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Having progressed from a Portastudio in a box room in Camberwell to a PC in a bedsit in Harlesden to a bedroom studio in a flat in Greenford I am now making the leap to my very own big detached garage studio at the end of a garden on Abbey Road!*
It's a decent-sized brick garage which I have had totally gutted, damp-proofed, insulated, double-glazed, air-conditioned and wired up for light and electricity. I am still in the process of acoustically treating the room. It is decorated in an organic style with warm, bright, relaxing colours and soft furnishings and kitted out with acoustic and electric guitars (both 6-string and bass), percussion, synthesizer, a full drum kit and hundreds of thousands of sounds on software synths! At the heart of the studio is a powerful PC running Windows XP and Cubase 4 fitted with a professional quality 8-buss 24-bit soundcard connected through a Mackie 1624 VLZ3 mixing desk to a pair of Mackie 624 studio monitors. For relaxation the studio also incorporates a big-screen (over 2 metres wide) full SD (580i) widescreen home cinema with 5.1 surround sound and a monster beanbag sofa!
The recordings being uploaded on this page are examples of tracks I have produced with different bands and artists over the years with my kit in previous recording setups or on location in rehearsal spaces. "Spaghelli" is rapper Steve Pelly against backing tracks I compose/arrange on Cubase and Acid Pro. I recorded two short albums with Steve in this manner. Spaghelli and the Dogbytes is me and Steve with a guitarist and drummer to bulk it out into a live band. We recorded a 4-track EP in 2007. Monophobia is my old band/studio project with a variable line-up. The songs on this page are just singer/songwriter Tony Longworth and myself in my home studio. Gnap is a three-piece indie band that I recorded in a cheap rehearsal room in East Acton in 2005. I have recorded and mixed about 8 songs with this band in different rehearsal rooms and they are very cool to work with. Frances Jones A.K.A. Nel is a friend of a friend whose music inspires me greatly and who gives me total creative freedom to produce her songs in whatever way I feel inspired. Samson is a sequencer-driven 3-piece indie band from Munich who were very precise about exactly what they wanted their mixes to sound like so I put my producer's ego aside and tried to be the best engineer possible for them. I recorded three songs with them at their rehearsal space in 2005 which formed part of a 5-track mini album called "Home" about two years later. To be honest I think it sounds a bit sterile and with hindsight I should have asserted myself a little more. I am confident that the quality of my future recordings and mixes will be a lot better when I have my new studio!
Bands I have recorded over the years include The Dogbytes, Gnap, Samson, A Space + A Half and Monophobia. Solo artists I have produced include Spaghelli, Nel Jones, Paul Sawrey, Emma Tricca, David Soakell and Alexander Berry. (Check them all out on MySpace.) I am currently recording and mixing a demo album for an Aylesbury-based rock'n'roll covers band called Restless Wilf, and I have sessions lined up with artist-turned-composer Simon Baker, singer/songwriter Tony Longworth and another covers band called Backtrackin'.
Phil Quinton
*That's Abbey Road in Aylesbury
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