Robin Millar, producer of Sade and Everything But The Girl, explains now ne gets light and shade from every kind of acoustic instrument.

Robin Millar is best known for his production work with Sade. This was the break Millar needed, having set up his own studio, Power Plant, in north London, and having taken an acoustic stand against the mechanisation all around him at the beginning of 1983.

His view was that the synth/drum-machine approach was stagnating, that good songs and singers using real instruments would become fashionable again, and that the key to the producer's art was the capturing of a performance. Some people even called him "the acoustic Trevor Horn" as his success began.

"I don't know where that came from, but it's stuck," he says in an evening break during a session with Everything But The Girl. "I'm never quite sure what they mean — either that I'm having the same success but with acoustic instruments as opposed to synths, or that I'm the most startling in my context.

"Never understood it — but I prefer it to the sort of title I was being given a year and a bit ago when I was doing Pale Fountains and had done Weekend, where people seemed to think I was a hack Radio 2 arranger dragged out and dusted off to bring a sort of 1950s credibility to some young bands. People who met me then were shocked to find I wasn't 55 years old. Fortunately that's gone now."

Indeed it has. Incidentally, Millar is under the impression that his supposed opposite number, Trevor Horn, is brilliant, and reckons that making records as good as Horn does with so many people with so little talent is obviously not the work of a one-hit wonder.

"I was impressed by what he did with Dollar," admits Millar, "having heard them before and after, and I've been pretty impressed by what he's managed to do with Frankie, considering what they've got."

But back (and forward) to acoustic instruments, and we launch more specific requests for the Millar techniques for getting those tricky air-moving sounds on to tape in a realistic fashion. Just how does he and engineer Mike Pela, who work as a distinct team at the Power Plant, make pianos sound like pianos, voices like real people singing, and saxophones breathe and glow and bellow?

Just before the detail, Millar points out, accurately enough, that each and every track and session and person and instrument is different and should be treated as such. And that players and recordists really ought to get out of the habit of trying to make everyone sound the same and conform to what they perceive as the fab, current, "correct" sound on various instruments.

"People don't listen enough. What sort of sound comes out of their instrument? What is special and eccentric and interesting about how they play? I believe people should cultivate their eccentricities on record. It's the things that people do that are different which are interesting, not the things that they do that are the same as everyone else."

And with that firmly in mind, into the, specifics.

ACOUSTIC GUITAR

The main instrument used at the Power Plant is a modified Ovation — the mods being an added equaliser and, surprisingly given Millar's hatred of the devices, a compressor. It's recorded straight and DId and, reportedly, sounds wonderful.

"It was a little bit too clear and clanky before," Millar remembers, "and not quite as even as they said it was. The eq takes a bit of presence out of it, lessens its emphasis at 6k, and the compressor, which is very, very mild, just flattens it off again so that all the strings come out at the same level — the G-string was very quiet."

Of course many other guitars are miked up at Power Plant, but the Ovation is a favourite. For example, on the Everything But The Girl sessions underway at the time of the interview, a 1960s Hofner cello-bodied acoustic was the target for the resident pencil mike, near the bridge. For classical guitar they use a close mike, usually a Neumann valve 67 or 47, and a PZM mike on the wall of the studio. "And I never use those revolting stick-on things."

Millar's favourite: Everything But The Girl "Spice Of Life".

UPRIGHT BASS

Millar's consistent miking technique for the often unwieldy upright bass was learnt from an African player, and involves wrapping a Neumann U87 mike in foam and wedging it between the strings and the body at the point where the strings slope downwards, beyond the bridge.

"Switch the mike to figure-of-eight configuration, so that one part of the figure-of-eight is facing the strings and the other half the body — with that you get phase cancellation of the low bass. You get definition without that low rumble which mikes hate and which they all pick up at the expense of everything else."

Millar's favourites: Everything But The Girl "Mine", but especially "Tender Blue" (a little amp mixed in too, with a hint of chorus).

DRUMS

Everyone likes — and wants — a different drum sound. But Millar's first thought is to keep the overhead mikes high above the kit.

"If you put the overheads too low you get something I hate, a phasing when the cymbal moves discernibly closer and further away from the close mike. If a mike is eight feet above the cymbal, however, you're not going to get any unpleasant effect when the cymbal moves seven or eight inches on its axis."

He occasionally puts a mike on the hi-hat, but almost invariably ends up not using it — there's enough spill from elsewhere. And if the hi-hat mike is used, the sound has to be trimmed anyway to stop the cymbals sounding like saucepans being banged together.

For bass drum, Millar often uses an AKG D12 inside the drum, with a Neumann U47 just to its side or even just outside the drum. The AKG will give the thwack of the skin, while the warmer 47 catches the woodenness of the drum, the "clump" of the sound. For a good snare sound, he often gets the studio drummer to use Millar's own Gretsch drum.

"The golden rule for getting a good cracking snare is that you've got to have a good snare drum. If the bloke comes in and says, 'This snare drum sounds great live,' then immediately cast it from the studio. It almost always sounds absolutely dreadful in the studio.

"Forty per cent of the problem with the snare drum is the way the drummer's hitting it. Generally they're not hitting it hard enough. Young drummers have this tendency to lose interest in one of their drums when they start getting busy on something else. You have to say look, there's a back-beat going all the way through that needs to continue steadily. They must hit the snare consistently hard and in the same place — even if it means drawing a cross on the snare drum with a magic marker so they hit the same place each time."

Drums ringing and rattling when other drums are hit can cause worry for the separation-conscious engineer. Most solutions to the problem involve damping the drums, which kills their real sound. Or you can ignore the noises and let everything rattle away. Millar will often overdub toms after the rest of the kit has been recorded in order to stop excessive snare rattle.

He'll also often overdub crash cymbals if the drummer insists on missing out beats from an insistent hi-hat pattern every time the crash is struck. More interesting, however, is his guide to getting the correct sounds from the overall kit.

"My test for a good snare drum sound is that when you turn it up it should hurt the teeth just at the back and top of your mouth. If it causes you slight pain in the upper jaw, just in front of the ear, it's doing exactly the right thing. It's just hurting your ears it's too bright and brash. If it's hurting your stomach it's too woofy and woolly.

"Bass drums should hurt you at exactly the point where your ribs meet above your stomach. If it hurts your lower stomach it's too woofy, and if it hurts your head it's too clacky. If you think how drums are laid out, when you listen to them on tape you should get the impression that the bass drum was a foot and a half from the snare drum, as a matter of feeling."

Millar's favourites: Sade "Sally" — on the main chorus there is bass drum, followed by snare, followed by two toms, so Millar operated his overdubbed-toms technique to stop the snare rattling: the track needed space and richness in the drum part.

PERCUSSION

For the engineer, the better the percussion player the fewer the problems. And percussionists work best when they're doing as much as possible, figures Millar. So he gets percussionists to do as much in one pass as they feel is right, rather than taking the traditional route of tracking-up instrument by instrument. Most people do this to appease the great god of Separation, with a mind to rolling bottom off the conga, compressing most things, using their new expensive long delay on the tambourine, and eq-ing the cowbell to go "dunk" instead of "dink".

Millar's argument against this is that all the feel is lost, and anyway he wants the instruments to sound like they were being played by a skilled, excited musician in one room. Precise time is not important either, he says — most African players, for example, will bunch up in mid-bar and slack off at the end. While this would offend Linn-worshippers it does have the encouraging effect of pushing the track along and getting audiences' feet tapping and bodies moving.

"I very, very rarely use close mikes on percussion. With most percussion instruments it's the airborne sound after its travelled a certain distance that is pleasing to the ear. If you put your ear right up to a percussion instrument you'll get a lot of the initial attack and presence, but you'll miss the transients and what happens a split second after. Most people try to bring that out with compression — less of the brack and more of the whish — but of course that's unreal, because that isn't what's actually happening."

Engineers should walk around the room more when percussionists are warming up, suggests Millar, and familiarise themselves with a miking distance that works for the overall sound. "A mike is at its best when it's simply trying to do what your ears are trying to do, and at its worst when it's trying to do something different. So use your ears."

Millar's favourites: Congas (one instrument where he agrees with the majority and records it separately): Sade "Why Can't We Live Together". General percussion: Forthcoming Working Week LP, a few tracks from Everything But The Girl "Eden", and Sade "Red Eye", the last version of "Smooth Operator" with seven people in the studio playing percussion simultaneously.

PIANO

Ah piano, the most difficult instrument to record. "Not at all," counters Millar.

He uses two Neumann 84s at right angles to one another, over the hammers in the middle of the strings, pointing down and away from one another, If you were sitting at the keyboard playing, you'd see two mikes pointing toward you, forming a shape like a bird's wings up in the air, the undersides facing you. The mikes are set like this, not quite touching each other, the piano lid is closed, and the piano moved to a relatively dead part of the studio — with so many harmonics in the piano's sound anyway, the last thing you want is a live area to make things even trickier.

Another mike is set up three or four feet away and used if it sounds good. And what shouldn't you do? Of course.

"Whatever you do, don't compress the piano. It's the most revolting noise. I heard the beginning of that Slade record ('All Join Hands' on the radio today, it's absolutely fucking dreadful. That is how not to make a piano sound — how to destroy it."

Millar's favourites: Kane Gang "Take This Train". Sade "Love Affair With Life".

SAXOPHONE

This is a difficult one, admits Millar. Generally, saxes are badly recorded, he feels, with most records managing to give the impression that the saxist wasn't breathing. As you may have guessed that horrible compression machine is used by other engineers and producers a lot, and while you might imagine that this would enhance the breathing at the beginning and the end of the note, it doesn't.

"Because players are breathing while they're playing too," explains Millar. "There's a natural ebb and flow, it's not just like a vacuum cleaner. A compressor strips all the tone out of any instrument you put through it, mostly, and with saxes and other instruments it's like playing against a glass screen."

The sax industry standard seems to be the Selmer Mk VI, against which Millar would put up a standard cardioid mike about 8in to a foot away from the player, and a second mike a couple of feet away and higher up — sound comes from the sax in a sweep, but it ultimately goes upward. The high mike also picks up breathing (from the mouth) and key sounds.

Like piano, saxes throw around twangy reflections in a live part of the studio, so Millar opts for a dead section, but makes the player stand on a 6ft by 8ft wooden board which adds a crispness to the mids and highs. A third mike, "miles away", traces ambience for later space.

As he'll do with many instruments, Millar tends to ride the faders as the sax player gives his or her performance, becoming in some ways a kind of live mix engineer a few steps removed.

"You have to make some compromises to get things down on tape in any sensible form," he says, "but your creativity and ear come in when you ride mp and down on the fader as people are playing, so you're not saturating the tape, not putting too much into distortion, but you're keeping as much as you can of the dynamic shape of the sounds."

Millar's favourites: Sade "Sally", but particularly "Frankie's First Affair".

TRUMPET

"Horrible instrument, I hate the sound. But I love flugelhorns, they're wonderful. So I always try to get the bloke to bring his flugelhorn instead."

Flugelhorn safely swapped for trumpet, a valve mic in front does the trick at the Power Plant. That's about it, really.

Millar's favourite: Everything But The Girl "Tender Blue" — Dick Pearce's performance provoked "lots of rounds of applause" in the studio at the time.

ENSEMBLE BRASS

Much the same system is used by Millar as for recording saxophone, with close, distant and ambient mikes set up for the pair of players, and then a single mike system each which is used more for balance between the instruments than individual sound-sourcing. He goes for a warmer sound on sections rather than the more prevalent piercing brass sound, which he politely refers to as "nasty".

Millar's favourites: Everything But The Girl "Each And Every One". Working Week "Bottom End".

VOCALS

If he had to recommend one overall vocal mike, Millar would select a Neumann U87. He wouldn't be alone in such a choice. Steely Dan once referred to "some very expensive German microphones" on an LP sleeve note: these were Neumanns, and the "very expensive" tag can be understood when you see that the current RRP for a U87 is around £650.

But the real trick is to match the particular microphone needed to a certain vocalist's style and inflections.

In fact, it's completely wrong to set up your standard vocal mike and let everyone use it, says Millar. Especially not AKG 414s, in his experience. Using those, he finds everyone sounds the same. What advice, then?

If someone has aggression, attack and natural depth in their voice, a dynamic mike will suit the job, especially a fairly rudimentary type like the old faithful Shure SM58 or 57.

If the voice in question has less punch, but is rich and reasonably mellow, then perhaps he'll use a Neumann valve 67, which will bring those qualities out and retain the definition and clarity.

And for what we might call the pretty crappy voice, there's the extremely pricey U87. "That mike tends to grab whatever's going on and get hold of it."

Backing vocals? "If you want them warm and not too airy, then I quite like the long, thin Sennheisers with the ball on the end. Use PZMs when you do want them airy. And if you want that wispy, airy, Dollary sound, record them Dolby'd and play them back without.

"Try not to compress — again! — and learn the part and ride the vocal while they're recording. There's a great difference between pulling a fader down 10dB when someone reaches for a high note than compressing it 10dB. If you compress it, it'll sound like someone's stuck an ice-cream in their mouth, or reached behind them with a garotte and suddenly hauled them off the microphone."

He's also found a good way around many vocalists' desire to eat their microphone when they're singing. He'll choose the mike he really wants to use and put it at the optimum six- to eight-inch distance from the singer, and then give them a Shure to gobble. They get the Shure in the headphones, too. So both tape machine and performer get what they like best.

"And I never use a pop-shield. I use a 15 denier stocking stretched over a piece of coat hanger on a mike stand. It cuts down the velocity of the air coming out the singer's mouth, byt acoustically it's totally transparent. Foam is not. That transparency is critical that high up on vocals, whereas on, say, bass it doesn't matter to wrap the mike in foam."

Millar's favourites: Sade "Love Affair With Life". Everything But The Girl "Tender Blue", "Soft Touch", but especially "Fascination" (on this Millar was chasing the Ss out of Tracey's sibilant vocal as she sang by flicking an eq knob set at about 10 or 11k and with a very narrow Q).

So much for the individuals. Lastly, the whole picture. If Millar's working with a group of, typically, seven, eight or nine musicians, he keeps the ambient mikes static for the entire session. Individual musicians are then placed within that ambient stage as they do their individual parts; close and distant miking is arranged as we've seen for the instruments, but the ambient mikes are always providing their information too.

In this way each instrument's ambient position is relatively clearly defined, and there is very little feeling of clutter in the final mix. This is more efficient, suggests Millar, than "just bunging the ambience program on your AMS on everything". The difference, he says, is phenomenal. Listen to the records. "People say I work well with space. It's true."