Roger Bechirian - Legendary producer and ex Bell-X1 Manager

Nick Lowe, Paul Carrack, Elvis Costello, The Undertones, Dave Edmunds, The Monkees, the Flamin' Groovies, and Squeeze are all Roger's  clients.  He also recorded The Jam's 1980's hit 'Going Underground - a seminal record for me.  Despite all this, Roger is a gentleman and maintains his enthusiasm for all things audio !

If you'd like to buy me a coffee -  Many Thanks ...

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/GeniusMove

Transcript

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Paul Brewer (4:13.822)
when I start this podcast, the last thing I wanted to do was have two old codgers chatting about the good old days. But that's yeah, well, indeed. Yeah. But at the same time.

roger bechirian (4:21.478)
Thank God!

roger bechirian (4:27.943)
I don't know.

roger bechirian (4:38.702)
A little less of the codgers.

Paul Brewer (4:43.298)
How can we skip that in terms of, you know, your background? It's fascinating. And you, I don't know if you remember, but I mentioned the record that really made the major impact on me was Going Underground, which you were involved in.

roger bechirian (4:47.933)
Mm.

roger bechirian (5:1.995)
Yes. Well, yeah, as memory serves, it's such a long time ago now. Yeah.

Paul Brewer (5:5.918)
Yeah. And also, another track I want to sort of perhaps discuss was Tempted by Squeeze, which is Bob Clearmountain's favourite mix, as far as I recall.

roger bechirian (5:14.102)
Bye.

roger bechirian (5:18.078)
I know, I know. And I spoke to Bob actually and I quizzed him on that and he was quite astonishingly humble actually. I was really surprised. I mean, he said that, you know, basically, well, it's something that he wished he could have done. And the irony of all of this is that I remember driving my car to the studio, to Eden Studios, I was somewhere in Hammersmith in the traffic jam.
That song that Brian Adams did, Everything I Do, I Do For You, came on the radio. And I immediately knew it was... Yeah, it did at number one. And I immediately knew it was a clear Clearmountain mix. I could hear straight away. I mean, he has a certain way with reverbs, which I've never been able to fathom. And you know, he was kind of a hero as well, in a way. I mean, he had this fantastic ear, I think. Still does, I suppose.

Paul Brewer (5:52.515)
where I permanently lived in that time.

roger bechirian (6:16.098)
So yeah, it was a comment from a god as far as I was concerned. I was very flattered.

Paul Brewer (6:25.190)
Yeah, indeed. And like, the jam record, was that just another record you did? Or was it a major event in your life? Or how did you see it at the time?

roger bechirian (6:38.278)
Well, no, it wasn't. At the time, none of it was a major event. I did a couple of things with them and they just booked the studio. And what I... Yes, this is Eden. And what I realized later was that they were basically doing a test with me. I hadn't even considered it. I thought they just... You know, I was just... You know, I was the engineer available for the session. But they had actually asked me, I think Alzo Bocca, who was the other engineer at the time, the two of us were there. And they'd asked whether I could do the session. I said, OK, fair enough.

Paul Brewer (6:45.430)
And this was the Eden Studios, yeah?

roger bechirian (7:9.959)
And they were weird, they were very quiet about everything, they weren't very forthcoming. But they were easy to work with and they were very professional. You know, their gear turned up in a truck and they had all these roadies organizing and setting up for them. It was a very professional setup and they were great, they were fine to work with. Then I, later on, I was approached, or rather my manager was approached, they wanted me to produce

Paul Brewer (7:14.326)
You

roger bechirian (7:38.814)
their next album or work with them on their next album. And he turned it down. I'm not sure why, but anyway, that got turned down. And later on, I think the follow-up album, which was a year or so later, they asked again, and again he turned it down, which in retrospect, I would have killed him if I'd known at the time, but certainly I would have loved to work with them. But I think it was more to do with politics with him and because I was in the same stable as Costello and Nick Lowe and everything.

Paul Brewer (7:58.478)
I'm sorry.

roger bechirian (8:7.638)
I think it had a lot to do with that. But yeah, so basically it was a test. So I did the recordings with them and then the tapes went and that was it. I never heard anything again until I heard the finished record on radio and on their albums. But it was good, it was nice work. I enjoyed it.

Paul Brewer (8:22.774)
Wow.

Paul Brewer (8:28.201)
And you were the engineer? Who produced it then?

roger bechirian (8:30.142)
Mm-hmm. They worked on their own. It was just them and me. We did the basic tracks and I think there was, as far as I remember, there was a couple of guitar parts and things, I think Paul threw down a rough vocal. That was it. There wasn't any, I didn't really get involved with the fleshing out of the of the of the of the tracks. There were two songs we did, and I can't remember what they were. The other one was and.
Yeah, that was it. And they took the tapes away. And as I said, then I think what they decided was they approached me to make work on the album at that point, but that didn't happen. So I think they worked with, who was the guy who did most of the stuff for them? I've forgotten his name now. He was South African, I think. He must have, that's it, Coffersmith Heaven. I think he must have finished the albums with them. But there was, yeah.

Paul Brewer (9:16.638)
Eh, Coppersmith. Yes.

Paul Brewer (9:24.825)
And did you mix it?

roger bechirian (9:26.510)
No, no, I didn't mix it. I simply recorded it. I did nothing else. I recorded the basic tracks. I can't take credit for that. I would love to have done that too.

Paul Brewer (9:30.452)
Right okay.

Paul Brewer (9:36.114)
Yeah, so it was just another band, you know, another good band, but you know, another band at the time.

roger bechirian (9:44.476)
Hmm. It was a good band. I looked forward to meeting them. I was intrigued to find out how they worked, what they were like as people. And it was all very matter of fact. I mean, I assumed somebody was going to come in to produce the record. I assumed it was going to go on. But they'd actually just they'd taken, I think they took three days, three or four days. It was really short.
And I remember moving the kit around a bit. I wasn't very happy about the kit. And what was it? I forgot the drummer's name actually. He wasn't very happy about me doing that. Apparently they had this thing where they'd set up and that was it. But I didn't like what it's, that's it. I didn't like the way it sounded. So I remember moving his kit. And they seemed really pleased with the results. They weren't kind of animated in any way.

Paul Brewer (10:24.106)
Rick Buckler.

roger bechirian (10:36.922)
about their feelings. So it was like, well, yeah, I guess this is going well. See you tomorrow, guys. And that was it. And then I said, then the tapes disappeared. And then the next, well, the rest is history. It was obviously Coppersmith Heaven finished everything off and that was it. It was a shame. It was a shame I didn't get to do any more with them because I would have liked that very much.

Paul Brewer (10:37.088)
Right.

Paul Brewer (10:54.520)
Wow.

Paul Brewer (10:59.618)
So can you tell me about the sort of the time, you know, this was obviously peak recording time and stuff like, were you working seven days a week, you know, 12 hours a day or whatever it was? Right. OK.

roger bechirian (11:10.662)
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. I mean, I think I was. Yes. Oh, those days have long gone. No, I mean, I was literally going from one album pretty much to another. There was loads of stuff to be doing. Because I was part of the Riviera Global Group, the management, I was working with Nick and then I...

Paul Brewer (11:16.170)
And you were obviously young.

Paul Brewer (11:21.362)
Indeed. Yes.

roger bechirian (11:39.550)
we'd do something with Costello, then I was working with Dave Edmunds, then I was working with Rockpile, then I was doing something with Carleen. So it was just this constant flow of stuff. And in between it, people would, you know, I'd be contacted to work with somebody else on a different project. I mean, the undertones obviously took up quite a bit of time as well. So there was all of that going on. Yeah, and there was a steady flow of people coming through the studio, just working on, and Marc Boland didn't live very far away. I used to do demos with him.
there were endless amounts of people that came into the studio, some pretty big names who used to live in that area, kind of Richmond, Kingston, the wealthier parts of West London. And, yeah. Yeah, it was all in Eden, Eden and it was in Chiswick.


Paul Brewer (12:23.570)
Right, which is where, this was all with Eden Studios, wasn't it? Yeah, it was only Eden Studios, it was Antisic. Oh right, okay, and Eden was your employer, is that correct?

roger bechirian (12:34.222)
Eden was my employer. I started with them when they had a four track studio in Kingston. I was desperately trying to get into studios and I'd approached Abbey Road because it was the only one that I knew from reading the Beatles albums and things. And I also approached Morgan Studios in the early days because I know Eddie Offord had worked there, Advision Studios, a whole bunch of them. And I was turned down by everybody. And then I tried R.G. Jones, we're looking for somebody in Wimbledon.
that didn't really work out. And I basically knocked on Eden's door one day and they were looking for somebody to run their lathe. They were gonna train me to run because people were taking acetates home at the time. So I got into mastering effectively, although low key.

Paul Brewer (13:24.013)
Right. And was... Okay, and was that an advantage in terms of thinking about frequencies and stuff like that? Right, okay.

roger bechirian (13:25.018)
And so that's how it started.

roger bechirian (13:31.802)
Yeah, yeah, it taught me a lot. I mean, Mike Gardner, one of the founders of the studio, was a great inspiration for me and a great mentor. Him and Chris Glass, who was the technical wizard at Eden. I learned so much from them. They were trained by the BBC, so they had a very solid grounding in this is how the proper procedure of a chain would work and stuff like that.
Yeah, so then I progressed on to they allowed me to use the studio at night and I'd bring friends and sort of practice recording and stuff like that. So and as I said, it was all four track, we had a four track Ampex, an AG 440 I think they were called. So I got into like bouncing to stereo and back again, all the techniques that were prevalent in the day. Yeah. Oh my god, this is... Geez, must have been around...

Paul Brewer (14:20.915)
And so, what is this sort of, what for the year is this?

roger bechirian (14:30.018)
72, 73 something like that? Quite early, very early. 73, yeah, perhaps 74 at the most. No, probably 72, 73. Because then we moved to, there was a compulsory purchase order put on the area that the studio was in. So they used the money from that and borrowed some to find a plot. There was an old factory in Chiswick and then basically the studio was built from the ground up.

Paul Brewer (14:32.223)
Write OK.

Paul Brewer (14:40.065)
Right.

roger bechirian (14:57.730)
and we had a porta cabin outside and we built our own desk, which was designed by Mike and Chris. All the electronics pretty much done by Chris and we designed and built our own desk there. I learned all about winding coils for various frequency taps and things like that. So that was quite, so that was another great experience, you know, doing all of that and wiring up the studio.

Paul Brewer (14:57.992)
Okay.

Paul Brewer (15:15.566)
Jesus.

Paul Brewer (15:20.553)
So how long was the mastering thing essentially?

roger bechirian (15:25.354)
That probably, I probably went on with that for at least a year, I think. Um, and in between that I was, because I was doing that during the day and then, you know, I'm kind of being the office body as well, answering phone calls and booking in sessions and things in between. And, um, and then in some evenings I'd be helping with, with sessions, you know, sort of learning about mic placements and things like that and, um, help, and Mike used to do all the recordings then. And.

Paul Brewer (15:30.153)
Okay.

roger bechirian (15:56.230)
Yeah, and then, yeah, and as I said in the evenings, I try and do my own thing too. Um, but yeah, probably about a year or so, maybe going for a little longer, but I think about a year, at least a year, year and a bit, something like that.

Paul Brewer (16:9.342)
So enough to get an understanding that there was something much deeper within it to... Right, okay.

roger bechirian (16:14.318)
Oh yeah. I mean we used to get things from record labels. Like I cut god knows how many copies of Knights in White Satin for I can't remember the labels. Is it PYE? PYE or Decca? One of those labels. They wanted, I don't know, like 50 or a hundred copies that were being sent out to, you know, for promotion and radio stations and things. And we got the gig and so on.
I just was cutting one after the other. I was so sick of that bloody song, even before it was released, I was sick of it. So there was stuff like that, you know, which was, you know, that we did, which was quite, quite bizarre. You know, not just the sessions that we were cutting for, but, oh yeah, it was really common in those days. It was very common. Most mastering studios would be doing stuff like that for labels, you know, you had 12 inch or seven inch samplers, 10 inch samplers sometimes, you know, like EPs.

Paul Brewer (16:56.448)
Was that a common thing?

roger bechirian (17:10.758)
So yeah, I got a real understanding of what you could and couldn't do with the lacquer. And I think that held me in good stead because I understood, obviously working in analog, knowing that it was going to go to vinyl, I understood what I could and couldn't do in the mix, how it had to sound overall to really cut through and make an impact. So I had that grounding, which I think helped me a lot in the way I listened to stuff.
And I used to attend all my masterings to everything that I was involved with. Even stuff I just engineered, I used to be sent off quite happily to monitor the mastering sessions. So I really enjoyed doing that. I got to know quite a few mastering engineers around London. It was great fun. I used to love doing that.

Paul Brewer (17:53.614)
And of course, being able to communicate to them what you wanted or what you needed in a particular track and in their language.

roger bechirian (17:58.246)
Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And learning more, because, you know, obviously the technology, you know, improved the kinds of EQs that they use were better. They had, you know, the way they talked about compression and limiting was more advanced probably than the stuff I was using at the time. So yeah, all of that was great. And I had a good rapport with them. I still really enjoy mastering.
But of course a lot of it now is, you know, we get from digital files, so it's not quite the same, but things have to be looked at in a different way, obviously for CD and stuff, and obviously streaming now. They think about the sort of the sonic spectrum in a different way and how it's going to come across on earphones and all the rest of it. So it's changed dramatically, which is what scares me about a lot of people saying, yeah, I'll do mastering. And it's kind of...
Do you actually understand what's going on here? It's always made me nervous, but you know, I guess there could be some great mastering engineers who are just starting out and learning, so who knows?

Paul Brewer (19:8.138)
Yeah, well, they're learning a different thing, essentially, isn't it? 

Paul Brewer (19:51.422)
And then? What happened then?

roger bechirian (19:55.366)
So, well, you know, we're building the studio and all that.

Paul Brewer (19:58.693)
You're talking about the electronics side. So how electronics are you?

roger bechirian (20:0.820)
Yeah.

roger bechirian (20:4.566)
I wouldn't say that I'm an electronics expert, but I have a basic understanding of stuff, the way things are made, I guess, the way EQs behave, the kind of curves that are set up and the way they interact with each other and all that kind of stuff. So I think I have a good grounding with that. I mean,
A simple thing like compressors, you know, what do you think most people think of a compressor? Oh, when it squashes the sound or I can make my drum sound really flaky or whatever. But do they really understand what's going on with it? And I think, you know, being grounded in those things and understanding how to use them in certain ways with, say, between a vocal and a snare drum or a vocal and, you know, even, you know, overall on a, over a string section, just to keep, you know, strange little squeaky peaks down, things like that. I think
I had a really good grounding with, not just understanding how to use them, but understanding how they were working and what they were doing gave you a better understanding of how you should actually use them in the real world. So I think, yeah, as far as electronics though, designing stuff, I had one of my best friends who unfortunately died two years ago. We met on an APRS course that was set up by Guildford University years ago.
which I was sent off on to understand how microphones worked and how they were made. My studio, Eden Studios, they sent me, it was an APRS had done this deal with the Tonmeister course, which was held at Guilford University. And I can't remember, it was like two weeks or something. I mean, it wasn't part of the, it was kind of part of the course, but a sort of segmented thing. And Philip was working at Strawberry Studios in

Paul Brewer (21:30.616)
Who sent you?

Paul Brewer (21:39.731)
Yes.

roger bechirian (21:56.210)
Where is it? Up north, in outside Manchester. That's right, yeah. It wasn't Manchester. It was, yeah, it was subsidiary anyway. And we met there, we were the only two really who were working in studios at the time. There were a lot of other people there who were still just tape ops, they weren't really doing anything physical. We were both engineering to some degree. But Philip was a real whiz kid. I mean, he built stuff in my home studios or he built some monitors and things, monitoring controls and things like that for me, which are fabulous.

Paul Brewer (21:57.798)
Yeah, Manchester or somewhere, yeah.

roger bechirian (22:26.314)
But I also learned odds and ends from him. It's like, hey Phil, how can I do this? And he'd come up with some idea or a pedal, phase pedal out of the blue, things like that. But I have a grasp, but I wouldn't call myself an electronics engineer by any stretch. That's my cop-out. But doing things like winding wires on a coil and knowing that if you tapped out at this point, that would be, you'd be centering at 2.8.
or something, you know what I mean? You start to kind of, oh, something goes off in your brain, it makes a kind of sense, but I wouldn't be able to design that from scratch, but I had all these notes and I'd follow them. And it was a three-day week at that time in England where we had no electricity for the rest of the week. So all the lights would go off. So we'd have lanterns, and I'd be in this really cold Porta cabin with...

Paul Brewer (23:18.198)
Oh, shit.

roger bechirian (23:24.842)
tons of wires and stuff everywhere in the car, because there was a desk behind me, winding stuff and I'm sure some of them I miscount because the phone went off or something, you know. So God knows the desk was never that even. Say 2 kilohertz was never exactly 2 kilohertz across all the channels, but it was close enough and it sounded great. It was one of the best sounding desks I think I ever worked on. Amazing headroom, much more than a Neve even. It was phenomenal, really phenomenal.

Paul Brewer (23:31.213)
stuff

Paul Brewer (23:35.489)
Hahaha

Paul Brewer (23:41.070)
It's

roger bechirian (23:53.834)
People think that the Costello stuff, the drum sounds, that I was compressing his kit like mad, but I wasn't. There were no compressors involved. I was just cranking up the mic amps like crazy and sending it to tape. And tape, we used to only run at plus four. You know, we didn't even overmod the tape recorders. So it was all to do with the mic amps and the tape. Very little compression on the tape, but a lot more going on with the amps.
And that was that incredible dynamic sound.

Paul Brewer (24:29.830)
So the guys who designed the desk, was that ever a commercial product or anything like that?

roger bechirian (24:32.275)
Mmm.

roger bechirian (24:35.878)
No, it was Mike Gardner, one of the co-owners of Eden Studios and Chris Glass, who was the partner really and electronics whiz kid. Both of them were working at the BBC. They were both cameramen actually. They were senior cameramen at the B. Chris used to be on the camera crew for Old Grey Whistle Test. That goes back, doesn't it?

Paul Brewer (25:0.458)
Wow! Yeah!

roger bechirian (25:5.026)
But he was also friends with Pete Townsend and that whole crew. So he was involved with the guys that looked after who and made stuff and electronics. And Chris was, they were all very pallid. They all met at art school. So there was a really interesting influence that came from him through them.

Paul Brewer (25:24.258)
So that was kind of the norm at those times. Like people these days, you know, nip off the tome and buy something to do something. But in those days, it was a case of, yeah, well, should we need to build this? Because it doesn't exist and you can't go and buy it. Is that true?

roger bechirian (25:27.123)
Yeah.

roger bechirian (25:31.080)
Yeah.

roger bechirian (25:37.207)
We built everything. Yeah, absolutely. We built everything. We built like our headphone amps in the studio. There were these boxes that we'd made, and each one had a quad amp in it and very, you know, sockets to drive at least sort of five pairs of headphones, six pairs of headphones, and a feed that came off one of the wall panels to drive the quad.
But we just made it, you know, and the panels were anodized, they were designed by Mike. He used to let us set all the panels, they were all anodized. We put them together with beautiful, you know, screws and everything. They looked like somebody had bought, you know, had them made in Germany or something, but they were all made by us. Everything like that, you know, pedals to turn things on and off.
Well, all our panelling on the desk was all letrosetted and anodized by companies. So it looked like a professional desk, but it was actually made by us. They found a fantastic carpenter because they couldn't figure out how to do the frame. The frame was all made in wood. And he made this beautiful frame. I mean, it was just fabulous. So and everything fitted precisely. I mean, you know, they weren't doing anything.
in any kind of laxative way, it was all very precise and very perfect. And it sounded absolutely great. And as I said, if there was anything we needed, it would be made. Mike would go off and make something. We needed to switch. I remember at one point, Aldo and I would say, only if we could just switch between the tape. We had two stereo tape decks at the time, ended up being three. Just being able to be by them and switch between them rather than having to go back to the desk. So Mike made up a panel.
and his box and it was, you know, the next day there it was. It was fantastic. So it was an amazing place on that level. I mean, people talk about Abbey Road and all that, but it was pretty much the same. Everyone was doing the same thing. Decca was that. I mean, Decca, one of the greatest studios of our time in this country. Probably in lots of ways better than Abbey Road. Abbey Road's great because it has so many fabulous old mics and tons of old gear, but they're...

Paul Brewer (27:36.942)
Thanks for watching!

Paul Brewer (27:45.619)
Yeah.

roger bechirian (27:46.442)
But you know, they're just rooms like anywhere else. In fact, I hated Studio 2. I thought it sounded dreadful. I don't know how the Beatles ever made anything in it. It was just, perhaps in those days when they were working, it was great, but when I went there, it was a horrible, horrible sound.

Paul Brewer (27:59.977)
And when did you go there?

roger bechirian (28:2.150)
It was...

roger bechirian (28:6.958)
I can't remember exactly when. We went there once with Costello. I think it was before we did... It might have been before we did the Get Happy album. And nobody liked it. The thing we hated most was the long staircase running up and down between the control room and the studio. And it's like, I can't deal with this. And the people there didn't understand. Anyway, we left. And I also went back. I think the trashcan sonatas really wanted to mix at Abbey Road. And so we booked in for a couple of days.

Paul Brewer (28:21.322)
Yeah.

roger bechirian (28:36.294)
And again, it was Studio Two. And none of us liked the way it sounded. We were all like, what happened to our tapes? Why does it sound so strange? And there was lots of umming and ah-ing and accusing me of not lining up the tape recorder properly when it's like, no, that's not happening. So we ended up at Eden in their brand-spanking Studio Two and mixed the album there. But.
Yeah, so I never really worked there. I mean, we tried stuff out, but I never felt comfortable there. Perhaps it was the ghost of the Beatles or something. We just never really got it together. But there were very few studios around London that I did like, actually. I prefer them. Rockfield is probably my favorite room in both of them in this country.

Paul Brewer (29:9.770)
Yeah.

Paul Brewer (29:20.330)
Right, okay. Yeah, because I remember you telling me before you sort of, you designed the acoustics in Eden, wasn't that correct? Or had an involvement anyway.

roger bechirian (29:27.470)
No, no, we did. We were all involved. Well, I didn't have an involvement in the acoustics itself, but I learnt a lot. The guy who designed the acoustics was an acoustician called Ken Shearer. And he handed over the specifications to the architectural company, whose name escapes me. But they had this Swiss designer who was a mathematical genius. Anyway, he designed these bizarre because it was all based on resonant panels.
So they were resident absorbers, I should say. So the walls were actually gigantic panels, and there were these weird shapes. Obviously, you had to reflect in different directions as well. He came up with, it was like a jigsaw puzzle. We're sealing the walls and everything. He did this fantastic design. So hanging out with, when Ken used to come to the studio and the architects, and they'd discuss, oh, these frequencies, or having to put more sand on the roof, because the roof's vibrating.
particular brings you whatever, all that sort of stuff. I sort of gleaned quite a bit from them. That was a very interesting period. But it was a very unique design and worked incredibly. It was one of the flattest rooms certainly, I think I've ever worked in. Anything you did in that control would sound fabulous outside, which is why we kept getting so much work. I think people were really impressed. The studio, the record label certainly were very impressed with it.
Yeah, it was great. I didn't, yeah, we didn't have a hand in designing, but obviously the aesthetics, I think Mike and Philip Love, who was the other owner at the time, you know, we were involved in choosing colors and things like that, but the architects, design team were just brilliant. The doors were incredible. We had everything was state of the art at the time.

Paul Brewer (31:11.130)
I remember, I can't remember who I was chatting to, but they were saying that back in the day, lads would aim a particular thing at a studio. You know, they might go to one studio for strings, one studio for drums, one studio for vocals or whatever. And is that why do you think that every studio had such a personality that was so different?

roger bechirian (31:23.132)
Oh, yeah.

roger bechirian (31:30.438)
Yeah. Everyone, yeah, I think everyone was trying to create something that they felt.
was them, is the way they wanted it to sound and feel, I think was also very important. I mean, I did that. I used to love working at Advision for string overdubs. Eden was okay, but it didn't have an immensely high ceiling. So recording strings was, it would sound quite claustrophobic and very rock. If you wanted something more open, you had to go to a bigger room. And Advision was one that I used to use a few times, actually, I quite like. Yeah, and you know,

Paul Brewer (32:6.218)
And that was more of a, Advision was sort of a TV studio, was it?

roger bechirian (32:7.526)
Sorry?

roger bechirian (32:13.742)
No, no, well, they did all kinds of things. They did a lot of rock albums, prog rock albums. We, yes, famously used Advision for all their albums. I think ELP, Zeppelin even used them, I think a couple of times. They were, yeah, but they also had a film, they had a film dubbing studio, very much like Abbey Road. Huge soundstage as well. And I think they did a lot of work there for that. I think Abbey Road's probably stole a lot of work from them, which is one of the reasons they started to lose money.

Paul Brewer (32:19.738)
Alright, okay.

roger bechirian (32:43.498)
the end. They also had one of the first quad 8 desks, I think the only quad 8 desk in the country, which was quite phenomenal. Yes, I used to use that room with that desk. I used it a couple of times to mix stuff, which was quite cool. But yeah, I mean, there was Olympic Studios was great for drums. I forgot what number it was, but the bigger room downstairs was a great room for drum tracks.
if you wanted a big, fast sound. I mean, that's exactly what people did. They would go to different rooms for different reasons. They were producers that liked to be settled in one particular space because they felt that was gonna work for this artist or whatever. So they'd be in, I don't know, wherever, Abbey Road or wherever, and that's where they'd work. I think nowadays that sort of disappeared. And also people are doing so much stuff at home. I mean, there's so many engineers and producers now. They have their own setup at home. And I...
and are doing great work. But unless the money's there, certainly for tracking, I mean, I did some stuff not so long ago last year, I think, was it, with Ash Sohn, the drummer. I got him to do some drums on a track, and he's in Norfolk. So we did the stuff remotely, and it worked very well. I had a guitarist who did stuff for me from Boston in America.
I mean, you know, it's all become a bit sort of, not disjointed, but the whole kind of concept of that is kind of being diluted, I think. You know, I mean, for instance, if you were offered a band to produce tomorrow, where would you want to record it? Can you sit down and say, yeah, I'd really like to be in this room. I tell you where I'd like to be in this room is Grouse Lodge, I think is one of the best studios anywhere. Just that room, that big room is just phenomenally flat to work in.

Paul Brewer (34:10.577)
It's all become a bit silly.

roger bechirian (34:39.082)
great drum sound, a wonderful feeling there. I really, really love working there. But there's a few places that come to mind. I'd like Rockfield Studio 2, the Coach House, is fantastic for drum tracking and basic tracks. The other rooms are wonderful for everything else. If Eden Studios was still around, I'd probably do most of my work there in Studio 1. The character of rooms has vanished. Like Morgan Studios that I was attracted to when I was a young teenager.
there were certain records that were coming out of that place that just, you know, they had a noise about them that was, you know, you couldn't describe. It's like, wow, it doesn't sound like anything else. There's a kind of a, I'm trying to think, there was the Groundhogs, have you ever heard of that band? They did, they worked, they probably, it's a long time ago, but that, they turned, they were just amazing. And they did a lot of work at Morgan.

Paul Brewer (35:8.518)
certain records are coming out of that place.

Paul Brewer (35:18.848)
Can you give me some examples?

Paul Brewer (35:26.026)
No!

roger bechirian (35:36.982)
I'm trying to think of some other bands of that period. They were all very proggy, the words of Morgan. But it had a kind of, it was a very dry sound. It must've been heavily damp, the whole room. And then when, sort of in the mid 70s, when that whole kind of East Lake, West Lake thing started happening, you got very dead sounds coming from America, which I also really loved. I loved the kind of closeness, that real close miking brought you in a very dead room.
because now I much prefer to have a much more open sound and record drums, perhaps, just as two mics or whatever. But it's, yeah, they had these noises about them. Everything sounded kind of, had a different, I don't know how to describe it. They just had a complete character to them. And it was always down to where they were working. I worked at a studio called Snake Ranch up in California, up in the hills. And I think the Kinks might have owned it at one point.
But it was a whole place where everything was wood. The building was wood, the studio was lined in wood, everything was wood. And it had this wonderful kind of warm character to it. It's difficult to describe, but it worked really well. Then you go to another place, you go to Cherokee or something in Hollywood, and it was much more kind of pizzazzy. The big room was very much like any big room you'd walk into in London. Except that people also had different desks. They used to use old Trident A series, which they'd remodeled.
You know, people would have, this was Cherokee, they had these Trident A series desks, which had a real character to them. You know, Rockfield used to have a TSM at one point, Trident, which I think were the best desks, Unsung Heroes, one of the best desks made. You know, people would have a need, people would have APIs, all of those things made a difference as well. The kind of tape recorders you used made a difference. You know, I remember Pete,

Paul Brewer (37:4.466)
Who did three? This was Cherokee. All right, Joe.

Paul Brewer (37:30.142)
at the TAPI-U's.

roger bechirian (37:31.366)
Yeah, and the tape use. I mean, Pete Townsend was a big fan of 3M machines, which I think were fabulous machines, but very temperamental. They sounded very different to the Ampex. I really liked the MM1100s and 1200s, and they had a very different character. Studas were very different as well. They were very clean. So all of those things made such difference. People talk about that analog sound, but what are they really talking about? There's a whole mishmash of things that were involved.

Paul Brewer (37:56.984)
Yeah.

roger bechirian (38:2.246)
Yes, digital does do strange things to the sound. It's not quite the same, but I don't believe that whole analog digital thing anymore. I've come away from it. And I could never imagine going back to working on tape again. It's just so cumbersome and limiting. And getting used to being able to edit quickly, like, oh, I'll just take these two things and join them up in that much time. Or trying stuff, yeah. I mean, endlessly trying stuff. Oh God, I'm running out of tape. Quick guys, stop. If that's all of that. So...

Paul Brewer (38:22.474)
Yeah, yeah. Or trying stuff. Yeah.

Paul Brewer (38:31.826)
Yeah.

roger bechirian (38:32.118)
And hundreds of pounds are real. It's just crazy. I mean, it's a great fun thing to do. But I think to actually... It's a vanity thing now, I think. I don't think it has anything to do with the real world anymore. And it ends up at 44.1 anyway. And 6.6... Or an MP3, which is even worse. Yeah, so you know, what's trying to be... I mean, obviously there's the...

Paul Brewer (38:49.970)
Yeah, indeed, or an MP3.

roger bechirian (38:58.814)
The old adage is if you start with a great sound and it's finally reduced, it's gonna still sound relatively better than other things, which is probably true to some extent. But yeah, I'm sorry, I'm sticking with digital for now. And there are lots of things I don't like about digital, but I think that the thought of all that machinery and heat and noise and fuss, you know. I remember years ago, I'd been on a session all night.

Paul Brewer (39:13.974)
HNNN

roger bechirian (39:29.710)
at Eden. And there was a TV session going on with some big band thing and it was for Independent TV Studio and they had their own engineers they bring in and they have their own you know the supervisors and the co-producers and all that in the control room. And they'd done these takes with this band it was like a big band thing. But they wanted to cut between one take and another for a chorus or something or other. And
I was outside having a cigarette and a coffee trying to stay awake before I drove home. Chris Glass actually came and said, Roger, they want to do an edit. Can you do it for them? The engineer is really scared. I said, what do you mean he's really scared? They don't do cuts on two-inch. So I wandered in and very nonchalantly did the cuts for him and joined it up and walked out and it was done and they were very happy. But I would be absolutely terrified to do that now.
That was something second nature at the time. That's what we did all the time. You'd cut between takes and all the rest. But now to look at a two inch reel and go, where do I start? I don't know. How do I mark it up? I can't remember. It would just be the most terrifying thing. No, not at all. That's how you work. I mean, yeah.

Paul Brewer (40:30.259)
Yeah.

Paul Brewer (40:39.774)
Yeah, I guess the fact that there was no other option. But that sort of thinking, you know, you're not thinking about a place where you can edit in a different fashion because there's no other way of doing it, you just do it.

roger bechirian (40:54.974)
That's exactly right.

roger bechirian (40:59.026)
I mean, I was taught how to cut tape and join it up with a block on quarter inch. And then I learned how to do that on one inch. Then I learned how to do that on two inch. And as I said, it becomes second nature. It's not something difficult. I mean, I used to mix, there were some things I used to mix where I'd mix like verses. If it was quite complex mix, I'd do all the verses and I'd do all the choruses. And then I'd chop them, which is a horrible, irrevorable thing to do and quite dangerous and risky. But.

Paul Brewer (41:22.506)
and stick them together afterwards. Yes.

roger bechirian (41:28.622)
it does work. I didn't do it very often, but I've done that a few times. And, you know, God, I mean, I just couldn't fathom doing that now. I just, no, I don't want to do that anymore. And, you know, recording at high resolution and stuff is, you know, stuff doesn't sound bad at all. It sounds very good. I think a lot of it comes down to people not using EQ in the right way. I think that's what it is, you know.
It's like, have you noticed how there's so much sibilance on most records these days from vocalists? It's like, why is everything so sibilant? Is it me or am I having some kind of stroke or what? It's just weird. And I realized, you know, when we recorded vocals, we'd use that big foam moth, like over a U87 or something. That wasn't an unusual thing to see or be done.
You'd boost high and mid-range a little bit, but the really horrible esses wouldn't get through. There was another trick of using a pencil. I don't know if you've ever tried that. You take the pencil across a large diaphragm mic and it deflects the air across away from the center of the diaphragm. We used to do things like that. People don't do that anymore. Now they want these microphones to adhere up to bat frequencies. I'm sure they're great, but it's...

Paul Brewer (42:30.846)
Yeah, I've heard of that, yeah.

roger bechirian (42:51.334)
It's having an effect. You know, The Beatles recorded with a... What was that mesh thing that I think Abbey Road designed, didn't they? It was like a mesh with some rubber in it.

Paul Brewer (42:59.406)
I think I have a sort of a copy of it on my microphone there. Yeah.

roger bechirian (43:1.182)
You have a copy of it there. Well, that takes stuff off too, you know. And also you're losing a lot on tape as well. Especially when you're bouncing backwards and forwards until it disappears. But yeah, I think there's a lot of, I mean, I read in horror, some of the plugins that are being foisted on, you know, you've got to have this to get this sound. It's like, my God, 5,000 controls and graphics and.

Paul Brewer (43:9.535)
Yeah.

roger bechirian (43:30.250)
I just, it upsets me that the young people out there who are starting out or trying to do something, being convinced that they need to have this particular thing to make it sound like so-and-so or make it sound great or have a hit, and it's all rubbish, it's all nonsense. You don't need any of that. You just need your ears and you need some good people in front of the mic. It's quite sad actually.

Paul Brewer (43:45.034)
Yeah.
Yeah.

Paul Brewer (43:55.658)
Yeah.

roger bechirian (44:0.178)
The studios don't exist anymore where they're working all the time and they have young people coming through the door and are learning from experienced people. That's such a shame. I know there's schools and things where people like, I mean, you're involved with that too, where people are learning from mentors that have an understanding of what, you know, an experience. But unfortunately, there's not enough of that being passed around, I think. I don't know how people cope anymore. If I was starting, if I was a young teenager now, I'm not sure what would happen.