Beatfarm Studios is the workplace of Marco Perry and Dave Clayton, currently a hot production team on the R&B and dance scene. Rob Green delves into their colourful pasts, and admires a studio in which old resides harmoniously with new...

As the brains behind Beatfarm studios, Marco Perry and Dave Clayton have an impressive portfolio of writing, remixing and production credits. They've also built up one of London's most popular and influential studios on the dance and R&B scene. Having completed its refurbishment, the duo are looking to get back on track and branch out into other areas of the music industry. They want to increase their own output, incorporate other artists, and make full use of their impressive facility.

"Now we're opening ourselves to the public really," says Dave. "We'd like the industry to commission us, rather than just be doing our own projects. I'd love to be in there all the time making music with Dave," complains Marco, "but being practical, you can't realise that unless you can afford it."

Back at Dave's place, however, they've got a little project studio to work with. It's here that they please themselves, mixing newer technology like Notator on Atari and Digidesign Session 8 with older, analogue gear. Here, Marco still records everything to tape. It might sound old fashioned, but in the hands of an expert, it can be used to great effect. Marco puts his technique in a historical context:

"The first thing you learned as a tape-op back in 1976 was how many sugars people took, and how to line up a tape machine. We didn't have schools then, and all we learned about was how to use microphones. I started off as a rock and roll engineer and I followed music all the way. Dance, R&B, Jazz, it's all music to me."

Marco is especially pleased about the Jungle scene. Sub-bass is where he's at! With a 500 litre sub-bass cab on the floor behind the mixing desk. Beatfarm's low-end is breathtaking. Marco designed it with Peter Keller from Encore Sound. "When it came back, we couldn't wait to try it. We tested it in open air — the best conditions for the process. At 18Hz and 110dBspl, the cone excursion was 2.5". That's seriously low!"

Apart from that, they opted for two 18" JBL units, re-designing the cabinets to accommodate them. Bass response is always a bone of contention, but most of Beatfarm's dance customers can never get enough.

"If you've got a lot of bass in the mix, you're going to hear it. I've pink-noised that room from 20Hz to 20kHz."

Marco is no slacker when it comes to sound. He used spectrum analysis and his finely tuned ears to ascertain the wall reflections. That room is now totally flat, and coupled with his self-designed speaker system, the monitoring in there is pretty much full-on. There's no shortage of EQing at Beatfarm, with 18 outboard channels. The mixer is intentionally simple, to allow foolproof mixing when different artists visit. It's a fairly basic Soundcraft 6000 mixer, but it has the EQ facilities needed to produce the desired effect. At the end of the day, that's the most important thing. Neves are Marco's favourite mixers, but it must be remembered that he comes from a traditional engineering background of big, workhorse mixers.

For a low-budget, quality mixer, they both rate the popular 8-bus Mackie range. Indeed, they have one back at their production suite.

"I find the Mackies better on EQ than the SSLs," says Dave. "We can do everything in Beatfarm. We've got plenty of outboard EQ, and masses of other technology."

A talented and celebrated session keyboard player, Dave Clayton has played and toured with U2, ABC, George Michael, Marc Almond, and Paul McCartney to name but a few. He is also an acting member of Bomb The Bass. It may seem a million miles from the aforementioned crew, but it's a tribute to his skill and versatility.

He also has a massive collection of vintage and modern synths. Instead of buying them as fashion accessories (as is so often the case), he's collected slowly over the years since the beginning. All of this old technology has come to be valued in recent years, and is always used to full capacity by Dave and Marco.

"I sometimes work with analogue sequencers — System 700, ARP and MC-4," says Dave. "Sometimes I'll link it with digital. For me, Notator Logic on Atari is the one."

Dave swears by the Atari Notator's sequencing abilities over both the Mac version and Cubase. I wondered why?

"I've got Mac Emagic Notator, and it just doesn't sync up as well. On the Mac system, it has to use a Studio 4 Opcode as the MIDI matrix, which makes the MIDI seem looser."

They recently did a track for Shara Nelson with Logic Audio on a Mac. "We were recording live tracks as well as MIDI, and it felt a bit 'lumpy'. When we transferred the MIDI information to Atari Notator, somehow it sounded much tighter and funkier."

"No-one asks us for Macs. We've made the Atari system as good as it can get with a 170Meg hard-drive."

Before the time of Notator, Dave used Doctor T, who made a system called X'OR, which was a state-of-the-art keyboard editor.

"It was well ahead of its time," says Dave. "Getting the updates is difficult, and Doctor T has fallen behind in the sequencing market. It's a minority thing now. I do like Cubase too, but again, it's not tight enough for me. Notator is tighter and funkier."

"Notator is more of a musician's thing than a modern songwriter's tool."

Dave mostly likes to record a whole keyboard line into his sequencer at once, although he sometimes uses rigid patterns.

"When I record an entire performance into Cubase, I'll play it back and it doesn't sound the same," he adds. "Notator gives me back what I play, generally. For some music, the rigidity of Cubase is perfect. I've spoken to C-Lab about the Mac thing and told them it's not as good, and they almost admitted it!"

Marco reckons that their studio has one of the most powerful sequencing set-ups you could ask for.

"No-one asks us for Macs. We've made the Atari system as good as it can get with a 170Meg hard-drive. System Solutions is the company we go to. They are the best, and no-one else seems to be able to deal with your Atari problems. They've cornered the market now."

Dave believes that technology has got ahead of itself, and not kept the fundamentals in mind.

"MIDI is only a translation. People are amazed at the feel I can add to a track on Atari Notator."

"There are so many of us waiting for the next step," interrupts Marco, "I could have put a Mac system in but a lot of people don't want it. Ataris may be good for another two years or more."

All of this computer technology is a far cry from Marco's beginnings. In 1976, he worked for Ian Gillan of Deep Purple. Over the years, he has worked in many a studio, from here to California. In 1982, he went out to San Francisco and found himself working on the Doobie Brothers' farewell tour, and also toured with his own band up and down the west coast.

In '85, he moved back to London and was signed as an artist to Island records... but was left in the lurch after an A&R reshuffle. It was then that he met Dave. The studio started because he had some equipment which he set up in the basement of a junk shop.

"We started off with an 8-track, a microphone, a couple of monitors, and a Yamaha R1000 mono digital reverb unit with four presets — that was the big effect!"

They then decided to start their own label, arranging distribution through Rough Trade.

"We did our first single and there were great reviews, but Rough Trade went bust the week we released it," says Dave. "All their assets were seized, and we lost our first single because of that. At least it led us to set up Beatfarm recordings."

"We did our first single and there were great reviews, but Rough Trade went bust the week we released it."

They had had a chart position of around 55 on pre-sales alone. Dave claims that in those days, in fact as little as five years ago, you could build on that position.

"Now, if you don't get in the top forty you're fucked, really," adds Dave. "It's taken a long time, but now we're just starting to recoup what we lost. It was a terrible time."

Dave trained as a metallurgist in Sheffield. At 25, he was playing keyboard by night in the city's Fiesta club.

"Some of my friends had gone professional in London and were saying 'Come on, London's where it's at!'" When the steel strike hit in 1981, British Steel offered Dave a job in Teeside, which he declined, mainly for political reasons.

Being something of a militant at the time, he would go picketing. "If I wasn't picketing until the afternoon, I'd go down to Carlsbro Sound, grab a keyboard and jam on it. Dave Palmer (now drummer with Rod Stewart and previously The The) came in one day, introduced himself and said 'That sounds great! Do you play in a band?' I answered 'Yeah, I play at the Fiesta.' Then he told me his band was looking for a keyboard player, and did I fancy an audition?"

After satisfying Dave of his musical talent, the pair of them sunk enough pints to realise they had the necessary rapport. They had a month's worth of gigs lined up in Europe, and Dave managed to obtain voluntary redundancy, providing him with enough equipment to last them 18 months. So he bought his first synth — a Jupiter 8, on the strength of which he secured a lot of session work around Sheffield.

After being with ABC on a world tour, he moved to London, where he found an agent who felt she could sell him on the ABC connection. He had had classical training as a kid to Grade 8, but found that he liked improvising too much. Therefore he was much more suited to the pop/rock industry, and from there he went on to work with an array of prestigious names.

Marco and Dave have been working on their own project for a few years now. Known as Pressure Zone, it's mainly a dance/R&B tip. Infamous London DJ and rave scene originator Danny Rampling was one of the first people to work with them on that project. Many of their dance influences at the time came from visiting clubs like Schoom and more recently, the Ministry of Sound.

"The hands in the air stuff with big bass influences us," Marco intones enthusiastically. "We fuse a jazz-funk sound into a late 80's deep house sound."

The duo have recently found themselves a male New York singer for whom they have great hopes, called Lance T Briggs. Marco describes him as being in the Robert Owens vein.

"The guy's got great tone. That's what I look for when recording a singer. He's brimming with enthusiasm and attitude. His pitch may not be quite right and his timing subtly off, but the point is his vibe and his tone."

In the studio, the three bounce ideas off each other, and when recording, Marco finds that it's best to put down as many tracks as possible.

"It's a case of putting down a lot of vocal tracks, and then sieving out the weaker ones and going with the best. This guy is just exploding with enthusiasm for life. If you can capture that vibe, it makes it all worthwhile."

At the moment, Marco and Dave are looking for new talent to spread to the world and get involved with their own projects. On this note, Dave had a final word to say...

"What we're saying to record companies is, if they've got any good new artists they want to try out, we're interested. We're mainly looking for someone on an R&B tip, but the main thing is, they've got to have some soul."

Beatfarm boasts a live room, a very impressive equipment list, and reasonable rates to boot! If you would like to book some time, or hire the services of Marco and Dave, contact the Beatfarm office on: (Contact Details).