Jamiroquai's recent album Synkronized was the first to be recorded in frontman Jay Kay's impressive private studio. One of the album's high points, and a hit single, was 'Supersonic'. Bill Bruce talks to its producer Al Stone about how the track was recorded.
Jamiroquai's fourth album Synkronized has already gone platinum in the UK, has been number 1 in five countries, and is in the Top Ten in a further 18 countries. Formed in 1992, the band soon created a buzz on well‑respected indie label Acid Jazz, and after a massive bidding war were signed to Sony's S2 label. A well‑deserved reputation as one of the tightest and most exciting live bands on the planet ensured Jamiroquai — who now comprise frontman Jay Kay, Simon Katz (guitar), Toby Smith (keyboards), Nick Fyffe (bass), Wallace Buchannan (didgeridoo) and Derrick McKenzie (drums) — were soon a worldwide phenomenon. The band's debut album Emergency On Planet Earth sold half a million copies in the UK alone, and their second and third albums Return Of The Space Cowboy and Travelling Without Moving were even more successful.
Unlike previous albums, Synkronized was recorded entirely at the new Chillington Studio complex in Jay Kay's Buckinghamshire country house. The sheer amount of thought, planning and equipment which has gone into the studio would give many top‑flight professional studios food for thought. The house is set up so that recording can take place in any of 30 rooms, and equipment includes two Studer A827 24‑track analogue tape machines, an SSL console and heaps of desirable valve outboard gear. Digital equipment is also plentiful, and includes a well‑specified Pro Tools system.
Al Stone
The man with the enviable job of working with Jamiroquai in this dream studio is the immensely affable and easy‑going Al Stone, a long‑time friend, producer and collaborator with Jay and the band. A gregarious, friendly and modest individual, he started out as a hotel manager, but finding that he hated this job, Stone decided to try and find a new career in the music business.
Like almost everyone else he started on the ground floor, making tea and running off tape copies. Graduating to the Manor Mobile as an Assistant Engineer, he stayed with the Manor for almost two years before landing a job as Assistant Engineer at London's Townhouse Studios. He remained with Townhouse for eight years, before they were taken over by EMI. Under the expert eye of his manager Barbara Jeffries he soon moved into production.
"The engineering side of things is my first love," he adds. "Production is such a vague area — if you ask a lot of artists what a producer is, the answer is usually that they're a pain in the neck! When I was at the Townhouse it was the late '80s, so we did a lot of 12‑inch remixes, where record companies were spending absolute fortunes on white labels. Some artists started to give me a credit with production work, but moving into production is not a natural progression. From Assistant Engineer to Engineer is a natural progression, but the old‑school producers I would work with, like Steve Lillywhite or Jon Kelly, were guys who didn't come from an engineering background, but just had a great head for producing, especially for live bands. I didn't ever expect to become a producer. At the start I was lucky — the three albums which got me noticed were the Stereo MCs' Connected, then off the back of that I did Björk's Debut album with Nellee Hooper and Marius De Vries, and then with Mick Glossop did Never Loved Elvis for The Wonder Stuff. These were all albums which never sold in huge quantities, but achieved notoriety within the recording business.
"Then, of course, I met up with Jay. The first time we worked together on the Return Of The Space Cowboy record I came in near the end, just to finish it off really. We did the vocals and the mix. Then he approached me to make the next record."
The Working Relationship
"He's one of the artists who really pushes me," Al Stone insists enthusiastically, "and I like being pushed. In the studio I don't think you can ever know enough about what you're doing. I think the day Jay learns to use a console we're all going to be out of business. Once he puts his mind to something, he doesn't let up with it. I think he had always been surrounded by engineers or producers who were giving him excuses about why certain things couldn't be done the way he wanted, rather than encouraging him. From my point of view, if an artist wants to try something, then let's try it quickly and see if it's right or wrong.
These boys can just stop what they're doing and try something new in a flash and that keeps everything fresh. Nothing is ever hammered around too long.
"The main difference with this record was that there was no demo of any tune. We had five months and the 10 tracks were made from scratch in the studio. It was very much a case of saying 'Well, what will we do today? I have such and such an idea.' We'd have the drummer hanging around, and the band were breaking in a new bass player so everything was done on the fly. It made it hard for Jay because he had to write the songs in a very short space of time, when normally they might be written over a six‑month period of touring and being on the road. It was also hard because you have the pressure of having big hit records behind you. It's like, you've just sold seven million records, now go in and do even better!
"Jay's studio is one of the nicest studios I've ever worked in, sonically and kit‑wise. He's got a great live room, which sounds fantastic. The good thing about working with a band like this is that if there is any spill, it's all the same performance — spill only becomes a problem if you've got some nutty guitar part blistering everywhere, and then you have to go back and try to get rid of it only to find it's all over the drum overheads."
Recording 'Supersonic'
Unlike many contemporary bands, Jamiroquai record as an ensemble rather than laying down tracks one at a time, and the feel of the whole band is crucially important: "Jay is the main driving force, but he's surrounded by great interpreters and very competent musicians," explains Stone. "It has always been the case that the band go in and the tracks are cut as a band. It has never been, 'let's put down a drum track and then the bass over it'. They bounce an idea around in the studio for a couple of hours and then when it feels good they'll knock it into shape, try an arrangement, change it or move parts around."
Technology has an important part to play in the Jamiroquai sound but, again, the way in which they use it often differs from the norm. Al Stone explains: "For example, we'd have sampled drum sounds, but the drummer Derrick had bought a little MIDI pad kit, so he'd be playing them on his MIDI kit. It was still a performance, but with sampled sounds.
"It was a mish‑mash of performance and technology. Jay will never ever sit there while someone types numbers into a Mac. He can't do it, he'd be bored within 10 seconds, and likewise the band around him. They just don't work that way. We never have anything sequenced. For me, it keeps everything really exciting. You can be working with the bass player and drummer, and then Toby, the keyboard player, will add something. Then Jay will walk in and turn the whole thing on its head, and suddenly you're off on another trip. If you were to try that with sequencing you'd get bogged down, with 'Let me just save this, or load that'. These boys can just stop what they're doing and try something new in a flash and that keeps everything fresh. Nothing is ever hammered around too long.
"It all happens relatively quickly, and if it doesn't then the whole song is put to one side. In the past I've worked on tunes with Jay and we've put brass, strings, you name it on the track, and he'll walk in the next day and go, right, keep the drums and we'll start again!"
Some producers might find this kind of behaviour exasperating, but Stone finds it inspirational: "Whenever I've doubted him, he's always proved he was right again and again. He doesn't always have a lyric when we start work; he'll have a title for the song to give the song some kind of theme, but once he's got the tune to a point where he's happy with it then he'll concentrate more on the lyric. Jay and Toby are the main writing force; Toby'll come in with all these old analogue boxes, because he loves making mad noises. As a Rhodes player I don't think there is anyone finer."
'Supersonic' Takes Flight
This idea of the recording session as a sort of controlled jam was integral to the way 'Supersonic' evolved: "On 'Supersonic'," Al Stone explains, "we had Wallace Buchannan, the didgeridoo player, Derrick the drummer and Toby the keyboard player. Derrick was playing the kit, Toby was playing something over the top, and then Jay walked in and started adding a keyboard part, like a bass part. Then bang! The track was there. The four integral parts had begun to take shape.
"The track also had an acoustic guitar part which the guitarist Simon had been mucking about with. But we'd moved on to something else in the meantime and it kind of got forgotten about. So when we came back to it, I took a section of this acoustic part, bunged it in a sampler and mucked around with the pitch wheel to give it a bit of a twang and a bit of a flavour. Then the percussion was laid on top.
"Jay is a man very driven by what he always refers to as 'the boogie', the danceability of it all. He wanted something which was a bit harder than perhaps Jamiroquai are known for; they're usually on that funk tip. This was more club‑driven, but then in the middle there was this section where everything falls away and the song is turned almost inside out."
Drums, Bass, Guitars... Action!
With the first parts of 'Supersonic' taking shape, it was time to firm up some of those initial ideas: "That was one of the tracks where we used triggered sounds and Derrick used his MIDI kit," recalls Stone. "Then Derrick went in and added some real kit as well. The pleasure of working with someone like Derrick is that he can go in and play exactly what he's just played, but on a different kit. Sola Akingbola, the percussion player, has to be one of the best percussion players I've ever worked with — tremendous feel and power. The metallic quality in the percussion was a combination of the type of percussion instruments he uses — he likes percussion instruments which are a little unusual — and the weird filters like the Mutronics Mutator, which we tried out for the first time. We tried to get away from the vibe of Travelling Without Moving where everything was very warm and mellow. We wanted to make things brighter and to have the sounds work as an interesting aspect of the song itself, so I got to play around a lot more than I normally would be able to. We used the stairwell outside the studio as a sort of second live room. It was a live‑sounding, bright little area which brought out a different feel in the part being played by Sola."
"Recording the kit is always different," reflects Al. "Travelling Without Moving was a three‑mic job, not even close‑miked — one mic a few feet in front of the bass drum, one over the drummer's shoulder covering the hi‑hat and snare, and another to the side to cover the cymbals. A lot of the drums on that album were recorded straight to stereo, just to get a certain vibe.
"When you're involved in the production of a record you can always be directing the recording to where you want it to go. On this record, I went for more of a traditional miking, spread over seven or eight tracks. But on some of them if it was just kick, snare and hat, then I'd do a nice little balance down to mono or maybe three tracks. We also had two tracks, 'Planet Home' and 'Synkronized', which had entirely sampled sounds played in.
"The bass is always DI'd. I'm not a fan of amping a bass up. You can add a bit of warmth, but it usually ends up a bit blurry, especially for a band like Jamiroquai when the bass is integral. Also, DI'ing cuts down on spill. There would be a bass cab in the live room while the band were running through stuff, but once you'd go for a take, you'd flick the cab off and I'd take the clean feed from a DI.
With Jamiroquai, everything is done on the same desk, from the first thing I cut, from getting a balance up to the final mix. So by the time Jay does the vocal I'm a good 50 percent of the way towards the final mix.
"With the guitars, some of it was miked on a cab, some was through a little preamp or a pedal, it depended on what the part required. We didn't record tracks and tracks of guitars; Simon would lay a part down, Jay might make a few suggestions, but ultimately it was laid down from top to bottom."
Recording The Lead Vocals
Al Stone shrugs, "I'm not a big fan of any specific mic for any specific job. Even if you've got an old favourite it might be not be right every time. I think a good idea on this record was getting Jay behind a good old valve mic; we used to do vocals in the control room, with a hand‑held dynamic with the monitors as loud as you could get without feedback. Then I'd stand right back at the tape remote and he'd just perform in front of the desk.
"This time, though, I wanted to get him sounding as good as I could. He's just never been a fan of headphones, that was all it was. I actually don't mind what method he uses; I've done it every way possible — NS10s out of phase on either side while they're singing to cut down the spill, whatever the artist needs — because the have to feel comfortable to deliver. This was just the first time where he wanted to try doing something in a different way. Headphone balance is the key thing — I never set up a separate can balance, I would always give him exactly what I was hearing. The track has to be in a good shape before he can focus on the vocal.
"We used a good old AKG C12 for the vocals. If you rent three C12s, you'll find them all completely different. Valve Neumann U47s are the same: they all have a character of their own. On one of the vocal parts we added a touch of distortion; Jay went back in and did another couple of backing vocals with the distortion added, and added the 'Supersonic' sung in a harsher way. A lot of the interaction between his own vocals when you track them up against each other is entirely down to what comes out of his mouth. He's not a big one for effects on the vocals, even reverb. At the end of 'Supersonic', when the track breaks down, that effect was done purely with distortion. We actually used a Focusrite EQ for that, but don't tell Rupert Neve. You just whack up the line gain and you get an EQ for your distortion built in, so you get a nice warmth to your distortion."
At The Mix
'Organic' is the sort of word bandied around when Jamiroquai's records are discussed. It's a description Al Stone readily agrees with: "I'm not a nut for effects. Rather than have a reverb on throughout a track, I'd rather flick it on and off throughout a song in two or three places. That's what an effect should be. If it's on all the time it cancels itself out. People say I don't use a lot of reverbs, but when I do use them, I blend several. I hate the sound of something which appears to have something stuck on it, but if you can make it feel natural, then it's very effective. I'll usually have one long reverb, like a Lexicon 480, and perhaps a short one‑second reverb from a Yamaha REV7, a good old 12‑bit reverb. I also use a TC Electronic delay unit which is a really nice warm delay; you can pan it and suppress the delay until the vocal line is finished so it doesn't clutter.
"I think compression is great. It's not something I rely upon, but I love it. On the SSL you have it on every channel plus the Quad on the way out, so I guess you apply it as needed. With the vocals I may add a little compression from a Dbx 160RM, which is fantastic for vocals. It's not an excessive compression, and with someone like Jay who has such a natural dynamic in his vocals, you don't want to squeeze all the life out. I'll use a Quad compressor to help rein in those little peaks which might push things over the edge. I'll have the compression set for the bass and drums, get it punchy and vibey, then punch in the final Quad compressor till it's just tickling the peaks.
"The only piece of gear I insist on working with is actually a Quad 405 amp to drive my NS10s, 'cause they're so crap. For me, they've been a standard for so long, and everywhere you go they've got them. When I was at Townhouse we always had the Quads on the nearfields, so to me those speakers and this amp let me hear exactly what is going on. There's nothing worse then getting home, playing a mix and realising the bottom end has gone! The Quad is the only thing that drives the NS10s hard enough to bring the bottom end out on them.
"With Jamiroquai, everything is done on the same desk, from the first thing I cut, from getting a balance up to the final mix. So by the time Jay does the vocal I'm a good 50 percent of the way towards the final mix. Then it's just a case of tidying things up. The final mix takes a few hours rather than days and weeks. It's usually very light on the EQ; on the monitor mixes I'll keep the EQ flat, perhaps one delay or reverb, but it's important to keep your monitor mix clear so when you come to a final mix you can just bring things in and blend them together.
I'm not a nut for effects. Rather than have a reverb on throughout a track, I'd rather flick it on and off throughout a song in two or three places. That's what an effect should be.
"The SSL desk is the best desk in the world. Maybe I'm a bit biased because I've spent 13 years on one, but I love the ergonomics, and you can stand in front of a 72‑input console and see exactly what is going on. I know the desk inside‑out. I usually put the automation into action for muting more than anything. I'll set up a static balance first, and then when that's working well I'll play around with fades and pushing little feels or licks here or there."
Master Strokes
When asked if the final mastering process is something he takes much interest in, Al Stone nods vigorously. "I always attend the cut. There's a wonderful man called Mike Marsh at The Exchange, who cut the Jamiroquai album, and all he added was a little EQ here and there. When you're working in a place like Jay's there really shouldn't be much more to be done at the mastering stage.
"This album was the culmination of quite a few years' work, because when we first met there was always this talk of Jay getting his own studio, and now that has come to fruition. So it was a testing time in lots of ways; I had to make sure his studio was capable of doing everything that might be necessary, and to be honest, the guys who put the studio together made a fantastic job of it. I can't wait to get round to the next album!"
Analogue Heaven
"I love analogue," Al Stone is keen to emphasise. "I don't like recording drums on digital. I learned to record with analogue tape compression present, understanding that when you record onto 2‑inch tape you lose a bit of that transient and a bit of the punch that it had when you were listening on input. With digital, if you get the best signal down on multitrack you end up balancing your multitrack at the bottom of the faders on the way back, because all the transients remain. I've always printed to half‑inch when I'm mixing; all the Jamiroquai stuff is printed on half‑inch and mastered from half‑inch. The DATs are just backup. I still don't think the digital domain has got the quality and warmth.
"In the past, I've had the control track on the digital machine go out to lunch, and suddenly you've lost all your audio. If the timecode gets damaged on a piece of 2‑inch, well, bummer, but you've still got all your audio. Even with Pro Tools, I've put so much stuff into these systems and got it back with most of the bottom end gone. They are catching up though. I've also been doing some mixes for David Lynden Hall, and they were done from a RADAR machine, which is not a bad bit of clobber for a digital thing. I had used RADAR a few months ago for a band called Ether, and I was quite impressed. It has got quite a nice warmth to it, but 2‑inch still outperforms it. I think Jay feels very strongly about the sound of analogue as well. He's got two great Studer machines in the studio, so he has a 48‑track option if need be."
Didgeridoo Developments
Along with more conventional instruments such as guitars and keyboards, Jamiroquai's line‑up includes Wallace Buchannan — a didgeridoo player whose contribution is prominent in 'Supersonic'. The didgeridoo part was more heavily treated than most of the instruments: "There was a little bit of jiggery‑pokery with the Mutronics Mutator filter on the didgeridoo," explains Al Stone. "I played it down and mucked around with the Mutator, occasionally feeding the Mutator parts in and out, depending on whatever else was going on at the time. If you have a lot of stuff going on in a mix then you haven't much room for stuff like that; it just clogs everything up. Toby also had a keyboard sound which was not dissimilar to a didgeridoo, and he wanted to double‑track what Wallace had done. Wallace just has a little mic attached to the didgeridoo, which we recorded in the hallway again because it was bouncing around nicely out there. Although we have access to record in any room in the house, ironically on this record we ended up doing everything in the studio in the live room, control room or the hallway."