Credit lists

RivFest 2017

• Vision mixer & live broadcast engineer - Working for Maximo Park, Billy Bragg and Eliza and the bear

North-West Cancer Research   

• Mix Engineer - new advert aired on national TV

BBC Introducing

• Mix Engineer -  ZuZu 
• Mix Engineer - Aleks Grey 

Festa Italiana Manchester

• Live Sound Engineer - 3-day festival   

Simple Pixels

• Executive Producer - Please Take the Next Left
• Ariel Cinematographer - Trafficked

Avision Films  

• Boom Operator - NAM 
• Boom Operator - Tellin' Dad, starring Carl Loughlin and Ricky Tomlinson 

MCM Comicon - London - Manchester - Liverpool  

• Boom Operator - 3-day shoot
• Self-shooting video/audio unit - 2 days
• Editor and Audio Engineer - official feature-length documentary premiered at MCM London to over 1000 people 
• Official press photographer - 3 Years  

Henry Gallagher - Brittan's Got Talent   

• Recording Engineer for audition video, aired on ITV1 primetime
• Producer - Lightning   

Sound (NightClub) - Liverpool

• Live sound engineer - 25+ shows

Paul Nilson Jnr  

• Assistant producer - working alongside Cornelius Mims & Jonte Wilkins

Amber J  

• Producer - Back to life  

Dr!ftWood

• Producer - Live session 

Tom Pitts

• Producer - debut single, Bobby B   

The Open Eye Galery

• Recording engineer - David Braid, double Academy Award winner

Grange Farm Country Store  

• Videographer   
• Social media marketing

ViolinAround  

• Producer & Sound Engineer for debut EP  
• Videographer for latest single, Eleanor Rigby  
• Videographer for various social media video releases. 

Winstanley TV  

• Mugged Off (6 episodes) - Broadcast Engineer   
• The Film Show (12 episodes) - Broadcast Engineer   
• Trivia Mania (6 episodes) - Broadcast Engineer   
• Winstanley News (2 seasons - 50+ episodes) - Broadcast Engineer 
• Winstanley Live Lounge (6 episodes) - Executive Producer   

Winstanley College Productions

• ‘The Big Music Show’ 5 - Live Sound Engineer (5 days), Mixing & mastering of recorded Tracks.
• ‘The Big Music Show’ 6 - Stage Manager (5 days)   
• Multiphony 2013 - Live Sound Engineer    
• Multiphony 2014 - Broadcast Engineer   
• Winbalm (30+ shows - Weekly over a 2 year period) - Live Sound Engineer

Performer credits  

• Footloose (Actor - Tenor - 8 shows) - Ren 
• We Will Rock You - Ensemble
• Soloist (Baritone) - Regional choir, performing around Europe
• Stick It To MS - Drummer, Guinness World record
• Little shop of horrors (Actor - Baritone) -  Bernstein
• Bwaaah - Bassist   
• Above The Apex - Rythum Guitar  
• Session Guitar/Piano - Tochina Roberts, Shannon Gillespie, Tarken Basaka  
• Winbalm (5 shows)

Liberty Sound, a case study

Liberty Sound, a case study 

The music Industry is changing, with shrinking music production budgets and the gap between the audio engineer and music producer become narrower to the point that they are to becoming the same person. This coupled with the falling cost of studio gear as well as more and more bands attempting to produce their own music, some would argue that now is the worst point in recent times to open a music recording studio.  Others, however, would say that for this reason, it is the perfect time for younger engineers to offer their services.  Low initial outgoings on equipment, virtually no maintenance required and with the drastic gains in quality over home recordings,  small studios can offer the younger musician at shot at the limelight.  This is the philosophy that Liberty Sound Ltd was formed on.  

Opened by Mark Barron, Helen Canon and myself, Liberty Sound Ltd was formed in early 2015 after the closure of 21:12 Music Community CIC where we formally worked.

Liberty Sound Ltd is a rehearsal and recording studio in the heart of Wigan, UK.  They offer an extensive range of music related services including rehearsal room rental on both a monthly and hourly rate, “professional” recordings, music tuition as well as mixing and mastering services.  Liberty Sound Ltd markets its services towards younger musicians and people of lower incomes.  They do this by offering low prices and low-cost weekly finance deals.  This is one of the main reasons behind their slogan, “Free the music”, implying that music should be accessible to everyone no matter the budget.    This is reflected in Liberty sound’s wide customer bases from solo jazz drummers to new national pop stars, Liberty sound offers services to many different markets, increasing it’s profit margins.  

As a founder and former director of Liberty sound, reflecting on how it does business has allowed me to evaluate its strengths and weaknesses, taking these into consideration will allow me to not make the same mistakes in my future career. whilst the skills I gained at liberty were invaluable, they have expanded drastically from the practical experience and taught lessons that have been made available to me from SAE Institute. This study has reinforced the plan laid out in my personal development plan, going into this changing industry at an entry level point wouldn’t be a sensible business move as I wouldn’t have the cash flow nor enough personal exposure to create a secure and sustainable brand.

ViolinAround

https://www.facebook.com/violinaround

Sample video

Studio-2-U (Business proposal)

Mixing

Mixing the track

The recording and editing process

The recording and editing process

I started tracking with the guide track, I used a minimalist microphone setup, compromising only on a Rode NT2A for vocals, placed around 6 to 10 inches in front of the artists mouth, raised up to 2 inches pointing down slightly, I ran this into channel 12 of the Audient.  I also took the unbalanced output directly from her electro-acoustic guitar unplugged it into the tie-line the studio wall box, when is arrived in Patchbay, I placed the unbalanced signal into an external D I box.  From there used a female XLR to Male TRS to patch the signal into the MPA tube preamplifier, where I applied +48 V phantom power, an impedance boost, and a high-pass filter at hundred and 120Hz.  Taking the MPA output, I patched it into the VLA analog compressor and applied some gentle compression with the ratio of 3 to 1 and high threshold. I used a moderate attack and slow release as this was just to even out the performance. From here they patched the signal into channel 13 of the Audient ASP 4816

Next, I tracked the drum, for this I used a 8 mic setup including kick snare two tom miss, a Glynn johns and an ORTF stereo mic setup.  I chose this setup as it would give me independent controls of key functions of the kit whilst still giving me natural sounding overheads with a very wide stereo spread, making it sound like you were immersed in the kit. I used the audio technical 4750 with the dynamic head as I wanted more bass response and less high end on the kick and placed it in the centre about an inch from the skin.  For the snare I went for a different possession than most which on the day sounded very good, however in the edit I noticed I had severe bleed from the kick.  I placed an SM57 at the side of the snare, 4” from the drum itself, raised about 6” then pointed at the centre of the skin, giving me a very crisp sound from the snare, less punchy than usual.  on both toms, I used a clip on Samson  QTom pointed at the rims, this was just to pick up the attack of the toms as I was planning to use the overheads for the main body and tone.  



Glynn Johns / ORFT

Following this I got Matt to track the bass, with an extremely simple setup, plug the bass jack into the instrument  jack slot on the Focusrite ISA pre, from there I applied a gentle EQ and Compression to a get a nice clean tone with smooth dynamics on the way in to speed up the mixing process later. On hearing the track as it sounds now I am considering re-amping the bass with a light bit of distortion or I may just use sans amp in protocols…

In the following session, Jonny came down to the studio to track acoustic guitar.  I placed an ORFT stereo pair in the room covering the guitar and getting a large proportion of the room noise too.  I also took a DI output from the guitar and patched it into to the MPA tube preamplifier a high pass filter at hundred and 80Hz.  I then patched into the VLA analog compressor and applied some gentle compression with the ratio of 2 to 1 and high threshold. I used a moderate attack and slow release as this was just to even out the performance.

When my string quartette let me down I decided to use MIDI strings just I had planned to with the piano, I found a score online and the worked out an arrangement on my piano at home, before recording inputting it into ProTools via the USB keyboard. I used air instruments, the default set that comes with ProTools to find a simple string sound, then exported the part as a stereo wave file before importing it back into the session and onto the desk.     

Next, I tracked the Vocals, I used a basic microphone setup of only on a Rode NT2A, placed around 6 to 10 inches in front of Shannon’s mouth, raised up to 2 inches pointing down slightly, I patched the signal into the MPA tube preamplifier, where I applied +48 V phantom power, an impedance boost, and a high-pass filter at hundred and 120Hz.  Taking the MPA output, I patched it into the VLA analog compressor and applied some compression with the ratio of 2 to 1 and high threshold. I used a moderate attack and moderate release as this was just to even out the performance.