The way to a musician's heart isn't necessarily lavish studios and big-budget contracts. Muswell Hill's Boogie Back Studios has more of an eve to the long-term, with producer, label and artist enjoying an equal stake in the process. Rob Green mucks in with the live crew, and discovers that small can still be beautiful...

I realise that a well-equipped studio in a slightly dodgy neighbourhood won't want to advertise the fact. But as I pushed the doorbell, I couldn't help wondering if I'd been set up. Perched over a greasy spoon cafe on the wrong side of Muswell Hill, it seemed to have more in common with a squat than a recording studio. It all turned out to be part of the Boogie Back ethos: helping to make a home from home for its musicians: fostering a homely, informal ambience. In decorative terms, Boogie Back's style might be to dress down, but as I was to discover, musically it was anything but downbeat.

Alex answered the door, and led me up to the office where Geri, receptionist and frontwoman nursed a cigarette and a coffee. The tour continued, around a makeshift scene where necessity was everywhere the mother of invention. On the first floor, a demo and rehearsal room, while across the landing, a live room complete with frayed carpet, drum kit, super-annuated Hammond, microphone stands and masking tape. The main control room was housed in the attic, with a Soundtracs PC-MIDI 24 in the centre, and countless wires and boxes radiating outwards. There was more sticky tape on show than an entire series of Blue Peter. The facilities seemed so basic that I wondered how often Boogie Back had to sub-contract work to bigger, more modern studios.

"We try and keep things in house as much as possible," Alex explained. "We've used Konk and the Greenhouse sometimes. But we've been going for about three years now, and we seldom need to do that."

Boogie Back grew out of a studio Ernie McKone (Galliano's bassist) set up with some friends. Alex then became involved, and since then has been recording constantly. He'd been at music college in Islington, where they had basic recording facilities. It was there that he learned the rudiments of the art, going on to work in studios, and eventually ending up at Sarm studios.

"I probably got into it at too tender an age, so I stopped doing it for a while, and started playing in bands again and having more fun. Then I got together with Ernie, once he had this place set up."

Galliano did most of the demos for The Plot Thickens at Boogie Back, and ended up using most of the backing tracks that Alex and his crew had recorded. Alex believes that more than the equipment, it's the people that make the difference.

"There's a buzz about this place, there's always something going on. Obviously we can't charge as much as a lot of other 24 track studios do, because it's not always ideal to peoples' visions, but you can work really well once you get used to it."

As well as working for their own label, the guys find that they have to juggle things around a bit. Last year they recorded material for Soul Jazz Records and more recently, Tongue & Groove. For multi-track recording, they generally use the old Soundcraft 760 24 track 2" tape machine. The only digital stage is the DAT mastering.

"We've done a few things with ADAT, but I wasn't particularly impressed with that," said Alex. "The tape machine isn't exactly the best in the world, but it works. It's fairly noisy, and doesn't compare to the Studers, for instance; but for the price, it's cool."

Sometimes, for mixing, they'll hire in some extra gear - a method they find preferable to visiting other studios.

"You can hire in a couple of bits of outboard gear for less than it would cost to go to a studio where you're paying £100 an hour, where you still wouldn't have that gear."

Most of Boogie Back's material is recorded live, but they can get a really clean-cut sound if they want, especially with synthesisers and samplers. Indeed, they have done totally pre-programmed work in the past.

"The thing is, when you've got everything coming from samplers and things, it's much easier to keep it clean anyway," added Alex. "It's when you've got 24 tracks of analogue tape going over the heads that you start getting the old eggs frying in the background! Once it's transferred to vinyl, however, you can't hear it anyway."

Alex prides himself on Boogie Back's careful mic positioning - a forgotten art in many of today's MIDI studios. Because Boogie Back is relatively technically limited, these skills carry more weight. Alex began recording rock and soul ten years ago, an experience which stood him in good stead for the live room at Boogie Back.

I was sure Alex would have some practical advice to offer on the subject of drum-miking. He offered a few tips.

"When we mic up drums we try to use as little as possible to achieve a 'real' drum kit sound. I'll usually use between five and eight mics on a drum kit. A lot of recording live musicians is down to the player, of course."

He extols the virtues of valve microphones, but unfortunately has only one, Neumann U67. They are, however pretty well kitted out with solid-state mics. They have a Neumann U47 and U87, three AKG C414s, three C451s, and a D112, along with two Sennheiser MD421s and that trusty old workhorse, the SM57. On an average drum kit, Alex will normally mic up the kick drum, snare, hi-hat, and use a stereo pair of overheads.

"You can get a nice stereo picture with a couple of 414s as overheads." Boogie Back also have the use of a couple of good guitar amps that belong to Oshim, the other member of the recording team.

"...most of our acts are on a more underground soul tip"

"You can get great bass sounds through the Music Man as well," adds Alex. "We have to run it out to a big speaker in the back room and mic it up from there. If your guitarist is playing well enough, you can get a great DI sound. Sometimes, however, you need to go through an amp, as it gives you extra warmth, and hides a multitude of seams. At the end of the day, it depends what you're trying to get. You can always feed a DI sound to an amp, and then back out to a speaker."

Bass virtuoso, Ernie, can contribute to sessions musically, but what are their individual roles in the day to day running of things? Most of the time, it seems to be a case of everyone simply mucking in.

"We all do everything," says Ernie. "Whoever gets out there first, does the first stuff. Everybody plays, everybody engineers, everybody does the business. Of course, I play out with Galliano in my spare time."

"It's the only way he gets paid," jokes Alex.

Ernie also plays on tracks recorded at Boogie Back sometimes, but doesn't really like hiring the studio out. He tends to feel that in doing so, they're giving away their sound. They make ends meet by working on a freelance basis.

"I see things expanding massively," says Ernie. "There's a garage out the back there, but its days are numbered!"

Up to now, Boogie Back's finances have saved them from over-investing in expensive kit. Things are looking up in '95, not just in terms of record sales, but also in studio business. "There's a lot of people coming here. We produced a couple of albums last year, and we'll probably produce a couple more this year."

In the meantime, they're getting funds together in the hope of expansion. Things are shaping up a bit like Motown Records, with studio, rehearsal room and offices, all under one roof. They may have ridden the recession, but what, I wondered had made them set up shop three years ago, when times were so tough in the studio business?

"That wasn't really the case, as we had the studio for some time before that. What set us back was paying off our hire charges. Oshim and I had wanted to set up the studio, but we had to pay back for all the gear that we'd hired." In the meantime, they were meeting so many good artists who wanted to make records with them, that they just went for it.

"We realised that to start a label, recession or no recession, would be really simple for us. One of the most expensive things about a label is production, and a lot of people wanted to make records with us, so we did it. It's easier to get credit in areas like record-pressing, so that's what we did, it was easy for us."

Ernie and Alex reminisce about the early days, when they had to hock the records around the shops. If they managed to sell 500 to 1,000 records, they'd have enough money to buy the tape for the next tracks.

"Now we use distributors, but we used to get into a situation where you'd go round the record shops and give one five, one ten, and you'd spend three months trying to get the money, because you'd go in and they'd say 'He's not in today.' And you'd go into the next one and they'd say 'I'll pay you for one.' It just got ridiculous."

Distributor or no distributor, Ernie still feels they're not reaching a wide enough audience. "Every now and again I get people phoning up and saying 'I've just discovered your label' in some weird pocket of the world, and they say 'Wow, I didn't realise this music existed,' and I wish that I could even get to ten more people in that area."

One of Boogie Back's great strengths is their access to the North London grapevine of gigging jazz and soul musicians. Showcasing their talents is very commendable, but would they ever sell out for a hit record?

"Definitely! But not in normal terms, although I wouldn't have even considered it a while ago. I would do it in a certain way. I would definitely accept financial help from someone, because it's getting to the point where we're holding things together with Sellotape upstairs to keep it all going."

1995 is set to be the year when Boogie Back try to get into as many facets of the business as possible. Not just for themselves, but for the many artists involved, whose faith and support they'd like to reward.

"We hope to get into the charts with an act called Promise," added Ernie. "We all come from the underground scene of funk and that's what we appreciate, but now we've got Promise coming from a more commercial side. Why not, why shouldn't we do it? For the moment, Boogie Back releases continue to be the province of specialist stores like Catch A Groove, Mr. Bongo, and Soul Jazz. You might stumble upon them at Our Price or HMV in the near future, but not yet. Promise will probably take us more into that territory, but most of our acts are on a more underground soul tip."

This year, Boogie Back are hoping to cross over some of their new acts into those bigger stores. They don't claim to be the best businessmen in the world, but it would seem that through sheer devotion as much as trial and error, they're getting there. They do feel that they should do as much as possible for their acts. Ernie explains:

"We have to do everything we can to help our artists, and we need to provide them with things they need to make their albums. Obviously the studio is the main thing, and admittedly it is starting to fall apart a bit! We need more gear. You can hire, but that's when production starts to get quite expensive. One of the beauties is that we can sit there and mix to our hearts' content until it's right. Some people go for doing a 12" and spending two or three grand, but if we were to do that we'd never make anything. It would be a waste of time. Here, we're able to take a few chances, which is the beauty of Boogie Back."