Call this number now

The K6 restoration continues (see phone box category or follow from the original post). Carl has now restored the replacement roof – here’s a photo walkthrough of him fitting it (more about Carl and the restoration business at his website).

Mine's the grey one in the corner - primed and welded.

Moving the box into place.

Higher...

..and higher...

...and higher still...

Carl manouvres the roof into place.

On it goes...

A snug fit!

And here's the view from inside - the cable channel for the ceiling light.

Shower Thee People

The studio has been busy since its completion. Or rather, its near-completion. Everything is sorted technically so I have 16 simultaneous inputs available, 12 of which have valve pres via the M1F. Howard will be returning soon to fit the XLR wall plates and do the relevant soldering.

Remember the holes that Artis drilled for the cables?

So in the absence of wall plates I’m just poking XLRs through the holes in the walls (which are now the only route that sound can travel between the rooms – a pretty clear example of how effective the studio’s soundproofing is).

The studio will have three main functions – a recording/co-writing space for commercial song projects and work relating to my Songwriting PhD; a production facility for the CDs that go on the cover of my guitar books (e.g. the next book in the Complete Junior Guitarist series); and, er, everything else – i.e. whatever other musical opportunities arise that sound fun or interesting. In this third category I’ve undertaken three projects recently – a Techno remix of a James Taylor song, a community-based recording of some local people’s original songs, and (mainly to test out multiple drum mic-ing) a prog-rock drum session for a couple of CM graduates, Chris and Tom.

The Guitar book

The Complete Junior Guitarist was published in Sept 2009 and early indications are that it’s doing OK in the shops. The people at Music Sales tell me that there’s a dearth of good-quality guitar teaching material aimed around ‘Key Stage 2′ (i.e. junior school kids aged 8-11), so this is the book I’ve tried to write – not patronisingly full of pictures of anthropomorphic cartoon animals as younger starter books can be, but not based on particular bands, styles or artists, as more teen-focused books often are. So the book ended up quite ’serious’ but I think this matter-of-fact editorial tone is what a lot of kids this age like to read. What I’ve avoided (I hope) is ‘dumbing down’ of the audio (there are 52 tracks on the cover CD including backing tracks for all the pieces, and I used live session players for bass and drums rather than compromise by programming the kit part). The book also focuses on short melodic pieces, as opposed to chords, which are much more difficult for the beginner – I’ve never understood why some guitar books do this.

I’m hoping to write book 2 in the series during 2010, and the home studio will enable me to try out ideas for the next book’s cover CD without worrying about the ‘meter running’ pressures of hired studio space or players’ time (although, as before, there will always be a pro drummer on the final session – I’m not going to be a good enough kit player any time soon).

Thanks BTW to everyone who helped me to choose the title for the book (see previous blog entry) – Complete Junior Guitarist won the day, which has the added advantage of making this book the first result when these three words are typed into Google.

Song for Widcombe

A guitarist mic'd up (with an SE100 condenser) during one of the Widcombe project song sessions.

In an earlier post I mentioned the Song For Widcombe community project, and the song I submitted ‘Widcombe Rising’. Since then I’ve gotten to know the lovely people involved in the Widcombe Association and become generally more interested in Mummers‘ plays and songs. The association wants to put together a CD of its top 10 ‘finalist’ songs, and I listened to some of the original demos, which were varying in quality depending on the kind of recording kit each songwriter had access to (some only existing in sheet music form). Given my views on Performance vs Songwriting, it seemed only fair that none of the other songs on the album should be compromised by a technically poor demo – so I agreed to run some studio sessions for those writers who didn’t have access to decent recording kit. The motive for this wasn’t entirely altruistic – I need to test the studio as much as possible to check the signal paths and get to know the patchbay, layout, ergonomics etc… plus the sound of the room, mics & speakers. And given the varied collection of instruments that Mummers’ songs may include (concertina, fiddle, melodion/accordion, piano, recorder, flute, piccolo, bass drum, bodhrán, guitar, upright bass, banjo, and multiple male and female voices) this was the perfect opportunity.

Here are a few descriptions of the ensembles we’ve done already – there’ll be a playback session of these and others in Widcombe in a couple of weeks. I won’t post MP3s for now, as I don’t have permission from the writers to do so, but hopefully this will be forthcoming once the project is over; you may also be able to download the tracks from iTunes at some point in the future.

• 4-part male voice folk choir and bass drum
• G&S-style piano and male voice
• Piano, guitar, sampled Tuba and male voice
• Folk band including concertina, piccolo banjo, floor tom, snare, recorder, fiddle, guitar and multiple voices
• Folk band including programmed kit, electric bass, sampled fiddle, accordion and tin whistle, guitars, multi-tracked male voices, handclaps and tambourine

At the other end of the musical spectrum (or certainly some distance along it) I did a session yesterday for a couple of Bath Spa graduates who needed to do some drum tracking for a ‘prog’ album. We did a deal – they get a day’s free recording time, and I get to use their (excellent) drummer Tom on a future session for no fee. Traditional community bartering… perhaps all this olde worlde folky-ness is affecting me more than a little…

Tom does some drum tracking in the dry room. An unusual drummer - no rack toms, and two hi-hats.

Chris puts down a vocal and guitar take in the control room.

Techno Techno

Finally, here’s a mix of a track I did a couple of weeks ago with a old mate from my days at Future Publishing. He’s a fan of classic Techno (and knows much more about it that I do) but has always had a soft spot for James Taylor (the songwriter, not the jazzer). So here’s our remix-in-progress of JT’s Shower The People (You Love With Love). It’s turned out a little more ’70s Disco than ’90s Techno – I blame the off-beat handclaps on the intro. The track is, of course, doomed to unreleased commercial obscurity, considering its obvious and constant use of uncleared samples of a well-known recording, but hey – it was fun. And James – if you’re reading this, hope you forgive us for timestretching you up to 130BPM.

Shower Thee People MP3 (JB & DR remix)

Buy the original on iTunes

Tears on my pillar

Carl writes…

Fortunately the broken section of transom rail was with the kiosk when ‘Kelly the Crane’ brought it over [from Derbyshire] to Norfolk. It was the missing piece of the jigsaw & fit perfectly; however it had to be thoroughly stripped of paint & rust before I could could ‘operate’!

After buzzing a ‘36′ pad over the broken section & grinding a ‘V’ in both this & the structural transom rail I was ready to re-align. In order to aid perfect alignment of the section when welding, I drilled a hole through the broken section & the corner pillar. The broken section’s hole was enlarged & countersunk. The hole in the corner pillar’s top was threaded with a 5/16 Whitworth ‘taper tap’. A countersunk steel screw was nipped tight between the sections prior to welding. This screw will remain in situ & be coated with body filler creating the correct aesthetics.

After welding, the ‘36′ pad was used to ‘dress’ the weld; this ensures the weld trail is flush to the surrounding surfaces.

Oh no! A bit missing!

Hang on, what’s this bit of broken iron I’ve found in the back of the transport truck…

It fits! Would you Adam ‘n Eve it?!

Grind the paint off…

Tap and die job. Looks like we need a Whitworth 5/16th taper tap here.

The bolt!

The hole!

Beautiful flush fitting.

But it will need welding to be fully invisible.

“I’m melting!”

I’ll see you burn…

Stuck on you.

Because you’re so smooth

On top of the world!

Can you fill me in?

For those following the studio blog, it will be back soon. There’s a community project coming up in mid-Sept relating to the Widcombe song, and Howard is soon going to be back to fit my wall plates in the next week or so (the only current sound leakage from the live room is from the cable hole in the wall!). For now, here are some more visual treats for phone box restoration fans!

Kerris fills the casting imperfections around the 'Telephone' sign frame area.

Kerris (one of Carl’s phone box restoration team at Remember When UK) has been back filling all of the casting imperfections. She has also begun ‘prepping’ the roof for paintwork pre-installation (you may recall the roof is actually a replacement one – see previous post). Carl has now loaded the K6 back on to the GPO trailer (an authentic 1930s antique itself) getting it ready for welding. It’s easier welding a horizontal surface, he tells me.

I’m now getting to the stage when I need to decide what to do with this thing when it’s finished. People use them as garden ornaments, but I’m really really tempted to put a proper phone in it – just seems kinda the right thing to do. In an age of mobiles and Wi-Fi, having a landline in the garden seems wonderfully obtuse. But on the other hand I’m not sure I’d want people leaping my garden fence in the middle of the night to make phone calls – although a lock on the door also seems against the philosophy of the thing. Am I being paranoid? Has telecommunications become such a cheap commodity that phone phreaks no longer exist?

You’ve never seen a phone box from this angle before…

The K6 on Carl’s authentic 1930s GPO trailer.

My K6 horizontal on the trailer. A queue of phone boxes in various stages of repair stands behind.

GPO trolley from the other side – note the two mini wheels on the front.

The trolleys tilted so a single GPO installer could put the K6s in place unaided.

Fully upright.

Yes – even Carl’s workshop is 1930s retro…

Imperfections in the roof casting being sanded out.

Kerris fills the casting imperfections around the ‘Telephone’ sign frame area.

The damage done

The original K6 on arrival at 'kiosk hospital' - note the damaged roof.

You’ll recall that the roof was damaged. Carl has found a replacement unit – here’s an excerpt from his latest email;

…with the old damaged roof free from the K6 it was an ideal time to ensure the replacement was exact. This replacement salvaged roof was from an old K6 that was originally located at a local racecourse (Fakenham).

The last picture shows both ‘lids’ being compared.

Here’s a photo walkthrough of the removal of the roof, followed by a picture of Carl comparing the old and replacement domes. Note the cable run in the casting – I’m hoping my K6 will light up the word ‘Telephone’ in all its 1930s glory!

Hello dolly

Carl writes…

With the hole now drilled in the roof it was necessary to remove the 2 ton clasp on the block & tackle to expose the chain link. This granted additional height to remove the domed roof. The chain was then bolted to the roof. Making sure the old bolts securing the dome were free, I carefully positioned the kiosk directly under the gantry, thanks to my ‘dolly skids’. These ’skids’ allow me to move a K6, weighing 750 kgs, with ease on flat smooth ground. With a few grasps at the load chain the damaged roof was lifted clear of the transom rails, to which the roof section was pulled clear of the K6 on the gantry. The K6 was then pushed clear of the beamed gantry.

On the roof it’s peaceful as can be

Superman costume just out of shot...

Back to the phone box story. Carl at Remember When UK has started work again on my K6 (for the full story click the ‘Red Telephone Box‘ category on the right, or go back to the first post. Helpfully, Carl’s emails are practically a blog entry in themselves, so I’m going to paste some of his commentary in here.

[Carl wrote] The roof section is heavy & awkward & as the old GPO papers stipulate, two to three persons, tressles & scaffolding are required for fitting or removal of the dome panel. Fortunately the aid of the kiosk gantry eliminated [the need for] all but one person (me!) and no scaffolding in sight – by boring an 8 mm hole in the centre of the damaged roof.

8mm hole bored in the top of the roof to enable its removal

Superman costume just out of shot…

Don’t worry – be pentatonic!

Here’s a wonderful piece of theatre from Bobby McFerrin, proving a psychological point about the power of pentatonic melodies in songwriting.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

I will try… to fix you

The sync panel from the ADA8000 - my nemesis, until today.

The ADA8000 problem has been solved! Josh came round and took a look at the studio (and also, I might add, gave me an excellent idiot’s guide to tuning drums). We pondered the reasons that the ADA8000 was chucking out digital crackles and pops on input channels 9-16, and narrowed it down to three possible causes.

1. Faulty ADA8000
2. Dodgy optical cable
3. Something we haven’t thought of yet

The ADA8000 was acting as a digital slave to the Digi002 using the ADAT protocol for digital sync, so the Digi002 was to provide audio input channels 1-8 and the ADA8000 channels 9-16, giving me the option of 16 simultaneous inputs (albeit with only 12 of them through the M1F, it being a 12-channel analogue desk).

After various attempts to fix the clicks & pops problem, including rebooting everything with the ADA8000 acting as master, we decided, as a last resort, to try swapping the optical cables. The Digi002 was firing the sync information down its Optical Out, and the ADA8000 was firing audio signals back into the 002’s Optical In. And swapping the cables over completely cured the problem. It turns out that the clicks and pops were not syncing errors – they were corruptions in the audio data coming back into the 002. So it was option 2 all along. Soon I’ll get another (high-spec) optical cable, because although the master>slave info is being carried accurately by the weaker cable, it’s not desirable to have it in there permanently. This is not an uncommon problem, according to Josh – optical cables are not as reliable as some people assume they are, even though they carry digital information.

Headphone amp, ADA8000 and Joe Meek MC2 – gaffer taped for the moment.

So even if you’re not a studio geek (I was actually quite excited writing the two techy paragraphs above), the result of Josh’s intervention is simple – I can now have 16 live mics in the studio during a take instead of 8. To test the studio I’ve tentatively agreed to record one of my grads’ bands in September. They get a free demo, and I get to try out all the inputs properly before I need to use them on a time-sensitive project.

Next… drums!

We’re off to see the Wizard…

He got legs. He knows how to use them.

Phase IV. The Studio Wizard is here. Howard is spending a couple of days living with us, doing the wiring and kit install. He has caught conjunctivitis from his pony (now there’s a sentence you don’t hear every day) so he’s in a lot of eye-drop-related discomfort, but is struggling manfully through. He’s also on a deadline (to retrieve the pony from the animal hospital) so is running on 4 hours’ sleep to get the job done in time. Hero!

Here’s the full list of hardware. This is added to the Mac & Digi002 setup I already use, plus the mics I already own (SE Z5600, AKGC3000, Rode NT4).

• BEHRINGER ADA8000 – AD converter to provide 8 extra inputs (combines with Digi002 – so studio total is 16 simultaneous input channels)
• TLA M1F – valve desk
• PROKEYS88 MIDI controller keyboard
• DBX 266 stereo compressor
• FOCUSRITE ISA220 preamp
• JOEMEEK MC2 stereo compressor
• EXT DVD SUPERDRIVE (DVD burner so I can keep the Mac in the cupboard)
• BELKIN 2X FW / 6X USB COMBINED HUB (remote hub on the desktop so the Mac can stay in the cupboard)
• BEHRINGER HP AMP HA4700 – 4-way headphone amp
• SE 2200A x 2 (cheap but excellent large-diaphragm condenser mics)
• SE1A (pair of small condensers)
• BEYER M201 (2 mics)
• SHURE SM57 (2 mics)
• AUDIO TECHNICA ATM250 (large-diaphragm condenser)
• POPSTOPPER
• FOAM WINDSHIELD FOR LARGE DIA VOCAL MICS 2
• BOOM STAND TALL (8)
• BOOM STAND SHORT (2)
• XLR-XLR – 6M (2)
• J-J FABRIC COVERED GUITAR CABLE 6M (4)
• HEADPHONE EXTN CABLE (2)
• SAMSON SDIRECT DI BOX  3
• SMALL SHELL DRUM SET:
• SONOR 507 SERIES COMBO DRUM KIT – 8″ x6″ bass drum, 0″ x 8″ &2″ x 9″ toms, 4″ x4″ floor tom, 14″ x 5.5″ snare drum (steel), 2x TA 503 tom holders, 9-ply covered basswood shells, tunesafe tension rods. 00-series 4-piece hardware set containing HH-174 hi-hat stand, SS-177 snare drum stand, CS-171 straight cymbal stand & sp-273. Single bass drum pedal. Cymbal set: paiste01 series brass set 3 -14″ hi-hat, 6″ crash and 20″ ride. Extra cymbal boom stand. Set Remo pinstripe skins
• PATCHBAYS AND DISTRIBUTION BOARDS

There was quite a bit of ‘cost engineering’ when we realised how far over budget we were originally. For the drums, I bought some decent Sonor shells (drummers, correct me if I’m wrong!), but decided to save on cymbals and get a budget set of Paistes. Drummers reading this – I do realise the importance of good quality hammered cymbals in terms of harmonic balance etc, but don’t actually play drums (although will now start to learn), and figure that if I hire a kit player for projects s/he will bring their own cymbals to a session. So cymbals will be upgraded to pro quality one day when I become a good enough drummer to justify it.

This principle, BTW, I reckon applies to lots of music kit purchases – there’s no point in having gear that’s substantially better than you are. It’s why our MusicLab at the University is usually only used by third year students – it takes time for them to develop the quality songwriting and performance skills that mean the subtleties of room design make a difference to the quality of the track. A piece of music is as good as its weakest link, so there comes a cost point where you get diminishing musical returns if the kit outstrips your skill at using it. In my case, the weakest tool I have is my singing voice, which is why I prefer to work with proper singers.

We’ve worked out how the rack will work ergonomically, with the things I’ll use the most (ISA220 and patchbays) in the top rack, and the things I use less often (DVD burner, headphone amp) in the lower one. Howard’s pre-made all the looms, and has added a cable tray under the desktop, to which they are attached. The only thing we didn’t account for is that the M1F (being a project studio desk) doesn’t have stereo insert sockets, so Howard has rewired the insert points to two jacks so we can get all the channel inserts coming up on the patchbay.

This is Howard's full patchbay layout plan.

The only thing we won’t get done in this phase (before Howard’s next visit) is the tie lines through to the live room. This is not a problem because I can physically throw XLRs through the the hole in the wall for now. I’m also proud to say that after a quick refresher session with Howard on soldering skills, I’ve made up my first stereo lead – the first soldering I’ve done, in fact, since about 1987 (a difficult teenage phase where, for reasons now unclear, I decided to resolder my Strat so all the pickups were wired in series. I blame Adrian Legg).

So everything pretty much works OK. We have 8 simultaneous input channels instead of 16 (the ADA8000, which supplies channels 9-16 to Logic via the Digi CoreAudio driver, still needs configuring so it acts correctly as a digital clock ’slave’ over optical to the Digi002 – BTW if you’re reading this and have any tips on optical-syncing these items, get in touch!). But given that I’m only one person, I’m unable to generate more than 16 simultaneous musical sounds, so this can wait until I get bands or drummers in.

I’m also going to need to adapt my working methods to encompass more handshake between the analogue and digital worlds. After years of doing all the dynamic processing with Waves plugins, I’m going to make an active effort to use the outboard gear, so that when both methods (on-screen and analogue) become equally transparent ergonomically, so I can then make musical decisions between digital and outboard. Today I mixed the first track (a Techno remix of James Taylor’s ‘Shower The People’) and took stereo output pairs from Logic into the M1F so I could EQ and mix using the analogue input channels of the mixing desk. There’s something pleasingly perverse about mixing Techno using 1930s valve technology…

Cable trays carrying the looms under the desktop between M1F and patchbay.

Wot, no cabling?

The looms go into the top patchbay.

Headphone amp, ADA8000 and Joe Meek MC2 – gaffer taped for the moment.

Top rack in progress – DBX compressor and ISA220.

And that’s the end of phase IV. Howard will be back sometime in September to ’sort out the room’ (spectrum analysis and speaker configuration etc), wire in the tie lines and XLR plates to the live room, and fix any wiring faults I find in the next few weeks. He’s now off to pick up a pony from a geezer in Norfolk.

He’s done an amazing job (he also did the overall design of the whole building) and I’m really pleased with the intelligent decisions he’s made on my behalf about the patchbay layout – and studio usage in general.

Coming soon – rugs, sofas and drums!