First came the indie label revolution; now even small labels are being upstaged by a new breed of production studio which releases and promotes its artists as well as recording them. Phil Strongman enjoys the fresh approach of Mint Jam...

Club and independent radio DJs nowadays receive as many as 90 new dance releases a week. They literally can't listen to them all — if your white label 12" gets 20 seconds you're lucky — so if you're going to have any kind of chance, you need something different. Maybe that's why Mint Jam Studios has started to become something of a Mecca for dance specialists, with youngsters and veterans alike seeking out this cosy north London studio. The end result of a long-standing friendship between nightclubber Mark Hailey and guitarist Ray Flowers, necessity proved the mother of Mint Jam...

"I was in my late twenties, had been playing guitar for fifteen years and it suddenly struck me that I didn't want to still be playing pubs for £30 a night when I was 40, still getting demo tapes returned unplayed. I'd already learned a bit about studio tech, both from my little 4-track and from when I was doing proper studio sessions for people like the Warner Chappell music library.

"So when I heard that Turnkey were selling off some nearly-new stuff, I got together with Mark (we were flatmates then). Between us we sold everything we had, and begged, stole and borrowed to raise about £9,000. With that we grabbed a Fostex E16 half inch recorder, a 16-channel desk, one old sampler, some even older keyboards and a short lease on some workshop space. That was two years ago. We were kinda launching in the midst of a recession, but we're still here! And with a lot more equipment than we started with."

The latter includes Shure and Neumann mics rigged up in the 210 square foot live area, Drawmer compressors and a variety of effects nestling in a rack. All sources are handled by a Soundcraft Spirit Studio 24-channel desk, while the ageing sampler has been replaced by some Akai S1000s (loaded with 10 Mb and 24 Mb). Sequencing and synchronisation is taken care of by an Atari 1040 ST and Unitor II SRC, with Cubase Version 3 and C-Lab software. For those who still like to scratch and mix live, there are a couple of Technics turntables and a box of styli (I hope!). As you'd expect, mastering is usually done to DAT (Sony DTC1000 and DTC-750) while a hard disk option is waiting in the wings (well, its box) as I write.

Equipment alone doesn't make a successful recording studio, of course. The vibe and personnel also have to be right, which is where the Mint Jam philosophy, 'Maximise Human Resources', comes into its own. Mark explains:

"We have a network of engineers, three or four we use all the time and others we call up as and when we need them. The point is to match the engineer to the client — it saves a lot of time if, say, a rap artist is going for a certain sound, and the engineer instantly knows what he's talking about. That's much better than some bored guy saying 'Sorry guv, dunno what you mean, I'm not into that stuff at all.'"

Partner Ray is not averse to putting in the odd hour or ten himself behind the desk.

"I like to engineer at least once or twice a week because it keeps me in touch with what's happening, clients getting ideas off me and vice versa. It's fun too, well, most of the time (laughs). I think that the engineers we use like it here too — well, they keep coming back.

"We're upgrading all the time. With the Atari Falcon and Cubase Audio software, we'll have an 8 track digital facility, so we're effectively becoming a 24 track, and with the one gigabyte hard disk drive we've got digital editing too. But, as one of our engineers recently pointed out, one of the areas where we really score is the simple basics that sometimes get forgotten. Like having a good range of keyboards. We've got a Roland D70, Ensoniq SQ1, Juno 106, Hammond XB2 and Leslie 145, amongst others."

Music may well be the food of lurrve, but even musos have to eat. Ray is able to minister to every taste.

"There's an excellent cafe in the building that caters for vegetarians and vegans, plus off-street parking, and of course we can always get hold of quality musicians to help out on stuff."

The latter often come in handy with some of the younger elements using the studio. Session musicians are worth their weight in gold to Ray.

"If an indie single flops it could be bad distribution, lack of radio play, a lazy plugger, whatever. If an EMI single flops, then it's simply because it's unwanted crap..."

"A helluva lot of house music youth are very good with computers but they can't play an instrument at all, and when they start going for more traditional sounds it helps to have people around who really know what they're doing. Plus, I think that songs themselves seem to be returning, whether it's as pure soul or something more dancey — things are swinging toward proper arrangements again. That's why a lot of bands are using computers and real instruments live on stage, and that's a blend we're well used to here."

The combination seems to be working. Recent clients have included producer Brian Chucknu and rap-master Tim Westwood, General Levy, Commanche Park, Smiley Culture, dance chart band Hysterix, the rhythm section of Saxon, the South African government, the ANC Choir and — on the audio-visual side of things — Mohammed Ali junior, Children's ITV and McDonalds (bet they enjoyed the vegan cafe!).

The A/V side of things were given consideration from the beginning, with Ray installing video tie-lines for a sound-to-picture option.

"It's a market we couldn't ignore, it's growing all the time, what with cable, satellite, video and all that. There's more TV stations than ever before, so it seemed sensible to cater for them in some way."

The A/V work also helps subsidise the Mint Jam record label, as Ray explains.

"The reason we launched the label last year was simple frustration — we used to hear so many good tracks that never got released that we thought 'Sod it! Let's just put it out, even if it doesn't sell millions, let's just do it." So we did. Everything we've done has been small scale, pressing up two or three thousand white labels and a few hundred CDs, and shifting them over a month or two. We've done well in the dance charts, but we haven't really got much near the Top 40 yet, mainly because it's so hard to get daytime radio play.

"The EMIs of this world have got things pretty much sewn up. If an indie single flops it could be bad distribution, lack of radio play, a lazy plugger, whatever. If an EMI single flops, then it's simply because it's unwanted crap. Also distributors do almost everything on sale-or-return, so there isn't that much incentive for them to push stuff. Luckily, the people we're with now, Pinnacle, have a strong telesales team, who try and drum up sales in advance. We'd love to cross over into the charts with every release, but we'd settle for a couple of minor hits, because then we could pick up some foreign licensing deals. Now they can be lucrative."

Not that dosh is the be-all-and-end-all for the Mint Jam lads. Sessions start from a very reasonable £12 an hour, including an experienced engineer, while the dynamic duo themselves host a weekly session for unemployed locals.

"We do that with Haringey Council, it's about encouraging kids to construct their own songs and learn about studio technology. We're currently trying to expand this a little, but our main problem, as with everything, is finding the time to fit it all in."

With their kind of sonically and socially aware attitudes, the lads deserve to keep busy — maybe even make a mint — in the coming years.

Mint Jam Studios, (Contact Details).

The next Mint Jam release is a January 1995 single by acid-jazz Hunkers LAND OF NOD.