Readerzone: Synthfest!

Photos by David Hughes Philip Taysom (right) and studio technician Roy Harrison in Philip's converted loft studio. Philip Taysom (right) and studio technician Roy Harrison in Philip's converted loft studio.

One Christmas, when I was just three or four years old, my father took me to Fenwick's department store in Newcastle-upon-Tyne to meet Santa Claus. Fenwick's toy department is legendary because every Christmas it's crammed to the rafters with more goodies than you can shake a djembe at. Standing in the middle of that crowded room, I'd never seen so many 'must have' toys in my life. Much to my father's astonishment, I found myself absolutely speechless. Forty years later I'm standing in Philip Taysom's studio and the very same emotions come flooding back.

Walk through the front door of Philip's studio and you're immediately confronted by two Fairlight CMIs, both recently restored. To the left is a stack of three PPG Wave synthesizers and an even rarer Wavecomputer 360. "These are here because we've run out of room upstairs," says Philip with a smile. Gosh.

Studio Layout

Philip's studio is located on the first floor of a converted barn. It's an unusual design for a studio, around 35 feet in length, roughly 15 feet wide, and with steeply sloping sides. Anyone taller than five foot four is in for a stiff neck.

At the far end of the studio is the main Pro Tools console, built around a Digidesign Control 24 desk, while the right-hand side of the studio is taken up with seven keyboard bays, each with four tiers. Similarly, the left-hand side of the studio houses a huge number of synth modules. It's hard to think of a single manufacturer, past or present, who isn't represented here.

Dominating the studio is the analogue modular synth area, a semi-enclosed space accommodating, amongst others, a complete Roland System 700, a 23-module Roland System 100M, and Polyfusion, Moog and Korg semi-modulars. Finishing the square is a complete PPG setup comprising a Waveterm B, two EVUs (Expansion Voice Units), Wave 2.3 and a matching PRK FD keyboard. The main floor space is shared between a Roland V-Drum kit (modified to trigger Simmons and Dynacord analogue drums), another recently restored Fairlight Series IIx and a Synclavier 9600 'master keyboard.'

Being Boiled With so much equipment in the studio, fan noise is obviously a problem. Some of the hardware has been enclosed in cabinets, which proved brilliant at deadening the noise but equally brilliant at frying the equipment, because there was virtually no airflow inside! Philip: "Without cooling, the cabinets can get to around 42 degrees centigrade in a matter of minutes, so a set of triple-insulated doors — basically conservatory doors — were installed. The internal frames were then mounted on three blocks of neoprene separated by hardwood, so that they were acoustically isolated from the rest of the studio. Finally, 7.5 kilowatts of air conditioning were mounted under each cabinet." That sounds like a lot of cooling. Does it work? "Yes, but in summer the Synclavier cabinets still get to about 24 or 25 degrees."

Beginnings

"A mate and I had a bet that if I was able to give up smoking for a year I would buy a Minimoog — something I'd always lusted after," says Philip. During that year Philip began researching a 'wish list', because so much vintage equipment had become affordable as everyone rushed towards soft synths. Philip cites his Prophet T8 as a good example. He'd originally seen this instrument demo'd at Syco in the 1980s for around £8000, but the same machine could now be bought for around £1200.

The rear of the complex patchbays. Wiring of the studio took around 18 months in total. The rear of the complex patchbays. Wiring of the studio took around 18 months in total.

Philip continues. "In the '80s I had a lot of gear but I sold it all and thought I'd never return to owning a studio again — but in 1996 I bought a Korg 01/W Pro from a guy in Hull. It was his infectious enthusiasm that got me interested again. Then my friend Paul Gilby [brother of Ian Gilby and co-founder of SOS] taught me so much about recording and mixing, explaining the intricacies of EQ and how to construct the mix. Paul's a former lecturer with great skill in explaining complex theories — so I got free lessons from a master!"

The Korg synth was the start of something big, and now, around three years later, Philip has an astonishing array of kit. The first step in making it all accessible and usable was to solve some basic engineering problems. How, for instance, do you move something as heavy as, say, a CS80 or a DX1?

Philip found a manufacturer of shelf-runners so that moving these instruments would require no effort. The runners currently installed are rated at 400 pounds per side, so moving such a weighty keyboard is now very simple indeed and can be accomplished with little more than the push of a hand.

The next step was to maximise the available space through careful design, so a local cabinet maker, Martin Hall, was contracted to fit out the studio area with custom shelving and racks in cherry wood.

Are Friends Electric?

"The key thing I insisted on was that everything had to be cabled up," explains Philip. "I wasn't prepared to have wiring lying across the floor." The wiring solution is, indeed, very elegant and took an amazing 18 months to complete. Behind the equipment in the main rack there's another sub-rack which carries a set of plates. Everything is connected to multicore cables on these plates, which are then mounted sequentially so that, for example, slot three connects to bay three, and so on. Each sub-rack is capable of taking 12 instruments, four per keyboard bay, and there's complete flexibility as to where an instrument sits. Everything is connected — MIDI, CV, audio, digital audio — and all of the cabling goes back to three patchbay matrices in the desk: one for analogue audio, one for MIDI and one for digital audio. In addition, all of the wiring is balanced, and some provision has also been made for optical.

Even heavy keyboards such as the Oberheim 8-voice slide out from their bays easily on heavy-duty shelf runners. Even heavy keyboards such as the Oberheim 8-voice slide out from their bays easily on heavy-duty shelf runners.

Given the slightly unusual dimensions of the studio, the length of the cable runs would require some fairly novel engineering solutions. A good example is the recently installed Roland V-Synth. To drag and drop samples from a Mac over USB is fine over short distances, but in this instance, where the cable run is nearly 40 feet, USB doesn't work too well. To remedy this problem, a pair of USB extenders that utilise UTP wiring, made by Geffen in the USA, were installed. The USB connection will now work reliably over 300 feet. "An expensive but effective solution," says Philip.

I asked if there had been any major problems with the cabling system. "At the modular end we made some mistakes," responds Philip. "We designed it with everything physically in a fixed location and totally unusable. What we've now done is to build a 48-way patch-line system within the modular area so, rather than having a collection of modulars, there is now one very large modular made up of all the systems. If I want a patch of a Roland System 700 VCO filtered by the RSF Kobol, gated by a Polyfusion EG, with a final VCA stage from the Oakley modular, it's easy. The patch matrix makes that possible. There are also localised Kenton Pro 2000 interfaces — using both primary channels of CV and gate and all six aux outs — underneath each bay."

With everything up and running, the studio draws about 85 amps and a second 100-amp supply has just been installed by the local grid operator, specifically for the studio. However, they're still exceeding their limit, so negotiations for another 60- or 100-amp supply dedicated to the air-conditioning are currently under way, to provide some more headroom on the main supply. "That's going to cost between £10,000 and £20,000," explains Philip. "But it's a lot cheaper than moving to another building."

Studio diagram by Tom Flint.

With so many instruments installed in the studio, I was curious to know how they switched the instruments on and off. Philip explains. "I spent several years designing data centres, so we've applied some of the techniques I learned there to develop power-control systems inside the racks. Some really clever electricians from Spa Contracting in Harrogate came up with a brilliant solution using remote controllers. We can switch the whole lot on and off with just a key that has no current going through it, so it's completely safe.

"The next thing we have to install is a fire-control system. That's going in over the next couple of weeks. We'll get both audible and visual alarms if the mains fails in either of the cabinets. In addition, if it detects smoke, it will kill the mains locally to the cabinets and then, ultimately, to the entire studio."

Listening to a mix through the main desk, I noticed some mains hum — hardly surprising, given the number of instruments in the studio — and I wondered if there was an earthing problem somewhere. Philip explains: "This is a 450-year-old house, and we didn't realise that the whole studio was earthed off the earthing rod for the main house. An earthing rod should be, say between six feet and nine feet long. We went to investigate, pulled the earth out and only four inches came away because the rest had just rotted! Basically, we had no earth. We've had a massive job re-earthing. It's already making a difference but there's much more work to do."

Making It Work

The studio's interfacing and composition facilities are centred around Emagic's Logic and Philip makes extensive use of the Emagic Unitor 8 and AMT8 MIDI boxes, which provide up to 60 ports of 16 MIDI channels each on the studio G5 Macintosh. "I'm currently using 48 ports," adds Philip. "And we're still expanding."

The modular synth area. The modular synth area. The modular synth area.

All the MIDI sockets from each of the keyboard and rack bays are presented on a large patch matrix at the back of the desk, and short MIDI leads are used to route each instrument to a Logic MIDI port. However, many of the older instruments either have no MIDI Thru, or the Thru is highly inefficient (on some of the gear it can add a 200ms latency!). To open up some of those MIDI Thrus, a number of 8-way Thru boxes have been cascaded together. Philip admits that it's a slightly Heath-Robinson arrangement, but the cabling is all colour-coded — so, for instance, blue means a MIDI Out from the instrument, while red signifies a MIDI In. "I wish MIDI had been on a lockable connector instead of on a DIN," observes Philip. "It's so easy to come back here, brush past something and break a connection."

Philip's original choice of mixer was a Mackie CR1604, although he quickly upgraded to an Allen & Heath GS3000. "I had a look at the Mackie Digital 8-Buss but when configured with solely analogue ports that was too expensive for what it offered," says Philip. "I looked at some really silly options, such as the Amek Mozart or Big. I even toyed with the idea of a second-user SSL. Then I had a demo of a Sony Oxford and someone told me that they were developing the Oxford EQ for Pro Tools. I'd never considered Pro Tools because I'd always thought of it as a recording system and I very rarely record anything multitrack."

A demo of Pro Tools HD with a Control 24 left Philip convinced: "I actually get very little time to come up here — sometimes as little as 30 minutes a day. To work on a different idea it can take more than an hour to set up an analogue desk, re-patch the matrix and get everything ready for a session. So Pro Tools is ideal. I simply recall the session file from disk, complete with configuration."

The number of inputs available is obviously a major strength. At the moment, the installation uses 96, but the wiring is in place to extend this up to 128 inputs. Another strength is that all of the patching is in software. Philip: "For the Oberheim 8-voice synth there's a patch that adds just a tiny amount of reverb. I don't have to start patching cables to recall this, simply drag and drop it on screen. As I get more time up here we can start to deal with the really noisy stuff like the [Sequential] Pro One and the [Korg] MonoPoly and patch in a permanent gate on the relevant channel within Pro Tools for them, just to catch some of the low earth noise that you get because they're old machines."

I noticed that there are no mixing facilities in the modular area and wondered if this caused any difficulties. Philip: "While we can't edit the mix when we're down there, we can at least build up a layer of audio that we can control from up here or via the Synclavier. I've been looking at the new Digidesign eight-channel control surface and plan on trying out one in the modular area, connected via the Geffen USB extenders we've already used with the Roland V-Synth."

Monitoring duties are currently taken by Mackie HR824s and HR626s wired with a Mackie subwoofer for 5.1 monitoring, while a pair of Genelec 1029s provides localised monitoring in the modular-synth area. "I want more advanced monitoring," comments Philip. "So I've been looking at Genelec 1038s, but I really favour the Dynaudio Air 25; with the built-in DSP I can compensate for the acoustics of the room. It's an idea I really like."

Selected Gear List KEYBOARDS Alesis Andromeda Alesis Ion ARP Odyssey Mk I ARP Odyssey MK II Clavia Nord Lead Elka Synthex Fairlight CMI Mark II (x3) Fairlight CMI Mark III Gleeman Pentaphonic Hartmann Neuron Korg Karma Korg Polysix Korg PS semi-modulars (x2) Korg MS20 semi-modular (x2) Korg Triton Moog Memorymoog Moog Minimoog Moog Prodigy Moog Source Moog Voyager NED Synclavier (x2) Oberheim 8-voice Oberheim Matrix 12 Oberheim OB8 Oberheim OBXa Oberheim OB12 Octave Cat PPG EVU (x3) PPG PRK Keyboard PPG Wave 2.2 (x2) PPG Wave 2.3 (x2) PPG Waveterm (x2) Roland Jupiter 8 Roland V-Synth SCI Prophet 5 SCI Prophet 10 SCI Prophet T8 SCI Pro One Synton Syrinx Waldorf Wave Yamaha CS80 Yamaha DX1 MODULAR SYNTHESIZERS Formant Modular (43 modules) Polyfusion Modular Roland System 100M Roland System 700 MODULES Access Virus C Clavia Nord Lead 3 Clavia Nord Micro Modular Dave Smith Evolver Korg Triton Kurzweil K2000r Oberheim OBMx Novation Supernova Roland MKS30 Planet S Roland MKS80 Super Jupiter (x2) Roland JD990 Roland JP8080 Roland VariOS MISCELLANEOUS Apple Macintosh G5 computer (x3) Digidesign Control 24 control surface Digidesign Pro Tools HD system Symbolic Sound Capybara 320 DSP platform Just some of the racked-up keyboards the studio is crammed with. The keyboard bays are set up so that all the gear is readily movable and will function when plugged elsewhere. Just some of the racked-up keyboards the studio is crammed with. The keyboard bays are set up so that all the gear is readily movable and will function when plugged elsewhere. The unusual transparent Gleeman Pentaphonic synth. The unusual transparent Gleeman Pentaphonic synth.

Problems

With a project of this magnitude, I wondered if there had been any major changes or redesigns along the way. For instance, I noticed that some of the equipment is now being bolted to the walls. Philip explains: "Yes, we've run out of space already and we're now bolting stuff to the bargeboards. For instance, with the Voyetra keyboard you can play it via MIDI but it's just so much nicer to play it via the VPK keyboard, the way it was intended. So that's why the keyboard is bolted above it. And with the Virus C it makes more sense to mount it on the wall instead of taking up another 4U of rack space. Rack space really is at a premium. I suppose we could lose a keyboard bay to make way for another rack, but I'm not keen to do that."

Philip's studio technician, Roy Harrison, briefly joins the conversation. Roy: "This is certainly the biggest job I've ever done in all of my career. Every keyboard has every facility. You can pull one out and put another back in to the same space and it'll just work. And it's not just audio, it's power, MIDI In, Out and Thru and now digital audio. And all patchable too."

Philip: "Out of the thousands and thousands of cables we've dragged through here, there's only been one minor problem. It's a real testament to Roy's ability. How much cable is there in here? Somewhere between four and seven kilometres?" "Something like that," responds Roy.

Going Soft

Part of the rack synth area. Above the main racks, some gear is now bolted to the wall boards to make the most of the available space. Part of the rack synth area. Above the main racks, some gear is now bolted to the wall boards to make the most of the available space.

Only one of the studio's Apple Mac computers (mostly G5s) is dedicated to running soft synths. "I'm not keen on them," says Philip. "In my personal opinion, the only real soft synth is something like the [Soundart] Chameleon or Symbolic Sound's Kyma, running on their Capybara hardware." Philip's Chameleon is currently running a Modulus Electronics Monowave II skin, and he prefers this approach over a software package because it's a dedicated piece of hardware — unlike a PC, which is also trying to run an OS, get email, web browse, and so on — tasks which don't really mix with being a musical instrument. But while Philip doesn't like soft synths in general, he does have one or two favourite musical software applications, one of which is Ableton's Live. "As a groove tool it's superb! I can drag loops out of the Synclavier, drop them into Live and they're stretched to fit. Along the same lines, I've been playing with Melodyne recently and it's another fine tool for creativity."

Looking around the studio, I notice that there isn't much outboard equipment, and I'm surprised by Philip's explanation, given that he's just told me he's not a huge fan of software synths. "We're moving over exclusively to plug-ins for processing. As I mentioned, I've bought the Sony Oxford EQ and I didn't see much point in going from digital to analogue to digital when a software solution is available. Most outboard these days uses a DSP anyway, so I might as well do it in Pro Tools!"

Museum Or Studio?

The centrepiece of the studio is the Synclavier. Philip's machine came originally from the BBC film and TV studios in Bristol and so has all of their libraries installed. "It was used on many of the Natural History programmes, such as Life On Earth," says Philip. "This Synclavier also has the entire Lucasfilm library. In total, there's about 30GB of sound data."

The Synclavier is used as a humble MIDI master keyboard most of the time, although recently it has also been used more and more as a sequencing tool, because its sequencer provides a really good way to rough out an idea first before fully arranging it via MIDI with the rest of the studio instruments.

The venerable NED Synclavier, ex-BBC and stuffed with professional sound libraries. The venerable NED Synclavier, ex-BBC and stuffed with professional sound libraries.

Despite the fact that there's so much vintage gear in here, Philip is keen to emphasise that "this isn't a collection — it's a studio. In a collection, you would probably aim to have one of everything. But in here, for example, there isn't an EDP Wasp. That's because, personally, I don't like the sound of the Wasp. I think you can make better sounds with other devices. Everything is here for its sonic merits, not its rarity. Also, we only install instruments that are fully working, because the studio isn't a sort of storage area or a museum. Everything in the studio must be working, more or less perfectly. I'd love to bring the old Polymoog up but it's just not very reliable."

I asked if Philip's original wish list had changed significantly. "I went to the last Frankfurt Musikmesse, where I fell deeply for the Jomox SunSyn and the Vermona DRM drum synth," says Philip. "Also, I've just found a PPG System 300 modular synthesizer in France, and you have to be very opportunistic. If I don't buy it now I probably won't get the chance to buy one for perhaps another 15 years — so the car's loaded up and I'm off tomorrow! There's another couple of instruments I'm frantically trying to find, such as a Movement Drum Computer — both the Mark I and the Mark II. The Mark II featured user sampling — which is amazing for its time — but I just cannot find one."

Open to the Public?

"I designed the studio for my own use and pleasure," says Philip. "I hadn't really thought that anyone would want to use it on a commercial basis." However, word has apparently spread and Philip has recently received a number of requests from musicians keen to use his studio.

"I was blown away when people said it was pretty amazing and it should be a facility open to musicians looking for a wide sound palette," says Philip. "Now we're talking to musicians who want to come up and use the studio commercially. We're refining some guidelines about how it might be used but in general I'm really excited about the prospect."

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