TRACK: Kerouac
ARTIST: Marillion
CLIENT: EMI
STUDIOS: West Side, Advision
PRODUCER: Chris Kimsey
ENGINEERS: Nick Davis, David Jacob

Having studied physics and electronics at university and played drums in a band in Reading, Nick Davis spent nine months pestering record companies for work — any work.

His persistence proved successful in 1983 when he landed a job as a tea-boy/tape op with Polygram Records at PRO Studios. He was educated in the arts of editing and digital mastering as well as miking techniques. After 18 months he moved to Air Studios as assistant engineer, where he gained more experience on a Neve console working with Zerra One and Heaven 17.

In May 1986 Davis was offered lucrative engineering work at West Side Studios, and, having recently been involved in projects with Ultravox, The Blow Monkeys, This Island Earth and Marillion, he is now freelance and managed by Inside Management based at West Side.

For the recording of Marillion's new album, Clutching At Straws, great use was made of their abilities as a live band. Guide backing tracks comprising drums, bass, guitars and keyboards were laid down.

Many of the parts were often retained because Producer Chris Kimsey and Davis opted for the fresher, live feel as opposed to the more precise, clinical sound of overdubs.

'Although with overdubs you get the most correct sound, it never has the same sort of lilt as when the tracks flow,' points out Davis. 'We didn't use any of the click tracks. Ian's a great drummer and he keeps dead in time. If he starts at 98 beats a minute and the track is meant to end at 98 beats, then he will do so. It may have ups and downs, but that's the great thing.

'Chris (Kimsey) is a great man for a song's feel. During the recording of the backing track he will listen to how it's sounding and comment accordingly. Once we've got all the sounds out it's just like he's capturing the band's performance.

'We'd always do a set up on the SSL for all the guide sounds. If a guide track was fantastic apart from one scrunch on the keyboard or whatever, we could just recall that set up and patch it up.

'We were using the Sony digital system and went 48-track, although we were always only working on 24. If they did a take that was good up to the first chorus, for example, we'd get about three or four takes and then electronic edit between two machines.

'That always wins it for me. Everybody says that 32-track is brilliant, and I agree it's fantastic, but bouncing between two machines is just such a powerful tool, as we discovered. I'd never got into electronic editing before.

'We'd rehearse a quarter-inch edit and we could go from the first chorus, bounce that all over on to a fresh tape, find another take... The machines lock up so quickly with the computerised synchroniser, so all the offsets are literally calculated for you. Press the button, rehearse a drop-in. So take one would be the first chorus, take two the middle-eight, and so on.

'We'd get four or five backing tracks down, get the sound up early morning and then just do lots of takes. Often the band would go and we'd be editing late at night, just putting it together. That was fantastic.

'Seamless joints — we could do edit after edit if we wanted to. We didn't have to drop all 24 tracks in; if there's a great guitar lick you can just find the guitar track and drop it in, still in synch if you know all the offsets. We could change the whole feel of a track just holding a piano back a few milliseconds perhaps.

'There was an obvious edit between the tracks Kerouac and Story So Far. Kerouac was composed of a few backing tracks edited together and it then went into Story with a piano break. We held that break back a few milliseconds and it left it on the brink. It sounded brilliant.'

By the time recording sessions began at West Side, the band had already rehearsed all the songs with Chris Kimsey and settled on their arrangements. The first couple of days were spent arranging mics and finding a suitable drum sound.

West Side's Studio One has a bright and live sound, so the drums were screened to stop any reflection from the back. A Neumann stereo mic was used for the overhead, along with a pair of close ambient 87s and a distant 87. 'We had the distant 87 somewhere else, and we discovered that when Fish's vocal booth — which was a long way away — was open we had a fantastic drum ambience. It was going through a Urei compressor, so we couldn't lose his mic but we duplicated it with the same compression.'

On the first day all the microphone options were connected, so instead of changing microphones, Kimsey could simply have the channels switched on the desk. All 48 inputs were used as the various choices were made.

'I always find that when you're putting overheads up, if you put one sort on the left and another sort on the right you instantly hear what sound suits the drum kit better.

'The great thing with Marillion is that they can all get good sounds, and as any engineer will tell you it's a delight to put a good sound on tape. They (Marillion) would be the first to point out that a guitar wasn't sounding quite right for a track and try to do something about it. They had roadies changing strings all the time, and that makes such a difference. The guys can really play, and the instruments are in peak condition. It was a pleasure to work with them.

'Most of Steve's guitars come out of a JC120, which has got JBL cones rather than the Roland ones, which tend to break up a bit early. For his more raunchy sounds he uses a 4 x 12 Marshall. Most of that was recorded with one 57 close to the cabinet. When a scrunchy chord is played the 57 compresses it nicely. SSL eq does not enhance heavy guitar sounds, and if you can twiddle with the amp it's a hundred times better, with the channel left flat.

'We had two 89s on the JC for stereo, one 57 on the Marshall, and for the backing tracks that was definitely all that was ever used. They were in a booth that was pretty heavily damped and quite separate, so the separation between the two was good.

'All the band wanted to be together so they could look at each other and generally catch the vibe — Steve was in a booth with his pedals so he could plop his delay and overdrives in. He's got a little SDE3000 on his rack. We started off using radio transmitters as they do on stage, but we found they really depressed the signal. For an album it's nice to have a bit of dynamic around.

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'Pete, the bassist, generally used his Status. Status's normally have a lot of treble, but his is actually quite bassy and punchy. That was into a little Peavey. We started with a big Peavey stack, but I generally find that small bass amps record better than big ones.

'Ian's got a huge drum kit with about nine toms. We ended up with 421s — shock, horror around the engineering world — on the first four, and then 84s on the lower ones, making those sound a bit more orchestral and not quite so clacky; a real timpani feel to them.

'We'd have a 57 or an 84 on the snare, depending on what we wanted — the 57 gave a tighter, more compressed sound and the 84 made it a bit more expansive. Kerouac and S'lange both used the 84. There was a little Schoeps on the hi-hat, and 47s in the bass drums after trying D12s and RE20s. After that, all the keyboards were DI'd.'

So, for Kerouac the backing track comprised bass, drums, guitar and keyboards — an RD1000 electric piano and a Super Jupiter. A valve 47 microphone was used for Fish's vocals, done in a booth, with some trusty stocking as a pop-shield. By the end of the day's recording four takes were in the cans along with a couple of guide vocals and the lead-in to S'lange N'var.

Chris and Nick were more than pleased with the beginning, middle-eight and outro, so they locked the Sony machines together, bounced the start over and dropped-in the middle-eight, outro and piano break.

At the time of recording the guide vocal the lyrics had not been properly written. The middle-eight section as recorded by Fish, however, was considered unsurpassable and was retained while the rest of the performance was discarded.

The following day, with the piano break providing the correct tempo, the band embarked on recording the backing track for the song it segued into — S'lange N'var (Story So Far) — in much the same way as for the previous track.

'We did all the edits on to the multitrack, so when the overdubs came if the tracks were edited together they could flow over. They were edited at the recording stage, not the mixing stage.'

All the backing tracks for the album were recorded live and then work started on the overdubbed parts.

'The studio has a Bosendorfer piano with MIDI, so if there's a piano involved on a track it is quite often a Bosendorfer lead with maybe a tinkly or stringy synth in the background. We also kept lots of the Roland RD1000 digital piano.

'On Kerouac we then had somebody from EMI playing a Scottish doctor telling Fish to stop drinking. You know, "If you don't stop drinking, you'll die by the age of 30..."

'All the guide parts for this track were kept and just patched up. With the bass, for instance, we'd do another run with the same sound, and we'd either get a better take or just drop-in and bounce across the bits that were dodgy. This was the same for all the instruments.

'All the keyboards were moved into the control room for overdubbing. Guitars were also played from there. We'd keep all the amps in their booths as well as the bass, and we'd run long leads from them. I've always found a long guitar lead preferable to going through any hole in the wall, even the best holes in the wall.

'An EMU 2 was hired and we popped in quite a few sounds from that, which were then MIDI'd up. We used the Akai S900 quite a lot, especially for voices — we had some very nice voice samples.

'Strings came from the EMU, backed up with a bit of DX7 for some crunch at the front, and at the beginning of Kerouac there are even some ice cubes out of an EMU sample! A pop, some ice cubes and a pouring bottle, taken from three samples. We tried doing it lots of times with all the tracking, and it never sounded quite right, so we started the track and just solo'd the parts on before it went into the vocal, and it turned out really well.

'Steve overdubbed some really ethereal slide guitar — not the country and western sort — with lots of repeat on it and long delays and that added to the general atmosphere.

'For vocals, three or four tracks were saved at the end of the day for run-throughs and these were bounced down late at night or early the next morning.'

S'lange N'var is a much heavier track recorded in the same fashion as Kerouac, but with more overdubs and guitar parts.

'The beginning and outro doubled with a very fat sound coming from a JC120. The edit between the two tracks was a tough one, with Kerouac dying away, some piano and then wallop. The great thing about digital is that there is no hiss, you've no idea what's coming next and then whack!

'On S'lange we MIDI'd some Bosendorfer and electric piano, and there's a fantastic Super Jupiter part on the third verse. Some E-bow was added to give an ethereal feel. This was combined in the middle eight with some bell sounds from an old PPG. We used PCM 70 on the stereo flange and lots of long delays feeding back to themselves. This gives tinkles on one side, then tinkles on the other and back again. That's great for people wearing headphones. There are also some little harpsichord stabs which came from an EMU.'

A fresh set of engineering ears have been employed for the mix at Advision, and the first single to be released from the album is Incommunicado. This song was very successful when played live, but very difficult to capture on tape.

Ultimately, instead of being too meticulous when they played it in the studio, the band just thrashed the backing track out while Nick gave the sound more ambience. A further problem with the track was that, when recorded, several gaps became apparent, so overdubs had to be played to fill it out; some chunky guitar work, Hammond and Moog solos.

The vocal on this song was quite fast and pitched fairly high, but as with all the other vocals on the album, Fish sipped his beer, drew in on his cigarette and coped manfully.

'He did a fantastic vocal on S'lange N'var,' says Davis. 'There was one high scream that I don't think he'll ever be able to reproduce live. It just sort of popped out, he said "Oh no!" afterwards, and all I can say to him is good luck on stage!'