PRODUCER: Ian Ritchie/Zeus B Held
ARTIST: Pete Wylie
TRACK: Sinful

This recent chart success is a very modern record, for two reasons. One of course is its Philip Glass-style middle eight: very Avant-Garde for the Top 40. The other reason is the way it was recorded. And I don't mean the technology.

Most of the credit for Sinful's success must go to Ian Ritchie, one-time sax player with Deaf School, latterly an arranger and Fairlight Programmer of increasing renown. Sinful is his first outing as name Producer. It is also not entirely his own work. But let's start at the beginning...

"We met through Pete's record company. He played me three eight-track demos he'd done, and explained his idea of using 'systems music' in them, at which stage it was all still conceptual. So we talked, and I convinced him that I could do it on machines. I think that's why he said yes...

"We went into Octave Hire's programming suite in Wapping. It's in a warehouse, which makes a change from the usual boxy studios. I set up a Fairlight, Linn 2, Emu 2, DX7, JP8, and my Umi sequencer, and started trying to get Pete's ideas out of his head. We had one day per song..

"I was using Page R as a structural map, working out arrangements, since Pete's style is to play everything all the way from start to finish! I used a Fairlight sample as a guide vocal, put down a rough drum pattern, and got the bass part tight with both of them, based on his demos. This left a big hole in the middle of the song.

"Then I worked out the simulated Philip Glass on the Emu 2... Pete meanwhile tried out his guitar parts, and drank lots of tea. With the programming finished, we had a rough sketch of the song, arranged like the final version but with different sounds, and without vocals or guitar.

"We then went into Odyssey 2, and spent half a day checking the SMPTE code was in sync with the machines and so on, before running all the programmed stuff to tape as a guide — about 16 or 17 tracks' worth, along with a guide vocal from Pete. A vocal sample is alright for a melody line, but doesn't contain all the frequencies a real voice has. Chris Sheldon, my engineer, began replacing the Linndrums with AMS'ed samples — I wanted a precise, cracky sound, to give me space for adding big echoes in the final mix.

"We spent the rest of the week replacing the sounds of the other programmed parts with more complex ones. The bass on the finished track is a combination of Fairlight Muff Bass, which is a bit weak in the bottom end, and Roland SH101, which has a tight, punchy sound... We also got a great aggressive sound by recording Pete playing feedbacky guitar more or less in tune with the song, and then gating it from a fast DX7 trigger.

"With everything programmed, the track springs fully-fledged from the machines. You'll never walk in on me to find just a bass drum going... I like working with blends of sounds, all the tracks in various states of repair, all at once. As a result, I decided early on to go to 48-track."

How did Ian approach the vocals?:

"I believe in acclimatising the vocalist to the track, getting them to put down guides as we go... I went through an elaborate process with Pete, trying various mikes — we settled on an AKG 414, which brought out the cut in his voice — and monitoring set ups. His gut feeling was to monitor over speakers, almost a PA situation, but we were getting too much spill, despite close miking. I, ah, persuaded him headphones would be just as good. Out of the 10 vocal tracks we had by then I assembled a composite, ultimate vocal, using the SSL's computer mixing to switch through them. The only alternative would've been a real mix to slave, bounced back in. This way saved a generation of tape — which is important for vocals."

The vocals were all recorded clean, in Odyssey's usual booth: "I believe you should get vocals the way you want before you go to tape — Eq'ing afterwards can raise sibilance, all sorts of problems. I don't go for effects on voice either, except a little reverb — I like intimacy, with as little between vocalist and listener as possible. The same with rooms — obviously, a very large room, like Sarm's Studio 1, makes a difference. The biggest thing, though, is how the vocalist feels. If they feel good, they sing good. I try to make the environment conducive to that."

Most of the backing vocals are Pete, though session singer Josie Jones doubled up some parts on the chorus. Again, Ian's skill as an arranger was deployed. Two-track instrumental slave mixes freed 22 tracks for vocals...

"We tracked them up extensively, 4 or 5 voices per harmony, so that with the artist out of the room, I could actually create new vocal arrangements as I mixed to ½" — we ended up with six tracks of stereo vocals to be spun back into the master — a big 48-track!"

Another major component was the guitars, again mixed 'n' matched to create one composite:

"12-string straight into the desk, Les Paul and Mesa Boogie miked, Roland Jazz chorus — we ended up with six or seven tracks, mostly loose, some very structured... textural things, like the Les Paul parts to fit the choruses... the solo was 12-string with distortion, I think — to tell you the truth, I'm not quite sure what ended up where, but it sounded good!"

At this point, with the song running to eight minutes, Ian felt it was complete. Pete, however, had different ideas:

"He's very creative, but a little disorganised, and now that he could see the whole picture, began to think of it as a starting point for a new, wacky track. We started to drift apart."

With record company approval, Pete took copies of the 48-track master to prospective new producers. The version he liked best was Zeus B Held's — a man with a history of successful dance-orientated 7 and 12"s to his name. He picks up the story:

"It was a bit of a rush job, you know? The record company called me on Monday night, and wanted it finished by Thursday. Odyssey was booked, so we went to Britannia Row, which also has an SSL, and worked on it non stop for three days. I really liked the systems piece, but Pete wanted to keep his guitar solo. So we compromised — I cut the solo in half, and tried to put the essence of the systems part, which at the time was 32 bars long, into four. I felt the track was overproduced, with strings running across vocals, a cello doubling the systems section — so I stripped it down, which meant that the drum fills ended up in the wrong place. So I AMS'ed the best tom roll, and spun it in to the new locations... I replaced the bass drum and snare with samples of my own, triggered from my TR808, and shifted back a couple of milliseconds to give a more natural attack. The 808 was also triggering gates on some of the background keyboards, to add a more rhythmic feel, and I added in straight 808 claps too. Extra effects went on the guitar, including backwards reverb. The sequencer line was split onto two faders and drastically re-Eq'ed, compressing one heavily, giving the other space, so that it could provide rhythm and bass. I used PCM 70 and Lexicon 224X reverbs to open up the track. For the 12", I just extended the process, stripping down the counter melodies, emphasising the groove. You know, remixing is a funny thing... it can mean re-recording something, or just sitting down and listening. I did both."

And what does Ian Ritchie think of the result?

"Well, there's things on there I'd rather not have, but Pete made his decision, and that's always the client's prerogative. It sounds okay. It's — effective."

It's Sinful.