Between 1992 and 1996, I worked with a lady Marianne Velvart, a Hungarian born singer songwriter, who wrote Joni Mitchell styled toons.. The more Hissing of Summer Lawns/ Hejira end of Mitchells work.
Along with Marc Catley, we worked as three bands 'The Flaming Methodists', doing Christian satirical songs; 'Paley's Watch' doing prog; and 'The Marianne Velvart Band'.. doing Marianne's stuff..
Anyway, in 1995, Marianne asked me to produce 3 of her songs, and I felt that positioning her towards JazzFM (a London based FM station that plays Jazz.. for those who didn't know), or that kind of smooth but slightly edgy sound would help get her stuff heard.
I knew two of the songs well from countless gigs, and the third was one was new to me, tho' she had written it some before I met her. I was given a brief of keeping the overall structure, but free range with the rest. Her vocal and harmonies were off limits, but that didn't essentially bother me. So I arranged, engineered, played, encouraged and mixed the three songs all in a week and we ended up with something we were all rather pleased with.
Marianne played her acoustic guitar, and Marc Catley provided some lead on 'On The RoofTops'. Clive Davenport who owned the studio did some electric on 'Shadow Boxing' which hasn't been put up. I played drums, electric and acoustic guitars, keys and programmed various other bits.
See here for two of the three from that session.
'Walking on the Wall' was the one I had most fun with, and included genuine Manchester street noises (the studio was beneath Methodist Central Hall in the centre of Manc, just round the corner from Afflecks Palace).
Mixing was hard, since Marianne wanted reverb++ and long delays on everything. I wanted very little, to get a bit more of an upfront sound. We reached a compromise (really.. Just listen to that compromise to imagine what she wanted..). Some things ended up a bit mushy, and definition was lost. If we'd had an automated desk it could have helped, but a chinagraph pencil had to do..
There are moments like in 'Walking on the Wall' there is a guitar line early on that slides upto notes. I did a fairly comprehensive mix, and presented it. That line was recorded with delay, and mixed with more, probably enough to send it to the moon. Marianne heard it and wanted enough to send it to Mars. And Back. We settled for a one way trip to venus. I wouldn't be surprised if even after 11 years some of those echoes are still wandering around that delay unit.
Anyway we got through it. I still have the 16 track reel, not that I'll be able to use it.. It cost her £1500 in studio time, and a few hundred to have 500 tapes made. It could be done at a fraction of the cost now, and burnt to CD. I worked for free, since it did me no harm. I even slept in the studio so that I could work late and start early (ah bliss.. those days are long gone).
So there you go
DSP
