Pinna Studios

Oumou Sangaré "Seya": Grammy Nominated.

2009-12-08T17:40:00.001Z

The other day I got a rather pleasing email from Nick Gold or World Circuit Records, telling me that the latest Oumou Sangare "Seya" has been nominated for a Grammy Award under the field of "Best Contemporary World Music Album". I was fortunately to have Mixed the album along with Jerry Boys as well as some arrangements, Dubs and recording for the album. So I can now call myself a Grammy Nominated engineer. Unfortunately you can't eat Grammys or use them to pay the bills (The Grammy always own the actual trophy) and you especially can't eat Grammy nominations, like I couldn't eat the Mercury nomination (didn't stop me trying), but it's nice to know someone notices your work.

You can read more about the Nomination and the album on the Nonesuch website here. Buy it. It's a great album.

Oumou Sangaré - Seya

Wiglaf Piece Of Fruit/Given Single Launch 28th Nov

2009-11-30T22:23:00.001Z

The first release is here. On CD and soon to be out on the Internet. Keep your eyes peeled. We got it all ready to co inside with the finale of the Liverpool Folk and Roots Festival at St Brides Church, Liverpool. It was the first proper gig that John and I had done together and the first time that our Cellist, Sophia, had heard the songs (well done Sophia. Sterling work). When I say proper gig I mean more than just a few men ad a dog and people actually payed to get in. Packed it was and very cold, but that didn't do anything to dampen our spirits. We played first to get everyone warmed up (so to speak) and were followed by, Liz Green, The Random Family Band (our kind Hosts) and to finish, Denis Jones. An amazing night and a great end to a week of great music.

So the single is out for sale on CD now, contact us for a copy, and it will also be available for download from 8th December (RIP John Lennon). That's all for now, but here's the beautiful Piece of Fruit/Given Single artwork by Alex. Take care

Music industry: stop whingeing

2009-11-25T02:10:00.001Z

Recently my cousin Patrick (@patrickjpr for tweeters) introduced me to a friend/colleague of his Dean Bubley. After being introduced and being told what I do for a living (making records) he soon laid into me (in the nicest way and quite welcome) about the music industry and how it should stop whinging. I wish I had recorded the conversation as it was a far better argument than his blog here but have a read and you get the general idea. The following essay (sorry guys but this is the abridged version) is my reply to his blog after careful consideration.

I might just add that I have not had a response from Dean after this. Does this mean I have converted him? Thoughts please.

All Hail The Internet.

The Internet, iTunes and social networking are of great benefit to the music industry. Large record companies are trying to maintain "business paradigms", but this shouldn't be confused with upholding current law.

I do not wish to over regulate or censor. The Internet should govern itself to a large degree. However, only up and until it infringes on the current law. Change the subject to pedophilia and there is no question about regulation. The law currently governs both.

Progression not Regression.

From your blog I assume you agree The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 is valid. So what is the problem with upholding it, whether or not you are directly affected by it?

The music industry is the ringleader, loud and arguably over dramatic, but does that invalidate the argument? Does being the first to shout, mean being the only one? If they were, would we be having this debate? This problem affects intellectual copyrights.

Should all creatives accept this as inevitable? Should Hawking have to give away 'A Brief History Of Time' to make money from teaching? Or Trevor Baylis his windup radio patent?

Ignorance Is No Excuse For Crime.

People find it difficult to compare physical and intellectual property due to intangibility (I mean songs not CDs, stories not books). It’s argued copying doesn’t deprive anyone of the intellectual property, but that does deprive potential revenue. If we replace an album with a house the issue is a viewed differently. The sums of money involved can be equated.

A housing developer buys land, employs architects, builders, an estate agent, and creates show-homes (free content). They manage to sell one; the others have been taken over by perfectly wealthy people because;

“We want to live there but it wouldn't be possible to buy all the houses we want to live in. We'll buy the next one. Think of it as marketing. Well tell our friends to buy from you. You make money from lecturing about town planning anyway".

- Joe Public BA (hons)

Why is that not right even though shelter is a greater necessity than the luxury of owning music. I'm sure the homeless would prefer a free home. The law notices the similarities, so why, does the Internet, change that? Can I steal your home over the Internet, just because I wanted it but don’t want to pay for it?

It’s Not What You Know.

You say the music industry is making a disproportionately loud noise in relation to the importance of music (debatable, "without music, life would be a mistake" - Nietzsche). Is it disproportionate to the importance of intellectual property however? Music has a unique relationship with all humans, but what is the problem with using this for the greater good? is the argument less valid? I can only attribute a wish that one's own industry had a similar appeal.

Bob Geldof has proven this usefulness but it isn't a music industry phenomenon. Thomas Clarkson used his contacts with William Wilberforce to abolish slavery. Geldof or Sharkey's work is not to be regarded as highly as Clarkson and Wilberforce's, but Sharkey doesn’t wish to abolish the Internet, just enforce current law. Racial or sexual exploitation is as abhorrent whether on the Internet or in a shop.

The Starry Lights.

"I cannot believe that anyone entering the music industry in the last 10 years has done so expecting to make $$$ from record sales. All the musicians I know are well-aware of the score."

You know some particularly well-informed musicians then. I'm a record producer and work with lots of musicians. Most believe they are destined to earn millions and that because I’m in music I must be super wealthy. They confuse the glitter with shiny coins. When they find out the harsh reality they are surprised at what they can actually earned... if they get paid at all.

This problem has been around since the music industry began, but is unrelated to copyright infringement. Most of these musicians probably download illegally but that shouldn't justify the act. If a victim of racism reciprocated, they would be just as guilty as their attacker. Should both accept the prejudice and, as you say, 'stop whingeing'?

The rise in musical instrument sales is also another erroneous issue adding to the confusion. One of market competition and reduced manufacture and distribution costs. Another blog perhaps.

Giveaway or Takeaway?

The music industry is not interested in a pseudo-communist market where only certain people can sell music and at a set price. No one denies that freebies and some illegal copying are great marketing tools. Metallica owe some of their success to bootleg tapes. It's been happening it since the industry began in newspapers and on Corn Flake packets. Mr Sharkey himself gave a free copy of his music to a certain Mr Peel. Lily Allen gave out music on Myspace, but this shouldn’t mean all music should be free.

File sharing adds a new problem. It can be done on scale far greater than pirate radio, bootleg tapes or CD combined… with absolutely no degradation of quality.

Surely the price of a work should be the decision of the owner, digital or not. Whether people pay that price is a different matter determined by demand on a free market. Recorded music may, due to variety of entertainment forms, be reduced to the gig-marketing budget, but let a free market decide, not a black market.

A Question of Responsibility.

Consumers have some responsibility, but individual persecutions would be like herding cats (sharers on a large scale should be prosecuted though). The creative industries have a responsibility to educate the public about the problems but the onus should be placed on those allowing and profiting from the popularity of P2P: The P2P/ service providers.

We shouldn’t restrict them; it's a great service that should be encouraged, but nor should allow them to deny responsibility the part they play. Why should they profit from content while the creators don't?

You might say it’s huge undertaking to track all illegal downloads but the MCPS, PRS, PPL and BPI have been doing this for years. The problem isn't manpower,; it’s the lack of authority to claim what is legally theirs. Radio stations are responsible for a DJ playing a song, both profiting from selling advertising aimed at the listeners of those songs. What’s the difference?

Radio listeners don't even own the final product. Regulation hasn't reduced radio stations, or the quality and variety of content. There are more radio stations with more content than when the BBC was allowed to tax the purchase of radio equipment.

Music free to the consumer, regulation of broadcast and distribution, free markets and ‘freebies aren’t new concepts. The only thing new here is the technology, yet that is still only the broadcast of electromagnetic waves.

The Wrong Conclusion From The Right Results.

The issues and consequences surrounding copyright infringement have been muddled up with market competition, censorship and paradigm maintenance. The web is here to stay and is only getting bigger. We should embrace the change, but not to the detriment of our values, ethics and laws. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".

We need to uphold our rights and responsibilities that have taken hundreds of years to refine. Let’s not stop now. Rather than waste time and energy telling the industry to turn it down, help focus the real issue. Encourage good moral grounding. Maybe it will affect you someday… maybe it won't. Slavery didn't adversely affect the people who abolished it though.

Anyway, maybe it will sift out some of the shit that is swamping the markets (wink). God forbid 'shit' be determined by anything other than popularity... or lack thereof.

People power

2009-10-22T00:49:00.001+01:00

A bit off topic today, but I wanted to bring this to the attention of those who didn't know and those who snub social networks as gimmicks.

My faith in humanity has been restored a little after the two real world situations that Twitter users affected last week. I'm not going to go over what happened as it's now been told a million times but you can find out about the Trafigura incident here and the Jan Moir talking shite incident here.

Has Twitter finally found it's niche as a open forum to express opinions en masse? The Trafigura story broke and was finished with in a matter of hours. In the old days there would have been a petition and maybe a demonstration or the like, which would have taken days, weeks or even months to organise and execute. Now the same effect can be achieved within a day. Love it.

I also love the fact that people with power seem to take the internet seriously, and in some cases are even intimidated by it. Not exactly why that is yet, but it could be because the net is such an open playing field. Once a dirty secret is laid out in a secluded corner of the net it can spread within hours to be a global talking point and those involved are often forced to respond. This is a powerful tool, and unbelievably it's still in it's infancy. It's inspiring and scary all at the same time.

In other news, I somehow was talked into running the live sound for an awards show at Alexandra Palace. It was for inventors and whilst I had no idea what most of the things did, the Korean guy who won invention of the year had a pretty amazing product. It's a synthetic bonelike material that can be used to hold breaks together. The idea being that if you break your arm you can be out of hospital in a couple of hours and have no need for a plaster cast. That's got to be worth an award at least!

See you soon,

Kev.

New Day Rising

2009-10-10T12:10:00.001+01:00

It's quite possible to create a good recording anywhere with the equipment available these days but the one point that people seem to miss out is that you have to have the experience to be able to get the most out of it. For example - Waves have just released a series of 'Signature' plug-ins from such luminaries as Tony Maserati and Eddie Kramer. You can have a look at them here. Now what each these units actually are is a group of various plug-ins (compression, eq, stereo imaging, FX, etc) controlled by one GUI. Each of these units settings have been designed by the aforementioned 'Signature' artist, the idea being that you can now EQ your kick drum in the same way Eddie Kramer would.

I haven't tried these plug-ins yet and am actually looking forward to seeing what they do, but I do do have one huge problem with them - the way they are being marketed! I'm sure they sound great and do a good job, but they will not sound great on everything. On some things they will be bang on and exactly what you're looking for, and on other things they may be not so great or even make things worse. There's nothing wrong with that, as the same can be said for almost every bit of kit out there, from Neve to Behringer. Ok maybe not Behringer but you get my point.

Waves have chosen to market this as if it's the same thing as having Eddie Kramer come round to your house and mix it for you, and I think that's incredibly misleading. Most professionals and knowledgeable amateurs will know the score and if they choose to purchase, they will do for the right reasons - because they like what they do. However I think there will be a lot of people without the experience buying these thinking they will be the magic wand they've been looking for. If you put to much bass on something it doesn't matter that Eddie Kramer or Tony Maserati designed the plug-in, it'll still be too bassy! The same goes for too much compression, over (or under) use of effects, bad stereo imaging - the list goes on.

The greatest example of this technological quicksand is what i call 'The Beatles Fallacy'. Ever since the advent of the Tascam Portastudio, salesman and the misguided have been keen to point out that the home recording set up du jour is technically better than what The Beatles had available to them. I couldn't agree more.

But!!!!!

A) You're not The Beatles.
B) You're not in Abbey Road.
C) You don't have George Martin around.
D) You don't have have some of the most inventive engineers of their time helping out.

I could go on.

There was a interview I read once that I swear was with Brian May though my memery of it is a little cloudy. Anyway, whoever it was supported Jimi Hendrix one night, and for one reason or another ended up using Jimi's guitar rig. They said that all it just continously produced feed back and a sounded bloody awful, yet when Jimi got up and played through exactly the same set up it sounded like Jimi Hendrix! The point being that having the same kit doesn't somehow allow you to absorb someone elses talent or instincts.

So in conclusion, be careful - don't believe the hype! Buy something because you've tried it and you like what it can do, not what you hope it can do!!!

Kev.

Brave New World?

2009-09-29T22:17:00.000+01:00

How are we all? Everyone ok? Good.

I'm the proud owner of an iPhone which has become an intrinsic part of my life in the last few months. Indeed, I'm actually writing this blog on it! Amazing bits of kit. A couple of weeks ago I downloaded the Spotify app for the iPhone and also signed up for a premium account with them. I'm sure you all know about Spotify and if you don't then you should.

Anyways, the app only works if you have a premium account, which costs about £10 a month, and as I'm the adventurous type I thought I'd give it a go. The main feature for me is it's ability to cache up to about 3000 songs for a month, meaning that you can have your playlists available off line if you need it (on the underground, on a plane, up a mountain, etc, etc). For me that is definitely worth £10 a month and more importantly Spotify itself may offer a glimpse of the music industries future. Sure it's not perfect and I know there's some controversy about artist payments but as a starting point it is definitely worth taking seriously.

The thing about it that compelled me to write this blog is the customer review section for the app on iTunes. There are plenty of people singing it's praises but there seems to be just as many who are complaining about the 'rip off' pricing of Spotifys premium account without which the app will not work. The ferocity and venom that some of these reviews have really shocked me.

It seems to be indicating that there are a lot of people out there who believe that they deserve this service for free. Not would like it for free, but rather expect it for free. Are these people a minority? Has the the wonderful inclusive and liberal nature of Web 2.0 backfired and created a mindset where music as a commodity is worth less than ever?

I know this cultural battle is far from over but I do belive that sides are becoming more clear cut than before. I understand the pirate reasoning for doing what they do, but I do not condone it. On the flip side to that I think the mainstream industry has been desperately hanging onto the past when they should be the innovators. Maybe it's too late to turn this round or maybe it's just a cultural shift that will balance out in the end. I don't know what the outcome will be or most importantly what this means for the musicians who are valiantly sending their work into the ether in the hope of some reward, but I do know that when the smoke clears it will definitely be a very different world.

Keep on keeping on.

2009-09-17T19:00:00.000+01:00

Hello world,

How are we today?
I've been trucking away in the studio with quite a selection of jobs this last week and a bit. We've had in Darling Bones, Nimmo And The Gauntlets, Jessica Grace and Alex Vald (a.k.a. Lextrical). I've also been getting the scissors out for a radio edit of Wild Palms forthcoming single. The engineering legend that is Tom Morris took the reins for a quick and dirty session with the band Deep Shit (yes that's really their name), and Pinna is currently accomodating producer/engineering team Weller Hill tracking drums for a band whose name I don't know.
Add to that a couple of voice over sessions and a bit of avant garde electronic noise sculpture for Dan Wilsons latest film project and there you have it.
Currently I'm enjoying a couple of rare days off, but no rest for the wicked as you can expect to see a new Pinna website very very soon. How exciting!
Also today I made a stand for common decency. Some 'youngsters' on the bus sitting behind me kept playing bad hip hop from their phone as loud as they could. So annoying. So I played Frank Sinatra on my phone as loud as I could. They stopped their music and I won a small, petty victory. Still tasted sweet though.

Till next time,

Kev.

From the pen of
Kevin James Feazey.

How to get your sound

2009-06-30T11:58:00.002+01:00

Hello one and all. Sorry for being a bit late with this, I am trying!

This week I’d like to talk a little about a subject that is often overlooked and ignored by musicians (and often engineers) in the recording process and leads to a lot of wasted time in the mix and worse, a lot of unnecessary compromises. I’m referring to the art of knowing what you sound like. Before any session I talk to the band I’ll be working with and discuss what direction and overall sound they want to aim for. Invariably they will have a strong, definite vision of who they would like to sound like, but when they actually start loading the kit in it becomes obvious that they have no idea how to achieve that goal. The guitarist will want to sound like Hetfield but will only have a Strat and a Fender Princeton amp, and the keyboard player will want to sound like he’s playing a Steinway with a £30 Casio.

I believe that a lot of this comes from a lack of understanding of what The Studio is for. Yes, most studios will have an array of preamps, equalisers, compressors and the like with which you can beat your particular sound waves until they submit to your will, but wouldn’t it be better to use said tools to enhance your sound rather than mangle it into something it didn’t want to be? I’m starting the movement now - getting your sound at source is the new black!!!

For now I’m just going to be talking about electric instruments, as I think setting up acoustic instruments for your individual needs is something to be talked about separately another day.

The problem that I see most is when a musician wants a sound he’s heard produced by a hugely expensive pro rig. Invariably the penniless musician will only have the instruments and amps that he can afford, and usually these are nothing like what is required to get the aforementioned ‘expensive’ sound. What I propose is that you (the musician) should give in to fate, accept the equipment you have and it’s limitations and use it to your advantage. Sure you may never sound like The Edge or Jack White, but you will hopefully start to carve out something that sounds like you and nobody else!

The most important thing here is to not get frustrated. Frustration will lead to gear lust which will lead to spending money on kit you can’t afford, debts, jobs delivering pizza, and broken marriages, all to chase a sound that belongs to someone else. What you need to do is to sit down with the equipment you have and learn how to use it! I cannot stress this enough. Learn the sounds that your rig is capable of.
Guitarists - go through each pick up setting on your guitar. Roll the tone pot back and then up again. Roll the volume pot back and then up again. Try different combinations and take note what effect each change of setting has. Set the equaliser on your amp to zero and listen to what each knob does as you turn it up. Then try different combinations of eq, more bass less treble, more treble less bass. Crank the gain up, see how distorted a signal you can get from the amp. Is there a sweet spot for the gain? Listen loud, and (very important) listen quietly. What sounds good loud might sounds terrible quiet and vice versa.
You are now learning what your rig can do, what it is capable of. Forget what anyone else sounds like; just keep experimenting until you get something that you like. Certain combinations of settings will sound better to you than others and this will be the beginnings of your very own sound produced by your very own rig.
Keyboard players – learn what every setting on your keyboard does. Read the damn manual!!! Synthesisers often have hundreds of settings and you are going to have to learn them all. Sorry. What do the filters do? What do the oscillators do? Can you set the portamento rate? Can you assign settings to the mod wheel? Can you turn effects on and off quickly? If you are using a sampling keyboard do you know how assign and edit new samples? Most will have a display with menu functions, so learn what is buried within each sub menu of this. What does the sine wave sound like? The square wave? The sawtooth?

So now you should have a pretty good idea of what you can do with your rig, and what you sound like playing through it. Hopefully you will also have found a unique combination of settings that you feel good about. This, my friend, is what you sound like!
And as you now have an expert knowledge of what each component of your equipment does tweaking it should be a breeze. Does your guitar amp sound a bit dull in a particular room? You should know whether it’s the treble or the presence knob that needs turning up right? Are your synths oscillators slightly out of tune with the track? That’s ok because you know how to alter the tuning right?

All of this hard work will make your life so much easier both in the studio and live. You will be able to adapt your unique sound quickly and easily to fit in with other instruments and to be heard in a mix without having to be kicked through with a steel toe capped boot. And now all of the dark arts of the studio can be used to make you sound as good as you possibly can. No longer will microphones be placed with damage limitation in mind, they will now capture every facet of your dynamic performance! Equalisers will be used to sweeten rather than chop huge chunks of offending frequencies out. And compressors will help you to bounce along in the mix instead of keeping you in your place with a sledge hammer. Happy days and good times for all!

Kev.

BLESSAY 02: Mastering

2009-06-19T11:06:00.001+01:00

After a long pause in proceedings, due to the fact that everyone seems to want to make records during a credit crunch, I'm back to writing my blessays and with popular demand this one is about Audio Mastering. It would appear to be the part of the process of making a record, that everyone knows of it's importance and yet don't know what actually goes on in the 'mastering suite'. Now as mastering techniques vary from engineer to engineer and between genres of music, I won't go into what a mastering engineer does specifically, but what you would expect to be done in mastering and what you should be listening out for.

1. The Definition.

Basically Mastering is making your collection of songs into an album. It's more than likely that, on their own each of your mixes sounds pretty good, but you'll notice that when you put them together on a CD and listen in the car or at home, you'll notice one sounds a bit dull in comparison to the next and you have to turn the volume up for some of them, or the whole thing is just a little quiet compared to the CD you had on before hand.

Mastering is the process used to make each song roll into the next, EQing where necessary, making the tracks the same loudness (perceptual volume rather than actual volume) and making sure the gaps between the songs gives you the right movement. The treatment you give each track will vary depending on running order. It's the audio equivalent to cutting the edges of your photos so that they fit in the photo book properly and organising them so that you're not jumping from wedding to christening to the photos your mum really shouldn’t have seen.

2. As Much Or As Little As You Like... Or Can Afford.

The Mastering process can start at various places in the album making timeline, but it all depends on money. The more you give your mastering engineer to do the more expensive it gets, but it may well help you to see the bigger picture if you start piecing things together early on. Test mastering allows you to see everything put together and processed as a master so that you can see what you need to change and at the same time see what you thought you needed to change but actually don't. Whenever you start to master, there are a few things that you can expect your mastering engineer to do... and some you can't.

3. Getting The Right Source.

It's important to give the mastering engineer the right material. This all depends on your mastering engineer so talk to them about it. For example, if you're mixing in the box at 96kHz 24bit, your mastering engineer may prefer to have the mixes at full quality and for them to sample rate convert and truncate. On the other hand they may just want 44.1kHz 24bit files from you. If you've recorded to analogue tape, they may be best set up to be able to digitise the tapes via analogue outboard gear and expensive high quality converters.

You may, due to cost, have to digitse them yourself. In this case take advice from your mix or mastering engineer, but the fewer the number of times that your material is converted from analogue to digital and back, the better. Also if you can get around not sample rate converting then your music will sound better too. Analogue tape is the best option in my opinion.

4. Editing

Depending on how you mix and how decisive you are, you may wish to do some editing in mastering. When mixing to tape you may put down a couple of versions per mix to see which you prefer in the real world (e.g. with or without backing vocals). You can then edit between these two mixes. You may need a few bars taking out to make the song move along quicker or make a ‘single’ edit, but you don't want to, or can’t, go back and recall the mix. All this can easily be done in mastering.

If you digitise the tapes yourself, or you're mixing to a digital format, you may wish to edit the takes together yourself. This will save you money, but depending on the takes/mixes you're editing together, they may need to process the mixes differently, which might be more smoothly done in mastering. Also your mastering engineer might be able to add a fresh opinion to mixes and advice on some edits that you can't quite decide on, allowing you to step back and be more objective.

5. Running Order

This is probably one of the most important things when compiling your album.. There are no rules for this really. It's all personal preference and how you perceive your music and album to be. The idea is to take the listener on a journey, not just a random fleet round the houses. In the similar way that an artiste will organise their artwork round the room so as you progress, you are taken seamlessly from idea to idea. You should take your time over this and make sure you're happy with it. The way an album moves can really affect whether someone listens to the whole thing or just picks a couple of tracks to slot into their shuffle playlist.

6. Mind The Gaps

Gaps are very important. Don't underestimate them. They make everything flow together properly. Like the old musician's saying "it's not the notes that you play, it's the notes you don't play". If your gaps are too short it can make the album seem relentless and tiring on the ears. If they are too long then you can loose the all important "suspension of disbelief" and so people don't get lost in the record. The length of gaps all depends on the running order as well, whether you want to keep things up and pumping or slow things down and relax your listener more.

7. EQ and Level

This is running order dependent. The idea is to bring the best out of each track and make sure that each sounds great ,but also to make sure that each feels right following the track before. You may have a really bright track which needs to be nice and bright to make it feel right, but then the track after it might be duller. On it's own it feels the duller track feels bright enough, but after a bright track it might need to be brightened to balance it out. It may not. You ears may be glad of the rest from all the top end. Listen and see how you feel.

The level of the track is very much the same idea. You don't want to have a track that comes in too loud after a nice quiet track. You may need to change the level of different sections of a track to make it feel right after processing. For example the intro of the following track might feel a little quiet after a loud track, but the main body of the song is loud enough, so raising the level of the intro will make everything balance a little more.

9. Compression

Now this one is the Holy Grail, the thing that everyone asks me about, when talking about mastering. Many people seem to think that Mastering compression is more magic than mix compression. I hate to say... it's pretty much the same. It doesn't make you play more in time or sound like Hendrix. It is very important however, and can be so easily over done. At first the extra compression can feel nice, but if you compare the old mixes and listen to the record as a whole, it may become tiring. You obviously want you record to sound loud and compete with other records, but don't kill the dynamics of your album and all that hard work you put into playing in the first place.

Radio's will compress the hell out of it anyway so don't worry about that, and people are always going to turn it up or down as they please. Too much compression at a low level can still feel tiring. It can make you feel like your ears are compressing naturally (read more here) even when they aren't.

10. All in All.

Make sure you work with someone that has been recommended or you know their work and make sure to compare what they've done to the material that you started with. Like mixing you may not get it right first time so don't be concerned about going back and making tweaks (if you can afford). Make sure you take just as much care over this as any other part of the recording process and have fun in the process. Good mastering really can make you hear a record like you're not the one who's made it... and so it feels much better. Believe me. It helps.

Sonny

Getting it together

2009-06-18T11:56:00.001+01:00

Hello world!

Haven't been on here for a while,which is mainly due to my inability to organise my life properly. But all that is in the past now, and I have a new system worked out that will help me to blog more regularly. I call it a 'Calendar'. That's right folks i've invented the 'Calendar'. Once i've ironed out the bugs I might let other people have a go on it.

So from now on you should expect to see a new blog every week on either Wednesday or Thursday. If I slack off please feel free to shout at me. I highly reccommend subscribing via the RSS feed so that you don't miss out on my spectacular ramblings. And if you want to follow me on Twitter you can do so here. And there's more!!! Have you often said to yourself, "I wish I could actually see what Kev gets up to, ideally in 12 second bursts"? Well fret no more! Get your self over to my 12seconds channel and your wish will be granted! For those of you who don't know what 12seconds is, just go there and have a look as it sounds really dumb when you try to describe it.

So that's enough self promotion for now I think.

In other news i've been working with Lydia Lunch again. Her new band is now officially called Big Sexy Noise and you can get hold of the first e.p. here. It's only available on vinyl but i'm guessing when the full album is released there will be other formats. I'll let you know when it's all done and dusted, we're mixing it in July so should be out fairly soon after one would hope.

Polar Bear have been back in to finish of the new album sessions. You should check out my amigo Sonny's blog for more on that as it was his gig and I was just helping out. Bloody good stuff though, it was a joy to listen to. Not sure when it's going to be out, but keep you eyes open people!

Talking of which we managed to catch Acoustic Ladyland (whos share two members with Polar Bear) live at the Southbank centre last Sunday. They too have a album coming out and from the new songs I heard in the live set I would say that it will be well worth taking a punt on it!

And on that note, good bye!

What A Week: 08.06.09

2009-06-14T02:02:00.001+01:00

What a week this has been. I must have been on about 5 sessions and all of them great fun.

Firstly started the week of with Outhouse, finishing off the mixes for the Outhouse Ruhabi album that Dave Smith & Robin Finker have been putting together. Then on the same day a mad dash over to the World Circuit offices to see Tony Allen as it was the release of the album, Secret Agent.

Then recording with Polar Bear, finishing off the next album. Seb brought in a load of mics that he'd been buying off eBay, one of which was this RCA commentator's mic which we stuck up in the room on top of one of the acoustic screens and it sounded awesome. The downside being, that I completely forgot to record the thing for most of the tracks so it's only on two of them. Seb being the gentleman that he is, was very nice about it however (thanks Seb).

Then I've been mixing the Zascha Moktan album with Tommy D at his place, now he's got his lovely new Matrix console (there'a an interview with him in Resolution Mag last month I think) which was good fun as usual. Good food, good wine, good company and some being silly with his two daughters to make it all the easier... And from the sublime to the ridiculous (ridiculously good) after mixing Pop in the morning, I got to PINNA about 4pm Thursday to start a session with Seb Rochford, Pamelia Kursten and multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, to record some random jamming. Awesome. I bought myself an SLR camera the same day which I christened on this session so you can have a look at some of the pics on my flickr stream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sonnyengineer/

To finish the week off, Tony Allen was Launching Ornette Coleman's Meltdown Festival at the Southbank Centre on the Friday, as well as launching the new album, which is getting rave reviews. The gig was blinding. To say the man is in his mid 60's he can play better than anyone. Still amazes me. So all in all not a bad week really. To see us out, Kev and I will be having a spot of luncheon down by the Southbank before engaging in some light entertainment of the Acoustic Ladyland variety. Splendid.

Here's a bit of what I've been up to:

Tony Allen Remix Competition: ALBUM OUT TODAY 08.06.09

2009-06-08T23:40:00.001+01:00

The new Tony Allen record that I mixed for World Circuit is out today on CD and Download and keep your eyes peeled for the 12inch vinyl version, with the possible inclusion of Dubs from the Master, Dennis Bovell. There's an album Launch party in line with the launch of Ornette Coleman's Meltdown Festival this Friday 12th June 2009

http://meltdown.southbankcentre.co.uk/2009/meltdown-launch-party-with-tony-allen/

Also check out the remix contest that they are holding. You could win something pretty tasty. Enjoy.

http://tonyallenremixcontest.blogspot.com/

Sonnyengineer.com

BLESSAY 01: It's The Little Things...

2009-02-21T13:38:00.001Z

INTRODUCTION

I'm sitting here in Livingston Studio 2, mastering the Tony Allen record I've been mixing over the past couple of months and contemplating what I have learned about sound and mixing... and a hell of a lot it is. It 's a mind field and can be the most fun in the word. I've heard of studies that show the mind reaches a state similar to meditation while mixing. Though it can also be a nightmare. Even those producers and engineers that have been doing it for years are still learning things and they are lying if they say they aren't.

There are many points to make about mixing and getting into nuances of genres and preferences, this Blessay could turn into a thesis, but it is a Blessay and there are two points I have learned recently which I feel are quite important. For that reason I shall concentrate on those, thought please feel free to comment on any of the other aspects of mixing.

Blessay 01: Mixing

1. It’s A Balancing Act

In the early days the job of 'mixing' was undertaken by the 'Balancing Engineer' and it was the highest link in the chain in terms of engineering. For me, balancing seems a much more appropriate word than mixing as it is a balancing act between so many contributing factors. The word 'mixing', for me, gives the impression that you get certain measurements of the contributing elements outlined by a recipe and just mix it up. They will fall together however it is mixed because the elements are there and the amounts are correct. A little like mixing cake mixture. Though this couldn't be further from the truth. I would liken it more to building a dry stone wall, where you are missing a couple of bricks. Every tiny movement makes a difference to the surrounding elements and to add to the matter; in the words of Einstein... it's all relative (words to that effect anyway).

For example, with this Tony Allen record I am balancing at the moment, it was important to make sure that the groove was the predominant factor and that Tony, being the drummer and a groovy one at that, was to be loud and proud. It was also important to make sure that everything else is balanced in a way that makes it sound like a record, not like the drummer's headphone mix. Turning the drums up establishes the beat and makes it predominant, but turning them up too far makes everything else sound small and weak. It's a fine balance between where the drums take over and where the tune distracts you from the groove. But...

2. You Can’t Have Everything.

There are so many ways that you can cook a cat as they say and it's the same when mixing...sorry, balancing. Everything has an effect on your perception of how something sounds. The intro of a song is so important to how you perceive the genre of a song; the amount of kick drum determines how much you want to get up and move; the horn level changes the excitement of a track and the vocal level determines how loud most people turn the track up. Though as I said earlier, it is all relative. Why is the kick drum really loud, because if you turn the overall volume on the stereo down it's not loud at all. It's relative to the things around it. Also the brain can only really concentrate on a few things at once and so everything else becomes apart of the surrounding atmosphere.

I've come to realise that the brain can only truly concentrate on one thing at a time and a few things most of the time and the rest only if you really try to hear them. In a similar way to how your eyes work. You may think that everything in your vision is in focus but it isn't really. Only the very small thing you are concentrating on is in focus... your brain tricks you into thinking the things around are in focus and the rest is blurry periphery messy.

In the terms of mixing your star instrument has to be the most obvious... not necessarily the loudest though. This is usually the voice for obvious reasons. With Frank Sinatra for example, his voice was so important that not only was it extremely loud in the mixes, but the composers would right arrangements that were very sparse when he was singing... in a 'shut up it's frank's turn' way. The star instrument doesn’t have to be the voice though. For Tony's record it was the snare drum. Odd perhaps, but he is a very groove driven drummer and his snare sound is quite special. So I made it as loud as the vocals generally. Then once you've got the star instrument, you need to work out the bones of the song. For Tony it's the rest of the kit and the bass and rhythm guitars. Balancing these around the star instrument is extremely important. Too loud and they become the centre of attention; too quiet and they no long support the star. Fine adjustments of these instruments will either hinder or aid your focus on the star.

It’s like lighting up a subject to take a photo. Turn the lights down too much and they you don't get anything of any use, your start instrument looks a bit shit... yes it's a nice sound but there is no context... Turn these lights up too much and you get distracted from the main focus and you loose focus all together... even get annoyed by it. But when you get these balances just right, they help to make the star blossom. Highlight it from certain angles, draw your attention to certain details and you can definitely hear them. There can be quite loud when you concentrate on them directly... but when you sit back and hear (rather than listen) like taking a step back from a painting and letting your eyes relax, then everything falls into place and nothing stands out other than the central focus, the star instrument. How many of you could say what the background of the Mona Lisa is... but you know there is one don't you.

Sonny.

An Education In Itself.

2009-02-06T19:46:00.001Z

I've noticed that I've not written anything about recording an so on
for a while. It's been a load of shite generally so I thought it was
about time I wrote something vaguely useful. I want to try and write
something useful each month and exchange my thoughts and knowlegde with
those out there who are interested.

This is the first and hopefully this will be of some use to budding
engineers, or just interesting to anyone, or even encourage people to
share their opinions. I thought I'd write it as a bit of a short
'essay' for want of a better word. Please feel free to give feed back
(not on spellings though thanks. I know I'm shit at it), and give your
opinions. Each one shall be Headed 'Blessay:' stolen form the
marvelous Stephen Fry... if you want to keep track. So, here it is:

Sonny.

Snow Fun!!

2009-02-06T12:42:00.001Z

What a crazy week! I've had three sessions canceled because of the damn snow. They couldn't get to the studio which you can't blame them for as the transport system in and around London shuts down at the sight of the first flake. It's just mad to think that the UK can't handle some snow. I know we don't get much but it really shouldn't be this much of a shock when it happens.

Anyway, rant over. This week I should have been recording rhythm tracks for Massimo and doing some more editing on Rachels vocals for Rory Forsyth but alas that wasn't to be. I did manage to finish the mixes for Lydia Lunch which was really enjoyable. Lydia had returned to Barcelona so it was just the other guys (James, Terry and Ian from Gallon Drunk who are acting as her backing band) and me. Nice and raw, and a great lesson in resisting the temptation to overmix.

Finished off the vocals for Steve from datapuddles solo outing. Really good stuff. Very cool bluegrass track as well which was good fun.

Last weekend I had the mighty Silvery back in tracking three more songs. A bit more straight pop this time, well as straight pop as these guys get!! They should be huge by now so go check them out and buy the album . I'm not on points so don't think i'm trying to hard sell it:)

Right, that's it from me today. Short and sweet. I'll be back with more when the snow stops and the clients can get in:)

Text Speak

2009-01-31T02:05:00.001Z

Just so that there is some sort of proof and so that it doesn't look like I'm mad when in years to come I say I started it... here it is.

Myself and Kev are fed up with lol and lmao. They are a bit shite to be perfectly honest. Though in the area of communicating quickly with text we appreciate they can be quite useful. So we have decided to use our own, which I suppose encapsulates our englishness (or britishness shoudl I say) somewhat. The short hand version is:

chkl

... which, if you hadn't already guessed means, Chuckle. What do you reckon. Use it at will spread it round. Pass it on... but remember... we said it first. chklchkl (thats a bit more of a laugh).

Sonny

The Sky This Morning 30th Jan

2009-01-31T01:00:00.001Z

The Sky This Morning 30th Jan
Originally uploaded by sonnyengineer

That's what I woke up to this morning. How's That for a view. It might not look amazing from the shitting picture on my phone but it was when you're bleary eyed from waking up. Cracking.

RIP John

2009-01-29T17:29:00.001Z

I found out today, to my utter dismay, that the great John Martyn passed away. Fucking gutting. That man was a musical genius

"If I could control myself more, I think the music would be much less interesting. I'd probably be a great deal richer but I'd have had far less fun and I'd be making really dull music."

May his music live on longer than he did. 60yrs old is nothing.

End Of January... Already.

2009-01-29T10:06:00.001Z

Just set my hi fi up at home again. Nice to have music playing through
some decent speakers and a nice amp (Tannoy E11s and a Quad 405 for
anyone that's interested) rather than the speakers in my laptop. Apple
are good at product design... but someone needs to have a go at their
speaker design. They are fucking awful.

I can't believe that it's nearly the end of January. Pretty good month
all in all though. Tony Allen's record is nearly finished. Mastering
next week and should be done. Oumou Sangaré latest one has been getting
really good reviews and should be out sometime in Feb. Hopefully Feb is
as good as this month.

Sonny

Where the hell are they?!?!?

2009-01-26T23:37:00.001Z

This is one for all you studio owners out there. Where do you find your customers? This is something i've been mulling over the past few days. When Sonny and me set up Pinna we went the traditional route of website, print ads, web ads and flyers. The print ads had absolutely no impact at all, and neither did the web ads. None. Nada. Zilch. The website was getting some hits from Google but it was always low double figures at most.
Then we started to think - where is our customer base? We are not a shop front where people casually wonder past and pop in for quick bit of recording time. People do not browse through a music magazine and suddenly decide to record because of an advert. Putting an ad in a music tech magazine just advertises your services to other studios and engineers. We do not sell a particular item. We sell a niche service.
So I cast my mind back to my days as a musician and how we used to find studios then. The internet wasn't as big a part of peoples live as it is now so that didn't have as much relevance. We used the Yellow pages. So Pinna signed up with Yell.com and sure enough enquiries started to come in. The other way we used to look for studios to record in was simple word of mouth. Now that's not quite as easy in a town like London, there are so many scenes going on and so many musicians it's hard keep track of. How to put the word out then? Well like I said we placed fliers all over Camden, Denmark Street, Central London and loads of venues and rehearsal rooms. We had a few hits from this but again not loads.
So how to contact a hugely disparate demographic? The internet is the obvious answer hence a lot of our time is spent optimizing our website, twittering and rambling on our blogs. This is pretty good fun, but still - is it enough. Web 2.0 doesn't work if people aren't looking for you in the first place!
Pinna is now at a stage where word of mouth has kicked in and most of our clients are either regulars or we've been recommended to them by one of our regulars but we are still keen to kick things up a gear.
We want to make great records for great artists, and we want to let everyone know! So how to do it??????

Answers on a postcard.

Or just comment below:)

A little bit of an awakening...

2009-01-16T00:25:00.001Z

Did anyone else get this over Christmas this year?... and I'm not talking about drunken, "God I love you man, you're like the best ever and if only it had things and just made it like they could fall right out the sideways was suck a good film of stuff all on the..." and so on awakening...

I'm talking just a little kinda good feeling about 2009. We're probably all going to die aren't we and robots will take over the... nah fuck it. It's going to be good, what do you think?

Hands up... or answers on a postcard to:

10 Below
Just Down There
Underneathshire
JD1 9RT

Sorry but entries cannot be returned so please send copies.

Sonny

The Greatest Drummer... Ever

2009-01-14T10:55:00.001Z

Tony Allen that is...

Sorry Seb. You're fucking good, but this guy just oozes rhythm

Just had two days @ Livingston studios with the master, making tweaks
to the mixes of his latest album. The man's a genius. He writes all
the parts... every single one of them. He's been pretty pleased with
everything so far and is the happiest he's been with a record
apparently. Not sure when the thing will be released... that's not my bit, but stay tuned.

Sonny

New Website

2009-01-09T14:40:00.001Z

Hello there,

For those of you who may in interested or want to fake some sort of interest (either is fine by me) I've made myself a new website. It's all new and clean and tidy, so have a look quickly before it gets a bit rough round the edges. Let me know what you think and if there is anything you would like to know that's not on there.

Got to: http://www.sonnyengineer.com/

Have fun,

Sonny

Happy New Year

2009-01-05T12:19:00.001Z

Hello there everyone. Not been here for a while, but been run off my feet, so just to keep you up to date and give you a glimpse of what 2009 has to offer...

I've been mixing Tony Allen's new record at Livingston Studios recently. Sounding pretty Chubby (like phat but a little more polite... we all know what you're trying to say though) and some great drumming. That man is a genius.

Had two days in PINNA studios with Seb Rochford again but this time with his Polar Bear crew. Great guys, and what players. Should be coming in for another couple of days soon so eyes peeled. By the way Leafcutter John finished making an acoustic guitar with his very own hands. Impressive stuff. I've always wanted to be a luthier. Check it out www.leafcutterjohn.com.

I'm also working with Her Make Believe Band (myspace.com/hermakebelieveband) on their debut album... kinda modern country but with a nice jazz twist (not too much for those who don't like the word Jazz). You should be hearing some big stuff from these guys I reckon.

Oh and got myself a new website. Let me know what you think www.sonnyengineer.com. Still at www.pinnaproductions.com, but this one's just for me.

That's probably it for now. Got a load of other projects coming up but I'll let you know about them when I get to them. Bored of typing now.

Laters... Sonny,

From The Mercury's To Pure Gold

2008-09-11T22:05:00.003+01:00

After the night of wining and dining with the Portico boys at the Mercury's, I, rather dull-eyed and shabby-tailed, join another Mercury Nominated musician at Pinna for a mind blowing session. None other than Mr Seb Rochford was in with the delightful Pamelia Kurstin on theremin.

They were basically jamming together for hours... literally hours and I got to sit back and listen to it. It was fucking awsome. I threw some mics up and they did the rest. Seb's drum kit was one of, if not the best sounding kit I've recorded.

I don't know what they are going to call themselves (neither do they), but stay tuned as it's going to be a blinder of a collaboration. Check out some of what they were up to.

Sonny Pinna.

Mercury Music Award Ceremony.

2008-09-10T18:50:00.001+01:00

Well... it was last night and unfortunately Portico Quartet didn't win
it, but what a record to be beaten by. Great news for Elbow. They've
been doing it for 18yrs, which I didn't know

It was a great night though. if you missed it on telly it's showing again one Friday
on the BBC so watch out. Portico played a blinder and they were all
just happy to be a part of it. For a first record from a instremental
group, it's a pretty good acheivement. Well done guys. Thanks for
having me there.

Some great performances from Adele and Rachel Unthanks and the Winterset... truely spine tingling. It's great to see so much good British music about. What a year.

Check out more about the night here,

Joe Stilgoe Album Launch

2008-09-06T03:42:00.002+01:00

A date for your calendars everyone. The Ivory Tinkling, Jazz-legend-in-the-making that is Mr Joe Stilgoe is Launching his debut Album on Candid Records. It's going to be at the famous Ronnie Scott's from 20th-22nd of October. Now I know what you're thinking, it's a long gig, 3 days How's he going to have enough material for that long. Well most of the songs will be played at half speed. The band begins at ten to six When Mr. S. performs his tricks without a sound And Mr. H. will demonstrate Ten somersets he'll undertake on solid ground. Having been some days in preparation a splendid time is guaranteed for all And tonight Mr. Stilgoe is topping the bill.

It's not really 3 days long... don't be silly. Check him out here http://www.myspace.com/joestilgoe

And have a peak at what we've been upto.

Sonny Pinna.

JITTERwall

2008-09-04T18:44:00.002+01:00

Our music and recording community has changed it's name. We're not called JITTERwall and you can find us on www.jitterwall.com. So come and join us. Become a member and tell us what you think. Join the discussions in the forums and talk to other people like you... or people not like you if you want.

Visit JITTERwall

Sonny Pinna.

Only One Week To Go 'til The Mercury Music Prize

2008-09-02T15:15:00.001+01:00

Only got a week to go before I'm off to the Mercury Music Prize Ceremony with Portico Quartet. We're going to be rubbing shoulder with the likes of Radiohead and Elbow and other such wonderful people... and they're all going to be playing too. Got anything you want me to ask Tom Yorke or Guy Garvey? Let's hope Portico win ey.<br><br>Oh one thing we've all got to do is place a bet on Portico to win so that the odds are lowered and that my sway the judges. You might just get yourself a nice little kick back too. Check them out.

Sonny Pinna

Me & John

2008-08-28T01:23:00.001+01:00

It's been a little while since my last blog, so apologies, but I've been up to some interesting stuff... well I thinks so... I'll let you be the judge of that, but I hope you agree. Just finished another 4 days at PINNA Studios with the young genius that is John Elliott... now to be know as Me & John... so watch out for the name. We finished off another 3 tracks for his debut album which is all him. Other than some strings on a couple of tracks soon, he's the only on playing and singing. Little genius he is.

We've also been shooting a video for his first couple of tracks, which should be out soon. We'll keep you informed. He's editing the video as we speak. That's right he's doing the video as well. he's the only person in that too. For now he's made a wee video of himself doing a cover of a Radiohead song 'Faust Arp' which is cracking. Check it out below and some of the stuff we've been doing in the studio this last week... including "when we're cleaning windows".

Sonny PINNA

Silvery On 6 Music!

2008-08-12T12:41:00.001+01:00

Hello,

I know I keep banging on about Silvery but hey, I recorded and mixed the album so I'm allowed to plug them:) Anyways, if anyone fancies a listen to them then you can tune into BBC 6 Music as the new album 'Thunderer And Excelsior' is their album of the day! That basically means they'll be playing tracks from the album throughout the entire day. Pretty sweet eh? You can listen to how radio compression destroys all of my beautiful dynamics too:)

Happy listening,

Kevin Feazey

All the fun of the fair!

2008-08-08T12:31:00.001+01:00

Hello all,

Just a quick one to let you know about a band whose album I recorded and mixed. They are Silvery and the album Thunderer And Excelsior is out on Monday (yes i know i'm plugging, but I want them to do really well:) ).
You can read the reviews they've been getting here, or you can listen to the session they did for Radio 1 here (although that link may die soon). Their myspace is here. Have a look anyways, i'd love to see what everyone thinks of it!

Kevin Feazey,

www.pinnaproductions.com
London Recording

what drives us

2008-08-06T17:26:00.001+01:00

Just a bit of a random blog here. Not really to do with music but then, who said it had to be. I've just read and replied to a blog posted by Lobelia on our www.jitterwall.com site, about trying to win over an audience when performing and how hard it can be and so on. It got me thinking of when I used to perform (I say used to as the gig I did recently was the first in 2 years and reminded me why I stopped) and why I stopped doing it.

I used to really enjoy going out and putting my performance skills to the test and holding everything together under the spot light and trying to be a watchable act and then got bored of it. Mainly because it took me so long to write songs and the drive for righting songs had gone (mainly because I got so much more pleasure from listening to other peoples). It had been replaced with recording other peoples song. I found it exciting to be working with musicians and songwriters putting there music on record. you get to be so many bands at once.

Now I still love doing that, but part of it seems to have changed somewhat. It doesn't feel quite as new as it did (obviously because it's not), so then how do you keep it feeling new and what do you do to keep enjoying it as much as ever. What drives us as social beings to do things. Is it a character thing? Are there certain people that find enjoyment from doing the same task over and over again and still find that something new in each element... and am I one of those people that's constantly finding new things to do, because it's not the doing it that's the fun bit it's the fact that it's new?

It's quite an interesting question that I'm throwing out there I think. This is the first time I've come across it in a situation that really matters i.e. my current career depends on it. Before, anything I did was a 'hobbie' and I've not done anything else for quite as long without it dropping in importance. What drives you to carry on doing something?

Sonny Pinna

JITTERwall

2008-08-06T16:43:00.002+01:00

So we've been running our social site now for a couple of weeks and it's going pretty well! For those who don't know about it you can check it out here. But we want more!!! So does anyone have any suggestions as to what else they would like to see on the site? Or for that matter, would anyone like to see anything different on our studio site (Pinna Productions)? Let us know and we'll get to work on it!

Keep up the good work people!

Kevin Feazey

A crazy few weeks!

2008-08-04T14:46:00.001+01:00

Well hello all,
It's been a while since I posted so I apologise. Please forgive me:)
So here are the last weeks in brief!

I've been recording a Jewish choir, worked on folktronica madness with Jonathan Morton a.k.a. Like Everything Else, Sonny found out that the Portico Quartet are up for a Mercury, Steve Lamacq has been blogging that Silvery should be up for a Mercury (click here for more on that), more mixing with the datapuddle boys, pre-production has started with Jessica Grace, a few voice overs for various people, and finally I recorded a storyteller called Vayu Naidu (a professor in storytelling apparently) who was accompanied by a Jazz singer who looped his vocals! And breathe.....

As you can see - action packed:) In other news, I went to see Cornelius last night. Amazing stuff!! Four piece band completely synced with some of the best animations and video craziness i've ever seen. Japanese madness at it's best:)

I'll be back to tell what the new week brings soon!

Kev.

August Already

2008-08-01T13:32:00.001+01:00

I can't believe it. It's here already. I doesn't seem like 5 minutes since it was xmas. Anyway, it's been a week or so since the last blog, just because I've been so busy. I did a gig last night at Zephyr Stock, back home in Huddersfield, which was good. I was on first so get chance to see the rest of the bands while getting drunk on Zephyrs fie range of beers. Mmmmm Draught Erdinger. (no Duff though). There was the Voltaires, The Russian Dolls and Kill It Kid who were great. Two really good singers. Really didn't expect the guys voice to sound like it does too. Check them out.

Sonny Pinna

PORTICO QUARTET Nominated for MERCURY MUSIC PRIZE

2008-07-22T18:50:00.000+01:00

Well, I was informed today that the Album I recorded and mixed with Portico Quartet last year has been nominated for The Mercury Music Prize, which I was overwhelmed about. We recorded and mixed (and co-produced) the whole record in 6 days, well two lots of 3 days. We were in the studio in the Jan of last year after I'd just come back from Africa working with Jerry Boys and Orchestra Baobab. Then a few months later the guys were picked up by Babel/Vortex Label, so they decided to come back and record a couple more tracks and revisit one from the earlier session.

I liked it from the start, so I'm not surprised (well maybe just a bit) that it's been nominated, but I reckon it's going to win. It should do anyway. The competition is tough with Elbow with 'Seldom Seen Kid' and Radiohead's 'In Rainbows', which are my two favourite albums of the year, but I've got to say 'Knee-Deep In The North Sea' deserves it more.

Anyway, boast over. Though it's more a boast of the tanents of Portico rather than my involvement, even though they have called me the 5th member (thanks guys). Go get a drink of some sort (tea will do) and join me in a cheers to Portico for the nomination, and see how a little bit of it was made... here:

Sonny Pinna,

http://www.pinnaproductions.com

Joe Stilgoe Recording His Debut album @ Livingston Studios

2008-07-21T16:42:00.000+01:00

Well Just finished another day with Legend, jazz pianist and vocalist, Joe Stilgoe on his debut album for Candid records. Joe had written a couple of new song and had another standard up his sleeve so he got Ben Reynolds back in on drums, and this time Tom on bass as Chris Hill was on his stag do... without us. What a cheek. Anyway. Zippy made an appearance to help with some drums and vocals, which made the session go quicker.

We got 3 tracks recorded and two of them mixed so only a couple of bits to do before the album's finished. Joe tells me it should be out in October, which is good cos I can't wait for the proper version. It's cracking I tell you. I made up a short video of what we got up to yesterday so take a look. more coming soon

http://www.pinnaproductions.com

Lise and Fleetwood Mobiles and Jobs

2008-07-18T12:40:00.000+01:00

Just want you all to know that there is life after Livingston! I'm at Fleetwood Mobiles and loving it. We have three trucks with SSL and Euphonix consoles and also a 5.1 SS Mix Studio at our base in Denham.
Any bright young things out there should drop me a line as we'll be looking for an Intern and an Assistant Engineer in the very near future. www.fleetwoodmobiles.com check us out.

Read More about it and contact Lise by join us here.

Visit London Recording

Sonny Pinna

Silvery on the radio

2008-07-16T14:11:00.002+01:00

Mr Crowley spins the new Silvery single (as recorded and mixed by my good self) on BBC6. You can have a listen at

Silvery on the radio

45 minutes into the show:)

Enjoy!