Bud Tunick has been Nile's production manager for two years, since meeting him through keyboardist Rob Sabino, who did nearly all the Chic sessions.

"For the first year that I was working with Nile I handled all the production stuff alone, but we began accumulating so much equipment that it got to be too much for one person. Besides that, I do contracting for Nile, which means I get to hire – and fire, as the need may be (laughs) – musicians. That's no fun; I happened to have to do a lot of that on Mick Jagger's record, hiring and firing people I've admired and respected since I was a kid, and it was no picnic.

"I also handle a lot of business and administrative work for Nile. Kevin and I both screen tapes from publishers, keep in contact with them, make sure the musicians get paid, that kind of thing – a lot of it is paper work. I'm also the liaison with the record companies and handle all Nile's press relations.

"What we have here at Skyline is a fairly unique situation, a lock-out which means we have the studio five days a week, 24 hours a day. We base the billing on monthly time periods. So basically we're here the year round; it's a great studio to work at because it's a one-studio operation and nobody else is here. The reason we decided to shift from the Power Station to Skyline was mainly that Nile likes to work some long hours; he gets a lot more done that way. At the Power Station we were pretty much forced into doing the 11 to 7 session, and you know how things can get to cooking around the fifth or sixth hour – before you know it you're watching the clock, and then you're out of there (laughs). We tried to work out a lock-out situation there, and we were able to every now and then, but not permanently. So we ended up here, which is perfect. It allows Nile the freedom to come and go as he pleases and to spend as many hours as he wants to on a project, and gives the artist that much more time as well. It's worked out really well, except for the fact that we work some really long hours (laughs).

"One of the things I really respect is that he's not afraid to experiment; he just does things, and somehow he knows they're gonna work. He also makes really quick decisions about what he wants; it's why we can make records so quickly. My job is basically to try to anticipate things for him, because he's so focused on what's going on in the studio with whatever artist happens to be in here that that's really where his attention should be. I just try to take all the other weight and pressure off him, even down to some aspects of his personal life, so he can keep it that way. Just come to the studio, do your job, and we'll take care of the rest."

Jimmy Bralower has been Nile's electronic-drum man for almost three years.

"Nile and I work together because of the communication between us; he likes being able to communicate his ideas without having to get inside the machine and tech stuff. Back when I started doing this, there was no rule book written for drum programming, so whatever formulas I have for putting together songs I developed mostly with him.

"We've evolved a working system of sorts, but it's a procedure that's not so airtight that we fall into traps. I'll come in and listen to the demo tapes, format the songs and hook up some grooves. If there's something on there that's really special, we'll start with that, and I'll program that as the basis.

"Once I have the song fairly well locked together, he'll come in and we'll really tighten it up.

"The basic rule is that we streamline. Sometimes he may sit at the keyboard and jam along with me in the machine, and I'll be trying different things and recording in the machine until we find a sweet spot.

"As the song changes from section to section, there might be different nuances in the program but it'll be working off a common-denominator groove. I'll add fills and things, then we'll lay it down on tape.

"Since I've been working with the Linn 9000 over the last year or so, with its built-in sequencer, we've been laying synth parts into the drum machine along with the drums, so now we can gauge the whole rhythm track. Put a bass, maybe a keyboard pad in, and suddenly we can hear the drums against some music rather than by themselves. It makes it a lot hipper for me, because I like to treat my machine as an instrument, not a computer. I'll jam with whatever music there is to jam with, whether Nile's playing live or in the machine, so I can try and get something that feels alive, rather than just real linear stuff.

"Usually whatever I put down stays down as it is. The great thing about Nile is that what some people think of as mistakes or things that don't work, he tends to use to his advantage. What happens that way is that you wind up getting parts you never would have thought of by essentially capitalising on what wasn't supposed to be; suddenly it becomes part of the arrangement. And if all the other parts are working off the so-called mistake, it becomes a viable part of the record – sometimes the most magical part.

Take Dancing On The Jagged Edge by Sister Sledge. I was screwing around with that once I had the beat, writing fills that were really out just for fun. And so, when I laid down the program, after about five minutes' worth of track, when the chorus was fading, I punched up another program to delineate that this one was done and it turned out to be this ridiculous fill that wound up being incorporated into the track as well as becoming the ending. It came out of nowhere, had nothing to do with the song, but it was cool. It worked, so we said, 'Let's use it.'

"Nile's always ready to capitalise on inspiration, so to speak, which gives you the feeling that you can be as creative as you want to be – he gives everybody loads of rope. And creativity is an easy commodity to come by on his sessions; he sets that up, it's the environment. He allows you the freedom to screw up. He also has the amazing ability to make instant decisions without seeming like he's even contemplating them. He understands that if you take too long with any particular item you run the risk of losing the spontaneity. Especially, with electronics – it's real easy to fall into that sameness, that contrived kind of sound. We try to get the machines to help us be creative; if you have an idea, the machine can remember it, even if you can only play it once. So we try to let those accidents happen."

James Farber has been Nile's recording and mixing engineer for the last 1½ years, since working with the producer on Mick Jagger's She's The Boss.

"Nile likes to work with an engineer who can handle everything technical so he doesn't have to think about that, and can just make music and produce. He usually doesn't have to tell me too much, he doesn't want to get too technical about my side of things. I just go for what I hear and he trusts that.

"The technology really helps us along. Everything we do is digital: the Sony digital multitrack can be programmed to punch-in and punch-out to the millisecond. That way you can avoid that little click or lip noise in the middle of a word, say, which you can never do on a regular tape recorder. Also, we use the Synclavier to do a lot of sampling, so basically we can rearrange a lot of the vocal parts after the singers leave. They only have to get one really good chorus, and then we can take the vamp and put down a whole bunch of different ideas, sample them into the Synclavier, and then put them back where we want them. That way you're not wasting anybody's time, nobody's getting tired or bored.

"When we mix on a 24-track song, which most of our stuff is, it usually takes about a day per song – it's easy to mix, because Nile arranges everything so well. I do most of it: I'll start on it around noon, then after dinner I'll call him up and say, 'Come on in', and we'll finish it up together. That way he listens with fresh ears. Sometimes he'll say, 'That's it, just put an eighth-note delay on the guitar in the bridge and we'll have it;' or, 'Bring the lead vocal up a touch more in the second verse' – that kind of thing. Other times he'll say, 'Maybe we should go for a more aggressive drum sound on this one,' so we'll spend some time revamping it that way. But for the most part I get a lot of freedom. I also get to add a lot musically because Nile plays almost all the instruments on the sessions, so I'm the extra set of ears: and once in a while, when there's a keyboard part that requires a little extra technique in the pinky area, I'll play the line.

"As far as the studio setup, we have an SSS4000 with 48 inputs, a great sounding control room with speakers based on a Urei design, two EMT140 plates and a 140 gold foil which sound really good, the Quantec Room Simulator, the AMS reverb, the Yamaha Rev 7, and the Lexicon 224X. So we're pretty well set for those kinds of effects. Sometimes I'll set up a speaker and mikes out in the lounge area here or the vestibule, which are both very live, and use that for loud, trashy ambience.

"Being all-digital presents mostly advantages. If you're recording a song and you like the sound you're getting, that's it, whereas on an analogue tape you'd have to add some treble in the mix because it wears away. Of course, the fact that it's noiseless is probably digital's biggest feature. There are some disadvantages, which I don't even think about any more. You can't shuttle the tape as easily, because you have to punch in a number and locate. And the analogue sound isn't as bright, so for some songs I like that sound better; it's punchier on the bottom, and everything kind of mushes together.

"As far as microphones go, we use them mostly for vocals and guitar – everything else is direct, unless it's live. I usually use Shures or Sennheisers on a drum kit, and AKG condensers on the overhead to the cymbals. For guitars I usually stick to Shures. Obviously the microphone choice is most important for the vocals, and for that I always have the lead vocalist sing it through a couple of times and test out a handful of mikes. Nile has a tube 47 which is exceptional and often ends up as the choice, but it depends on the singer, sometimes it's a 414, an 87, a 67, or sometimes a dynamic, like a 57 or 58."

Kevin Jones, is one of Nile's two production managers; his area of specialisation is the Synclavier and other keyboards, in addition to MIDI-ing things up as required.

"Basically, I take care of the Synclavier, which I program. I also take care of the guitar inventory, make sure that everything's functioning and accessible. We've been trying to get together some kind of little production room, so that we can have artists for the production company come in here and knock tracks down. We also use it to do piano sequences and keyboard pads, loading them into the Synclavier here and then taking the Synclavier into the studio, where it just spews everything out.

"So what we've got in this room is the Synclavier state-of-the-art system, polyphonic, totally MIDI-ed and synced-up via SMPTE; around 35 guitars, ranging from vintage Gibsons to new Tokais; a Juno 60; a Casio 5000; a Casio CZ-101; a Prophet 500; a Kurzweil; a Triac two-track digital recorder; and the Akai MG 1212.

"I find MIDI works fine if you use judgement on how many keyboards you need to use. If you're conservative and use just what you really need, two or three things MIDI-ed together, that's more than sufficient. If you use a greater number of keyboards, you start losing the whole reason behind doing it anyway; it just becomes a mishmash of sounds which you could probably achieve on one keyboard, if you thought about it. But the combinations you can get are endless. I mean, I don't want to be Rick Wakeman and conquer the world (laughs).

"Between Budd (Tunick) and myself, we also schedule the musicians if it's a live session. Nile's starting to get a taste for live drumming again, so that's the basic tracks, and at that point, pads – keyboard pads – will be required. Some of the sequencing is done in here. We'll lay a click track down. Nile will put the chords in for maybe a verse, a chorus and a bridge, and I'll fix it to go in the correct spaces.

"Eventually the whole sequence is spewed out. I may change sounds or timbres, make the sequences out of one. That's the great beauty of it, you can do anything you want. Then we can just run that back in sync with the Linn.

"It's hard to describe exactly how I work with Nile, because it's spur-of-the-moment. He'll say, I want some string sounds, or a heart-attack sound, or a long-decay sound; there's a library of about 1,500 sounds we can access. I mean, we have dog barks, flutes, horns, violins, pieces of Nile's guitar, a gunshot. So the best I can do is come vicinity, and he'll weed out what he doesn't want.

"The set up in the studio is usually something like this: we decode SMPTE through an SBX-80 box, which then will give us a pulse that the Synclavier can decode and divide into quarter-notes, eighth-notes, 16th notes, and so on. We usually use the Synclavier as the master keyboard, because it's a beautiful keyboard. The greatest combination is probably the Synclavier and the CZ-101, which is quite a difference – $180,000 and $200 (laughs). But it sounds great. The Synclavier lacks harsh attack sounds, it's a very pretty instrument; it doesn't have the heavy attack textures you get with a Yamaha ora Casio. The Casio is very sharp-sounding, which together with the Synclavier creates a more interesting sound.