams just to inform a bucks, you know what
I mean. It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
That's one of the big problems the other one is AI.
What are your thoughts on AI?

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
AI, like all computers, Eric, when the fight? Can I
go back far enough?

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
I can remember when the first cassette machines came along,
you know, all the purists and the recordings, and that's
the end, guys, that's the end. People will just be
copying music from cassette to cassette. And then when the
first drum machines come and that's the end of drummers.
You won't have anybody playing drums anymore. It's that you
can do it all on a machine. For years, that

(01:12:02):
was the end of That was the death of the drama.
Didn't happen. First synthesizers came along, and then with MIDI
and sequencing, that's the end of keyboard players didn't happen.
So yeah, we just got to be mindful of it
and make sure that we focus on what will be
the undoubted benefits that will come from AI. But we've

(01:12:25):
got to legislate and be mindful of the wrong wrongdoing
that it's capable of. And as with all technology, technology
throughout the history of mankind. You know, the wheel was
a curse when it was invented, you know, so let's
just keep on top of it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):
Find the Bookdown Rock website at bookdown Rock, Dark carm.
There you can find all the back episodes of the show.
I had this episode in video and audio links to
all of the platforms where you can listen to the podcast.
Plus all the social media platforms were on Blue, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
and x. Also check out the booked on Rock blog.
Find your local independent bookstore. Find out all the latest

(01:13:09):
hot rockbook releases. And before you go, check out the
booked on Rock online store. Pick up some booked on
Rock merch. It's all at booked on Rock dot com.
Digbie Smith one, two, three four The Life and Times
of a Recording studio Engineer. People can get it on hardcover, paperback,
audiobook Kindle so they could go to Amazon dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
Also, Bonds and Noble is another good site.

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):
Okay, and people can find out more about you through
your website. What's the website.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
TQ one Music, Tango, quebec one Music, capitalm dot com, Digbi.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
This was so great, Thank you so much. I want
to thank Also we want to thank Chris Sutton, who
is the author of a great book on sparks and
that's for Sonic Bond Publishing and he set this in
to view up. So thanks to Chris, and thank you
sir for doing this and imparting your wisdom onto us
music fans.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
You're too kind. Thank you, my pleasure, Arry.

Speaker 1 (01:14:18):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
It's in the books.

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