Many studio engineers achieve their position via the well known tea boy route but Colin literally walked into his job as chief engineer at The Old Smithy and has never looked back.

Colin was first and foremost a live musician in a band but had been interested in recording since the age of ten when his older brother brought home a stereo tape recorder. Whilst his sister was more interested in recording the budgie, he read the manual and started bouncing tracks using the sound-on-sound technique and his interest in sound engineering was born.

From that moment onwards, I always had a tape recorder and I used to take it with me to band rehearsals and gigs. I got involved in doing demos for local bands, still using sound on sound recording, and as my own band became more advanced and started using studios, I would always end up in the control room. In fact I would rather supervise the session than play so we'd get in another piano player and I'd stay behind the desk and keep an eye on things. I learned a lot from that and when I finally left the band, it was a natural progression for me to move into studio work full time.

I was fortunate enough to get involved with The Old Smithy studio in its early days; I have been with them since they were 8-track. I met Muff Murfin in a studio near Walsall where he was recording and he asked me to come and look at his studio. When I got there it was all over the place, the monitors were on the floor and behind chairs, it was chaos. He said that I could strip it out and rewire it if I wanted and that's where it all started. I've been there ever since, around ten years now.

Progress

How have the changes in equipment and working practices affected you since you started?

Initially things changed very slowly so making the transition from 8- to 16-track was a big jump. We had one compressor in the rack and an Echoplate which was considered to be something special in those days. But over the past five or six years, things have moved very quickly; no sooner has one firm come out with a product than someone else has released an improved version. Technology has taken over and it's not easy to keep up. The Old Smithy now houses two separate 24-track facilities as well as smaller studios tailored to the needs of broadcast and jingle production.

We don't have an automated console yet but I think that they're a great tool if used properly. The capacity for controlling external effects and syncing events is enormous. I don't however think they're vital but to be cynical for a second, I think the big boon is that it takes four times as long to do a mix on an automated desk and that represents four times the money for the studio. The results can undoubtedly be better but some people tend to use the extra sophistication just because it's there and not because they really need it.

Great progress in monitor speakers has been made in the last few years and we have just had a new Quested tri-amped system installed. It's a huge 4x12 design with a mid-range and tweeter each side. We have a Hill amplifier driving the bass end and when we power it up, the lights in the village dim! The beauty of the system is that it's so clean, even at 120dB it doesn't hurt your ears. Being used to studio monitoring, I'm accustomed to clean sound but this is exceptional. We wouldn't normally run it at this kind of level but we did give it a good try when it was first put in. Usually it's the bands rather than the engineer who want to monitor loud. I'll only turn it up if I'm uncertain about some point in the mix such as a bottom end sound that isn't quite right.

Do you think that such rapid progress is a good thing? Many pieces of equipment are superceded before anyone has had chance to understand and exploit them fully.

I think that on the whole technology is a good thing but it can be a problem. In a studio like The Old Smithy though, things tend to stick around for a while and so get fully used. Even so there's always something else we'd like to buy.

As you are strictly speaking an engineer rather than a producer, how much do your clients expect you to contribute to the sessions other than your engineering expertise?

The semi-pro bands tend to accept any input with gratitude but then the more experienced bands can be a bit more picky and will either ask you to become involved or make it clear that they want to do it their way. Mainly bands like the engineer to make suggestions and I like to think that the engineer becomes like an extra member of that band for a while. After all, the engineer has to learn the song and the arrangement, and inevitably ideas are bound to spring to mind.

I would say that most producers value creative suggestions from the engineer and I can't remember any producer who has refused to consider advice.

Part of any engineer's job is to become totally involved in whatever project he is working on and he occasionally has to take on the role of psychologist to ease tensions or smooth ruffled feathers, but fortunately I don't seem to get many awkward situations. If something does crop up you have to take a neutral line, even if only for your own peace of mind.

"On one occasion I bent down to pick something that I had dropped and heard the sound I wanted to record..."

Engineer's Talk

Moving onto specific techniques, do you have any favourite ways of miking the drum kit?

Bass drums are obviously an important part of the kit and I tend to use an RE20 or a Sennheiser 421 on them. Of course that's just personal choice and every engineer ends up with method that suits him. The RE20 seems to deliver the most thump without coming to any physical grief: there are tremendous sound pressure levels in a bass drum and the mic has to be able to handle it.

For the rest of the kit I favour Shure SM57s or 421s though the Shure's are better for placement being less bulky. On the snare I'll often use an Electro-Voice DS35 which, although strictly a vocal mic, delivers a crisp sound. There's always the AKG451EB but they don't like the high sound level so you have to use a pad. Strangely enough we have quite a bit of trouble with pads breaking up but not the mics.

I'll always mic the snare from the top, never underneath unless specifically asked to do so. I've never managed to get a decent sound with the mic underneath, not even when mixed with a mic placed above the drum. The phasing problems tend to give you a very tinny sound and quite honestly, I never have much problem getting the sound I want with just the one mic placed above.

For close overheads or cymbal mics, we use Beyer ribbons, which sounds like a strange choice, ribbons being a bit on the delicate side, but they give a really clean sound. For the distant overheads I like the Sennheiser 416 which is a semi-shotgun mic and is very good for spotting 20ft above the snare drum, and as a companion, the 406 which is a closer range mic. Using one of each in a stereo pair, their differing characteristics actually complement each other in this application. That's our standard set-up for any long distance ambience.

Fortunately most drummers now know how to tune and damp their kit for the studio so I don't have to get involved in that side of things very often. It's more often than not guitars and basses that I have to help tune.

I do however like the drummer to use a wooden beater and if he hasn't got one, there is a little trick I use. I take the plastic collar off one of the Ampex tape reels, slice off a four inch piece and then tape it to the drum where the beater hits. This coupled with a little detuning usually gives a good combination of click and punch.

Of course a lot of people are using drum machines in the studio but this isn't forcing drummers out of a job. More often than not, it's the drummer himself who realises that his timing is not precise enough and suggests the idea. This saves the band time, money and frustration, but I always try to get the drummer to add some manual percussion, even if it's only cymbal crashes or tambourine as this does a lot to dispel the mechanical feel of the rhythm and it helps the drummer to reclaim some of his dignity.

Electric guitar is another area in which different engineers hold different views. What is your approach?

When recording rock guitar in an overdub situation, I tend to build cages or tunnels with the screens rather than relying on one close mic and one 25 feet away; that works sometimes but you can't guarantee it. You get a far better control of the acoustics if you build a box with the glass screens and I tend to angle the cab so it points up at the window and then mic from behind the cab so that I pick up the reflection from the window. A hexagonal shaped screen configuration becomes very live and you can mic from above or from any of the facets. In any event I'll always use a close mic or a DI to get the clean sound and then work on the ambience and I may use more than two mics on occasions. An extra mic behind the cab can give an extra weight to the bottom end but it all depends on the type of amp and how the guy plays.

It seems almost traditional that vocals should be recorded via a U87. Is this what you use?

We've had a couple of Schoeps mics in for the last year or so and they're brilliant. They sound close-up even when they're three feet away; closer than a Neumann does from three inches. The clarity and the presence is impressive. Obviously if you get too close they'll pop and boom but from a foot or more away, they're unstoppable. They also work well on virtually any acoustic instrument; there's a bright top end with no trace of grittiness.

We do have Neuman U87s but they are very susceptible to condensation from the vocalist's breath and then the level drops. You have to get another one out of the box whilst you're drying the first one out on the heater. You have to use some kind of breath shield just to keep the mic alive.

How have the changes in reverberation techniques altered the way in which you record?

"We have a Hill amplifier driving the bass end and when we power it up, the lights in the village dim!"

Well we've still got our Echoplate as well as two digital units and I still like to use the plate for long reverbs, particularly on vocals. I use the digitals mainly for the short room sounds and the non-lin sounds. We have a Klark Teknik DN780 and an AMS, both of which have quite different characters. We've just had the new software in for the Klark Teknik and it really is excellent. Everything sounds so big, it makes the AMS sound small, so now the DN780 is used as our main reverb and the AMS tends to get switched on second. The AMS has a good chorus effect and has a great ADT so tends to get used in that way. The DN780 does the big stuff or the medium length bright stuff and it really is excellent for that. I think that with this new software, the Klark Teknik surpasses the AMS in many respects but it is useful to have two units with quite different sound characteristics. It's true that everyone tends to think in terms of AMS reverbs almost by instinct, but I found that over a short period I changed to using the Klark Teknik more because I preferred the sounds I was getting. There's also a clock breakthrough problem that we have with our AMS, and if you use any amount of top boost at the desk end, it can be quite noticeable. It's been checked out a couple of times but the problem is still there.

Having this capacity to produce different reverb effects has altered the way in which reverb is used no was compared with say five or ten years ago. Having the sequencing facility on the Klark Teknik means that we can change reverb effects in the middle of the mix which we do quite often and instruments which are traditionally mixed dry such as bass guitar or bass drum can benefit from a short ambience setting. At one time you would never, ever think of adding reverb to these instruments but now there are few occasions when I don't add some degree of ambience. If you keep the decay time short it doesn't clutter the mix.

I'll also use at least two different types of reverb in a mix and I'll keep the plate for vocals and strings. Using the AMS and the Klark Teknik in combination can give a very rich sound which I use to build a false ambience, especially on drums again. The two machines are so different in sound that you can use them both together without any conflict occurring; they complement each other very well. We also use a Scintillator to add a bit of sparkle when it's needed.

We also have an AMS harmoniser which we use mainly as an ADT unit to fatten vocals or anything that seems a bit suspect or thin. It's the old 1580 mono version and it doesn't have a de-glitch option so you're really limited to about a major third in the way of pitch change. Being mono, you can't have a pitch shifted both up and down at the same time like you can with say the SPX90.

We don't have one of those in the studio yet but I'd like one for the sheer flexibility of the thing. I used one in the studio last week and tried out all the facilities and I think it's truly excellent... I'd have no qualms about using one on anybody's tapes, the quality is so good.

The Best Position

One thing that I impress on all the young lads who work in the studio is to use their ears by moving round a sound to find the best position. It's always better to record the correct sound in the first place rather than try to use EQ to change something that isn't quite right. Acoustic guitar is a case in point. A lot of the guys will just stick the mic by the sound hole and of course it all comes out thumpy or boomy. But if you just move around a little, you can find the right spot. On one occasion I bent down to pick something that I had dropped and heard the sound I wanted to record; it was about one foot below the instrument and slightly to the right of the player. Now, when I set up the mic like this everyone thinks I'm crazy, that is until they walk into the control room and hear the result.

What projects have you been involved in recently that are particularly interesting?

I'm currently working on an album with Roy Wood and last year I worked closely with Jeff Lynn on the action single which was a charity venture in aid of a childrens hospital in Birmingham. Jeff produced it with the Tandy Morgan band doing the playing.

There was also a huge charity gig at the NEC recently, 'Birmingham Heartbeat 86', in aid of a children's hospice and organised by Bev Bevan and Jasper Carrot. It lasted over eight hours and I had the privilege of mixing the house sound for ELO, probably because of my previous studio work with Jeff Lynn. It's nice to do the odd live gig because of the 'seat-of-the-pants' feel it has. Unlike work in the studio, you only have one shot at it. We had a couple of rehearsals and only one hour to do the sound check but it was marvellous. Also I've recently been asked to mix the ELO gig at Wembley on the 5th of July which should be a real experience and then I'm going to Germany with them on a short tour before returning to the studio.

Do you want to get into production in the future or would you rather follow your musical aspirations?

I think that every good engineer is a sort of producer; it's part of the job, but I wouldn't like to do it full time. I think it's a little limited unless you're one of the top few popular producers. People like Trevor Horn influence what the bands ask for rather than how engineers work because if you try to capture a popular style, it's already too late. Everything you hear was done three months ago. I suppose something rubs off but I don't listen to much music outside the studio. After having music rammed down your ears all day, the last thing you want to do is to go home and turn on the radio.

At the Old Smithy we do a lot of advertising jingles for radio and I do four or five of those a week. It's a one man operation where I or Pete Green, the other writer, get a brief and do the whole job from the writing and playing through to the recording. Some of the phone numbers you have to sing are horrendous. It's here that MIDI is a Godsend; we have a Roland, a DX7 and an Apple/Greengate sampler which can be run as a system with the Linn. The Greengate gets used for all the strings and timps. However, the bands that we get in the studio make very little use of MIDI and barely scratch the surface of its potential if they use it at all.

Though I enjoy engineering, I'm still very much a musician and I would like to compose and record more instrumental pieces. Making adverts has broadened my style enormously and I have written one piece of music to accompany an audio/visual presentation. I would really like to be given the job of writing a film score but I'd have to brush up on my theory first.

Engineer, producer, musician and composer seem all to be intermingled in Colin Owen and this works very much to his advantage. It enables many different points of view to be appreciated and makes for easy customer relations as well as efficient work. His position, though, is somewhat unique. It's not everybody who has the opportunity or ability to slip into this particular set of shoes easily.