SOUND ON SOUND
The latest crop of dance-specific sound modules are a bad thing, both for pop in general and dance music in particular, says SOS Contributor and self-confessed 'cynical old hippy' Norman Fay.
If you want to make a living as a producer, masterminding great recordings is not the end of your obligations. You'll have to deal with lawyers, managers, and the business end of record companies — all in the interests of finding work, and ensuring you're paid for it! David Mellor invites you into his parlour...
The pitch-shifting and harmonisation facilities available in the Digitech Vocalist series have been widely acclaimed as the most natural-sounding on the market. Paul White talks to Fred Speckeen of Canadian company IVL Technologies, who are behind the Vocalist and other pitch-shifting technology.
Despite promises that the Internet will soon alter the way we make, promote, and sell our music forever, it would seem the revolution is yet to happen. Or is it? Simon Price explains how the technology required to broadcast your demo anywhere in the world is almost within reach.
In this second article on digital music production, Clive Williamson looks at how musicians can use computer technology to get their work from a DAT tape to the final product — the CD.
JJ Jeczalik, one third of '80s sampling pioneers Art Of Noise and erstwhile 'Mr Fairlight' has sold his series III and bounded into the '90s with an Akai sampler and a brand new album of dance music. Paul Tingen finds out why no noise is good noise.
Newcastle-based Dubstar released one of the most successful pure pop albums of the last 12 months — and they made most of it using gear that wouldn't be out of place in many SOS readers' studios. Matt Bell gets sidereal with the band's programmer and main songwriter, Steve Hillier.
With a new studio album set to take their unique brand of instrumental music to the top of the charts, Ozric Tentacles are arguably the most successful truly independent band in the UK today. Jonathan Miller met leader Ed Wynne at their Somerset studio.
With years of record label legal wrangles finally behind him, George Michael set about making an album to put him back at the top of the charts and consolidate his status as serious artist/producer. Working the desks on the Older sessions at SARM West was engineer Paul Gomersall, who tells Mark Cunningham about the making of the album.
It's taken a couple of years, but 808 State have at last emerged from a variety of studios with a sleek new album, the superbly-crafted Don Solaris. Mat Bell talks to head of State Graham Massey.
There are now more recording media and data storage formats than ever before. Paul White catches up with Pro Tape's Richard Symons, to discuss the role of tape in a multi-platform future.
Computers helped former BBC engineer Clive Williamson and his band Symbiosis through all the stages of CD production, right through to finished discs and artwork. In the first of a two-part series, he explains how he brought digital technology and traditional musicians together to create atmospheric ambient music.
Nigel Shaw isn't signed to a record company, yet sales from the multiple albums he's produced in his home studio enable him to make a good living from his talents. Paul Tingen talks to him about the business of independent music
SOS reader, songwriter and freelance producer Steven Robinson has some strong opinions on the state of pop music today. In this month's stream of invective, he gets some of it off his chest.
Gary Numan's music epitomises the electro-pop era and undoubtedly helped boost synth sales in the early '80s. with the chart re-entry of his classic hit single 'Cars' Numan is approaching his third decade in pop. Jonathan Miller receives a lesson in the art of survival...
Half teacher, half technician, as a producer you're going to have to coax the best from your charges, identify their strengths and conceal their weaknesses. David Mellor dons the velvet glove...
Bored with ordinary commercial studios, The Cure decided to cut loose for their latest album, and set up their latest recording facility in a Tudor house in the country. Nigel Humberstone visited the band on location to discuss the technology that made the move into the country possible, and the group's working methods.
Tech 21's founder and inventor of the SansAmp range of solid state, vacuum tube-emulating amplifiers talks to Paul White about the intricacies of reproducing tube circuits without the tubes.
Multimedia artist Nick Rothwell isn't very old. But he's old enough to remember a time when we didn't need hallucinogenic drugs to have a visual imagination. What's he on?