Following January's 'At Home in the Studio' article, Ben Duncan brings us up to date on the Adam Asiz saga, and Adam comments on the latest equipment.

How did gigging with your flightcased studio turn out?

I realised at an early stage that it wasn't practical to use the Fostex 250 live. It's unnecessarily fragile, and didn't have enough channels or auxiliaries. I'd also decided that rather than using the 250's playback facility, it was more satisfactory to mixdown in stereo onto metal tape. For this purpose, I acquired an Aurex with two motors, and illuminated transport status buttons.

The green 'Play' light is a godsend on dark stages, when you've just partaken of refreshment between numbers, and can't remember whether the next track is running or not. Besides providing the remote, which is vital to stage work, it had the old Adres noise reduction system, which proved a good antidote to high power tape hiss.

How did you sync yourself to the cassette backing tracks?

That wasn't a problem. If you adopt a standard of about five seconds, between tracks, it's amazing how accurate you become with the aid of a remote, and visible transport status controls. The Korg SDD3000 also proved excellent on stage, due to the remote pedals which let me flick through the memories.

To replace the 250's mixer, I chose the Seck 6:2. I had the cue send converted to a second auxiliary, which gave me both delay and reverb on each channel. Despite its low cost, I found the Seck reliable, and it's one of the only small, budget mixers to have a tough case.

Why did you decided to dispense with the front-of-house PA after a few gigs?

"...the musician has a greater range of choices than ever before, from the immense voicing capabilities offered by MIDI and the range of expression offered by an acoustic instrument."

I found it was rarely needed, because so many venues are either too big, or already have a PA, and it's a large amount of space to use up, especially when I found that the Sentry 100A monitors that I'd purchased from Shuttlesound did everything I needed as far as studio monitoring was concerned. By now the whole kit was condensed to one flightcase, a touring leads case that also contained the sax and flutes, my stage backdrop, plus the mini-Turbo monitors, and a couple of mic stands, all of which fits into the back of a Mini Countryman with only minimal persuasion.

As far as reliability goes, one of the Turbo monitors's tweeters died, (I still suspect someone poured beer down it) and the bulb on the Accessit compressor/limiter's VU expired. That's not bad for a couple of hundred outings.

Why was your reliability record so good?

The answer is to check everything thoroughly before you start. Stage fright plays havoc with logic, and once the gig's underway, you're on your own.

Technology

My managerial back-up during the tour proved inadequate. It's impossible to manage yourself whilst permanently on tour, and consequently difficult to capitalise on your efforts. With this in mind, my interest in future technology prompted me to take a breather after 18 months, so early in 85, I decided to get into record production, programming and engineering. I'd had a passionate flirtation with one of the first DX7s and a Drumulator, two years earlier which had been cut tragically short, due to the talents of yet another manager. Now I found myself disastrously ill, having caught the Fairlight virus off Paul Samuelson, a friend who had opened his own MIDI-based studio: Sam Therapy.

In what way is Sam Therapy MIDI-equipped?

The Fairlight has a MIDI update, with which it's possible to send four independent chains of MIDI information, each with 16 MIDI assignments to bring together a whole bank of synths. They've also got both the Fostex 4050 Autolocator, and the 4035 Synchroniser and controller. This means you can access tape to sequencers or drum machines via the MIDI-SMPTE interface or have a 45-track set-up (with 3 synced B16 slaves!), driven by the SMPTE code on a video. The different combinations of this capability are amazing. The only query lies with the Fostex pre-production manual, which has only been half-translated from the Japanese.

How do you operate these new Fostex SRC 'stomping' units?

"I think conceptually married audio-visual product is obviously the future."

The units at Sam Therapy were one of the first. Certain aspects of the software have been updated since then by Dave Whittaker: Turnkey's hi-tech man. Consequently, whilst I've been using them, items such as the speed of tape transport search out and locate, have improved by leaps and bounds. Though as yet, they don't seem to have ironed out the auto-record software glitches.

What are these?

It just doesn't work, basically. However, their syncing abilities have been remarkably good, when linked up to a bargain German SRC 'klone', the Bokse US-8 Universal Clock. Then I've had the Fairlight, tape and the RX11 running concurrently, with precision. The Fairlight's SMPTE capability is somewhat patchy, as it seems only able to take a mean average at the beginning of a track, from the stripe, and then reverts to internal sync. For example, while the sequence is running, if you switch off the tape machine, the CMI happily burbles on. I found it handy with the US-8's 196-clock output. It'll be nice when Fairlight and Yamaha (with the notable exception, so I hear, of the budget RX21) catch up with the Linn 9000 in the MIDI song-pointer capability, or a true SMPTE stop-start facility. You can run sequencers from the middle of the track, from a tape sync, and all the machines will know where they are. But all in all, these pre-release Fostex devices are excellent, and at the present rate of update, they'll have it together in a very few months time.

How do you feel about the recent rapid increase in musical instrument technology?

I feel strongly that the musician has a greater range of choices than ever before, from the immense voicing capabilities offered by MIDI and the range of expression offered by an acoustic instrument. The current ability of different manufacturer's machines to talk comprehensibly amongst one another is very satisfying, and exciting. The other day I found myself at Gorilla Studios, leaping up and down with enthusiasm, brandishing a pair of drum sticks and beating out tribal messages on a Roland Octapad! I'd MIDI connected this to an Emu SP12 sampling drum machine, which was loaded with everyday sounds recorded on a Yamaha AQ1 sequencer. At last, MIDI seemed to be bearing fruit, with touch sensitivity included! There's just a couple of problems with the QX1: after having become accustomed to the flexibility of the Fairlight, the Yamaha's inability to copy individual segments from bank to bank, and it's inability to respond to MIDI song-pointer information is very disappointing in a machine that otherwise possesses great power.

So what are you involved with at the moment?

I'm about to mix the soundtrack of an audio-visual production with Glenn Clarke.

Are you serious about this movie business?

I think conceptually married audiovisual product is obviously the future. Bonko (Glenn Clarke) started Step Out Productions a couple of years ago, to produce independent, cost-effective promos, biased towards the artist, not the record company. Then, after he burst in on Muriel Gray's intercut while she was presenting The Tube live, he found he'd trodden on a few establishment toes. After this he decided not to work for other people any longer, but to direct and star in his own videos, and consequently needed a musical partner.

Other than 'don't all rush to burst in on The Tube', have you any other advice to up and coming producers?

Don't do it! If I can put them off, then they haven't the commitment needed to give luck enough time to give them a chance.