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I'm Richard. I'm a free-lance audio engineer, programmer and producer and I've been working in and around the London music scene for the last 10 years. My love of music, and the multifarious characters that make it, has taken me on a wonderful and varied journey in this time. From the plush psychedelia of Shoreditch’s Strongroom, to an attic studio above a Soho knocking shop, from under the archways at Battersea Park station to the beautiful setting of Jamiroquai’s Buckinghamshire mansion.

Eventually I decided it was time to set up my own place and so towards the end of 2005, Area18 came into being. It’s just near North Acton and Harlesden tube stations and nestles in the heart of the industrial wasteland that is London’s Park Royal district. My good friend and fellow engineer/producer Simon Willey (aka Max Harris) also bases many of his projects at Area 18. We have both worked with some big names over the years but we’re just as happy working with new and up and coming bands and artists at the grassroots of music. At Area 18 we aim to provide an efficient and professionally run session whatever your musical pedigree.

We are proud of the productions we have made and contributed to over the last 18 months. Bands and artists who have recorded with us include Phil Honey-Jones, Hiroshamour, Milk Plus, Grantura, White Vinyl , Pullover, Tartrazine, The Shaker Heights, The Fontanelles, Chuma Obumselu, Sola Akingbola, Leonie Cassanova, Atheen Spencer, Aurora, Lucy Cannon, Alex Toye, Orson, Mark Handley and the Bone Idols, Ryan Martin, Tom Pi, Honeygene, and Touka. Click on the links to visit their profiles and hear their music.

If you are looking for an affordable studio in north or west London, with friendly, proficient and experienced engineers then look no further. For band recordings we have a 180 sq ft live room separate from the control room. It’s great for tracking drums and amped guitars and big enough to accommodate a band playing together. We have a good selection of microphones and record to either Logic or Protools digitally via a Yamaha 02R desk. For more details on the full spec visit the website at www.area18.net. The studio is also great for programming, and vocal recording, with a huge sample library, plenty of software synths and some analogue gear too if that’s more your bag.

Whatever gear you have, we all know that a studio is only as good as the people that run it, so here’s some more info on my music industry track record. I trained at The Alchemea School of Audio Engineering, and worked as an assistant engineer at London's world famous Strongroom Studios. I got a good grounding with some of the world's top artists and producers like:- Marius de Vries, Nigel Godrich, Travis, Talvin Singh, Mica Paris, Death in Vegas, Steve Hillage, Nitin Sawney, Satoshi Tomeii, Lamb, Dave Ball, Dave Bascombe, Jim Abiss and Adrian Bushby.

As a free-lance engineer and programmer I subsequently worked with many other renowned artists like:- Shara Nelson, Steve Winwood, Errol Brown, Roachford, Simple Minds, Heather Small, Pillbox, Marc Almond, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Sam Obernik, Shelly Poole, Sheila Ferguson, Laura More and Ben Onono. I have co-produced albums for Nick Heyward and India Dupre, Sugarfree aka The Delta Boy, Lydia Hrella, and Hackney based North African roots band Fantazia. In the early part of 2005 I worked with producer Mike Spencer on Jamiroquai’s last full studio album "Dynamite". And again in the spring and summer of 2006 I was the protools engineer on the sessions resulting in the two new songs for Jamiroquai’s current greatest hits compilation “High Times”

You can hear some more audio clips recorded and mixed at Area 18 by clicking on Area18Music