Guy Massey talks about his training at Abbey Road, how this gave him the confidence and experience to become freelance, and how he enjoys blending new technology with traditional recording spaces.
Show Notes
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:28 - Getting Into The Industry
03:51 - Learning At Abbey Road
05:12 - Studio Etiquette
06:58 - Being Sensitive To Artist Needs
10:44 - Blending Modern Technology And Traditional Spaces
14:08 - Learning To Be A Good Engineer
16:40 - Working With Constrained Budgets
18:00 - The Curiosity Of Experimentation
19:07 - Confidence In Your Abilities
23:26 - What Makes A Good Producer
27:40 - Fixing Self-Produced Tracks
29:03 - Time Taken To Do A Mix
33:13 - Recommended Practices
35:30 - Preparing For A Session
Guy Massey - Biog
Hailing from Merseyside, Guy’s love of music started at an early age, fuelled by his grandparents' musical heritage and siblings' record collections. He played guitar in various bands in and around New Brighton and Liverpool during the 80’s and 90’s, falling in love with Indie guitar music. His love of playing was soon superseded by the actual recording of the bands he was in and his time at the University of Manchester studying Geology happened to coincide with the vibrant Madchester scene, re-igniting his love of music.
A move to Guildford to do a Diploma in Recording at the University of Surrey resulted in a placement at Abbey Road Studios in 1995, where he remained for 10 years, working with many great artists, engineers and producers. This experience gave him the confidence to go freelance in 2005 and set up his own room in North London in 2010.
Recent credits include the Kylie Minogue album Tension, including the song 'Padam Padam' (which earned him a Grammy), Turin Brakes, the Score for Los Frikis, Lady Blackbird for Black Acid Soul, Rita Ora and The Divine Comedy.
Interviewer: Kevin Paul - Biog
Kevin Paul started his career as a DJ but quickly found his passion was sound engineering. His first audio job was at Soho Studios in 1991, moving to Konk Studios six months later, where he worked alongside successful producers and engineers such as Bob Clearmountain, Adam Mosley, Pascal Gabriel and Gil Norton, as well as bands such as The Kinks, Galliano, Terrorvision, UFO and Elastica.
After working on archiving the Depeche Mode back catalogue in 1994, he was offered an engineering role at Mute Records’ in-house studio, which eventually lead to a position as Head Engineer, which gave him access to the entire Mute Records roster. Highlights include mixing Goldfrapp’s 'Felt Mountain', David Bowie’s 'Hours' and Nick Cave’s 'No More Shall We Part'. He also worked in 5:1, mixing Moby’s 'Hotel', Goldfrapp’s 'Black Cherry' and more for DVD.
In 2004 Kevin went freelance and re-mixed the entire Depeche Mode and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds back catalogues for SACD/DVD. Since 2008, Kevin Paul has been in charge of mixing and remixing performances at the iTunes Festivals in the UK and Germany. He has mixed over 100 artists to date, including Adele, Ed Sheeran, Alicia Keys, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The XX, Calvin Harris, Foo Fighters, Jack White, Linkin Park, Florence & The Machine, Deadmau5, David Guetta, Jessie J., Norah Jones, Oasis, Mumford & Sons, N.E.R.D., Lykke Li, James Blunt, KT Tunstall, Hot Chip, Paul Weller and many more.
He continues to record, engineer, produce and mix many projects in music and film, runs the mixing and surround mixing modules for the Masters Degree course at the UK’s Westminster University and divides his time between London and Berlin. Recent works include the International selling new album by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and mixing the latest album of Denmark’s 'Dúné' with the first single premiering at the Danish Music Awards, plus the latest iTunes Music Festival.
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