In issue #15 we ran a rather brief interview with Liam Watson about his London-based Toe Rag Studios. In the following 12 years I always remarked that Tape Op needed to revisit Toe Rag and chat with Liam again, as his profile has only grown larger with well-received albums by The White Stripes and James Hunter coming out of this 8-track, analog-only, retro-leaning (and looking) studio. So revisit we did, and Liam proved to be a lively gentleman. His studio was nothing short of fascinating; it is a special place, one that engenders a different way of working. Liam's attention to songwriting, playing, vibe and feel puts him in a classic producer's role. Toe Rag has seen sessions by Billy Childish, Hugh Cornwell, The Cribs, The Datsuns, Holly Golightly, The Kills, Madness, Pete Molinari, Supergrass, The Ettes, The Television Personalities and The Zutons come through its doors. Many more are to come, for sure.
What started you on the quest in 1991 to build a studio like this? Had you worked at other places?
No, not really. If we go back to when I was a little boy — I've always been interested in music and my parents had Beatles records and other '50s and '60s music. When punk happened in 1977 I was a little bit too young to be really involved, but by the time I left to school I'd learned to play punk music on the guitar and I started playing in bands. When people started to take punk a little too seriously, and the music wasn't so good either, I started getting more interested in '50s and '60s music. I had bands and we wanted to record. I started to wonder why certain records sounded like they did. I found out the older records were mostly recorded using 4-track whilst the new records were recorded using 24-track. If I was going to be recording with my band, I didn't want to do it on 24-track, so started looking in the back pages of the music papers for a studio that had 4-track. I didn't find any as they didn't seem to exist anymore. We found an 8-track studio that (looking back) wasn't very good — set up in a garage with no control room and pretty bad sounding. This led me to be more interested in finding out how things worked. I started with old reel-to-reels I'd get at jumble sales and experiment. I'd start talking to other people in bands that had more experience, like Billy Childish; his bands in the '80s — like Thee Milkshakes — were quite inspiring. I would get one of their records and it'd be, "That's more like it!"
It sounds like older, raw rock 'n' roll.
Well, it sounded like the band when you'd go and see them live. Sometimes I'd get a record by a band I'd enjoyed at a gig only to be disappointed with the sound. That's what made me get into my home recording. It wasn't unusual in the mid-'80s for a pretty straightforward garage/rock'n'roll/punk group to release a record that sounded like A Flock of Seagulls complete with a "Born in the U.S.A." drum sound. You didn't hear that on a Milkshakes record and that was definitely part of what inspired me to get more into recording and to work out how to do things for myself. By 1990 I had more equipment and thought I'd got alright at recording in my flat, then at the end of 1991 my friend Josh Collins proposed renting a warehouse space where I could set up and have a go at doing it more professionally. Josh invested some money to help get things started with the agreement that if the studio broke even and was self supporting within the first year then I was on my own, if not then at least we'd given it a go. Luckily things worked out, and I've been going even since.
And that's 20 years!
Yeah, 20 years! The studio's been evolving for quite a long time now. I was speaking about this the other day with Brian Gibson [former Abbey Road maintenance tech]. He's been working in studios since the '60s and he said, "Well, a studio is never finished. It's always evolving." Which is right! I just rewired the patchbay last January and, fuck me, that was a pain.
With some of the older equipment you've got different impedance loads, as well as things that we don't experience with the more modern recording equipment too, right?
Yes. I've calibrated everything to the 200 ohm standard. What is a bit of a pain in the ass is all this standard 600 ohm stuff has to be padded down by about 8 to 10 dB to interface with the EMI desk properly. I don't really wanna think about the loading when I patch something. But that's why I rewired the patchbay using transformers and lots of other stuff between the gear to match it all.
You're dedicated!
Well, it's a bit too late to start a restaurant or whatever. I enjoy doing this. I don't necessarily enjoy sitting there for 12 hours for a month at a time with a soldering iron, but I do enjoy doing sessions.
When you first opened, did it take a little while for people to find you?
When I first started I was in my twenties and I was playing on the London toilet circuit for however many years. We had bands coming in, just using the space to rehearse in, and then they might want to do a demo. One thing that really helped us very early on was the fact that people like Billy Childish started using the studio. There are a lot of people that follow him — he's a cult figure. For the first five years, when we were in the old address — once those records that he was doing started filtering out, we'd get calls from all around the world from "garage" type bands. It was good because that really helped us learn, and that built the studio. I don't really get any of those groups at all anymore.
Really?
Not so much. I had always been doing other things as well, not just garage bands. I think some of the other things I'd been working on began to take over more. What really changed things was all the publicity that came out of working with The White Stripes. Funnily enough, it had a double effect. On one side we started getting noticed on a different level with a wider range of musicians and labels showing interest in what we were doing. On the other side, some of the more cult/underground scene types started getting put off by the more mainstream recognition. This actually worked really well for me. If you're serious about what you're doing and you're doing for the right reasons, you don't really care about anything apart from working with the right people to get the best out of your music. That's all you're interested in. That's all I'm interested in. I'm really not interested in working with people that are just trying to impress some particular....
John Baccigaluppi:"Standards council?"
Yes! Exactly. I always try to be enthusiastic in the negative situations.
John and I were just talking about this lo-fi movement in the States. Why would you want to associate your art with something that's got an external confinement?
It's not for me, but if external confinement makes people happy then why not? Over the years I've heard many people enthuse about the merits of "lo-fi" or explain how a certain piece of abused recording equipment is the way to go. This is pretty much the opposite of how I try to run things and I usually avoid this type of conversation. Using older equipment or simpler recording techniques doesn't necessarily mean you intend things to sound "lo-fi". I think the term "lo-fi" is often used incorrectly anyway. I'm more into hi- fidelity than lo-fidelity.
Right. Do you find that it's really amazing that they think you're going to put one mic on the drums because you have eight tracks?
I've had things like that, when people don't really get their head around it. I'm noticing more musicians not fully understanding recording without computers, let alone using the smaller multitrack formats. Mixing moves and making decisions about balances of source microphones at the time of recording as the music is being played are things I do all the time, whether overdubbing or live tracking. In order to get certain sounds from a source I often use multiple microphones, but this doesn't mean each microphone gets recorded to a separate track. I usually mix the mics together for the desired sound on the desk at the time of recording. Not everyone I work with necessarily understands this, but luckily what's important to most people is how things sound when played back in the control room, not how things are separated on the multitrack. Unfortunately things are changing. Multitrack recording is now at the point where unlimited tracks are normal and the concept of mixing has changed. Besides the final mixing of a finished multitrack over to the 2-track, most mixing now is balancing together the separate tracks of an in-progress unfinished multitrack recording in order to enable musicians/engineers/producers to continue recording more tracks until the recording is deemed finished and ready for the final mix. If when recording there are 10 mics on a drum kit then later there will be 10 tracks on the multitrack, mixing for most people now is a process that only takes place after a multitrack recording is finished, and more and more separate tracks are being used as mixing decisions are not being made at the time of recording and most multitracks are now impossible to mix without computers. Recording really shouldn't always have to be this complicated.
One of the things this studio's geared for is performance.
Yeah, and sometimes people think recording here will somehow be easier and often don't realise quite how unforgiving of a bad performance recording this way can be. One thing I always say to bands at the beginning of a session is, "It's gonna reach a certain point where basically it's going to be as good as you are putting into it, and that is that. You've got to put 100 percent into it." I don't always have to have these conversations, but more commonly I do and it's getting more and more like that.
Do you think it's because people can demo stuff on a laptop and fix it all, before they've even really got their playing down?
Yes I do. With the amazing correctional facilities that you now have on a hard disk system, I'm beginning to think it has been creating some bad habits for musicians. I did some recording for an artist recently and they wanted to have a horn section on the track. We hired proper musicians — very experienced guys — we put a section together in a room and had them playing along. I'll often put the backing track through a little speaker, especially with group recordings because I think it's more natural. If you mic it in a certain way you can cancel out the speaker to an acceptable level. I'm just getting the gain on the microphone sorted out, everything's set up, and — "Okay, let's just have a pass." It's the first pass and I'm not even recording it. "Oh, is that alright?" "No, no. It's not alright. You messed up there..." "Yeah, but we can just correct that." And these are top musicians! They're quite happy just to play it once, not particularly well; they'd rather just go home than put another half hour in. These are seasoned guys! To be honest with you, it's getting to be a bit tiring.
There are nicely controlled acoustics in the live room here.
Oh, totally. You do need that, really. If you don't want a controlled acoustic, you can go out there.
In the hallway outside? Do you ever crack the door and put a mic by the door for extra drum ambience?
Sometimes for drums, but more often for other things. Actually, there's a bit of noise out there, but occasionally we'll put a mic out and physically put people out there. It's good for percussion. It's nice to have choices. The philosophy with that room [the main live room] is you need a neutral. If you've got an orchestral room, then maybe it's nice to have some ambience, but you want the controlled stuff.
You've got the classic kind of gobos down here.
Yeah, they came from an old studio that I used to work at sometimes — Pathway Studios. They don't do a lot, but I like enclosed drum kits and they're pretty good for that.
Let's look in the control room. That's the old EMI REDD 17 console. What do you think about the sound of that?
If I didn't like the sound it wouldn't be here.
[laughter] Exactly! It's not a museum, right? What is this other equipment in the corner that you have racked up?
Well, this is a monitoring section that I've made because the REDD desk has limited monitoring. I've extended it to be more flexible. On this setting here you have a Raindirk 16 way line-mixer for monitoring the multitrack. Eventually I'm probably going to sell the REDD. It's a great desk and it sounds really good, but in some respects its value outweighs its uses. I was thinking it would be really nice to make my own console, so I started to design a console where I can have all the elements I need in the same control surface. I've had a few people that have helped me over the years. One of the guys is Geoff Frost. He has a company called Sound Techniques and he's going to be building the desk. I just got confirmation that he wants to do it.
JB: Are you designing at the circuit level, or just coming up with what you want?
No, I'm designing it at an ergonomic level, as in the features that I need. The circuit is where Geoff comes in, because he's really good at that.
JB: Are you trying to emulate the sound of the REDD?
No, not really. I don't want a desk to have a sound. I don't want it to do anything, apart from what it's supposed to do. The REDD is all passive and I find it has a sound that could be described as translucent. I'm aiming for the new desk to do something similar, and not really have a sound.
That's a good aim!
Yeah, that's a whole other conversation that could be very complicated. The other thing that I'm going to do is build an echo chamber. I've always had that echo chamber out front [ed. note: now unusable due to neighbors]. It was really, really great. It didn't have a real big reverb tail on it, but it did add a dimension that I sort of miss. The plan is to sell this [EMI desk] and raise enough money to have a custom console and an echo chamber made. I've got a space next door, a little workshop where I'm going to dedicate over half to the echo chamber. My friend Mark Neill [Tape Op #29] is doing the acoustic design of the echo chamber for me.
You're like any studio owner — you're moving forward, and it's all about the sound of things. I know your 1/4- inch deck is from 1979. It's not something from the '50s, like people would tend to believe.
At the old studio I mixed to a ReVox, but since '98 I've always mixed down to the Studer 2-track. I like these machines. They're really reliable. These machines are slightly nicer, because they have the earlier electronics in them and they work really well. With the 8-track as well — it's a Mark II, which don't sound as good as the Mark I, but I can work with it. I have a lot of vintage-type tape machines that are currently being restored. My main 2-track machine is going to be a Philips Pro 51, which is the big old valve machine. Tim de Paravicini is servicing it. That will be our main machine. All of the people that I've spoken to from back in the day that have experience with the Philips say that it's easily the best.
Did you find it interesting that they'll look back at a certain model and can tell you that's the best sounding one?
Yeah, that's the only thing I heard about the Philips machine. I remember years ago, when I was first getting interested in the old machines and trying to work out what was what. I remember speaking to Mark Neill and saying, "If you had to say there was one machine that was best, which one would you say?" And he said, "Well, there was a machine that Philips made..." Tim de Paravicini has got his mastering room with two of these Philips machines. He said, "These are the best!" And when I spoke to Keith Grant he said, "The best one is the Philips machine." This is how I get a lot of the stuff that's in this control room. If I'm gonna have it here, it has to be absolutely up to spec; if I use it and don't really like it then I'm not gonna keep it.
Yeah, this could be some sort of hokey museum.
And it takes you so long to sort out, because there's a lot of talk out there. I think experience is more important than talk.
So are these Lockwood monitors up here?
Lockwoods, with old Tannoy Reds in them. I am probably going to get rid of them as well because I've used these for so long. They're good, but there are games involved with using these speakers, especially in a room this size. They are quite hard to use. About two years ago I got the LS3/5As. Do you know those speakers?
No.
They're a BBC design. They were designed to overcome the problems of these types of monitors in rooms this size. And they really work. Mixing is never necessarily gonna be easy. But they take a certain pain element out. They sound good. I generally can find levels of the vocals and the bass frequencies of the whole mix. I'm not talking about the bass as an instrument necessarily, but getting those right are often the areas that are the hardest work. And that's often why you might return to a mix.
How was recording The White Stripes' Elephant with Jack [Tape Op #82] and Meg White?
Working on The White Stripes' record was great — I really enjoyed working with them. Both were lovely, just absolutely a great little team. It's a shame we didn't get to carry on because I would have been happy to. There was an idea after we had done Elephant where Jack was talking about doing the next LP with me. We had a little bit of a plan of maybe doing it in Africa, which would have been quite interesting. That never got off the ground. We haven't talked about it, but I'd certainly be interested in doing more stuff. I was always disappointed that we never got to build on what we established with Elephant. I thought it was just a really good team. [ed. note: this was pre-Stripes breakup]
One of the artists that you worked with, that I have a long- standing fascination with, is Dan Treacy of the Television Personalities.
Dan was someone I worked with early on. Along with Billy Childish, he was one of the first people that came into the old studio. I did an EP with him for a German label. He got fed up with the other guys in the band and started to do stuff on his own with me. I ended up going on tour with him playing bass. He's a really nice guy. I liked him and it would have been nice to carry on. He went to prison and I didn't do anything with him after that. He definitely has some raw talent.
JB: You've ended producing a lot of people. Does that evolve naturally, as you get to know clients?
I consider myself a producer/engineer, rather than an engineer/producer. I was more interested in production before I realized I needed to learn to engineer. There are certain artists that I work with that have heard some recordings I've done and they've really liked them and that's why they want to work with me. So, that's one conversation. Then there are other people that come along — maybe a record company wanted them to work with me, or they're more interested in the studio and not necessarily me - that's another conversation. How much I get involved depends on how much I need to say. Sometimes I don't really need to say a lot if it's moving forward, it's sounding good and it's right for what they're doing. Fuck it, let's just get recording. But then often there will be little elements in there that, in my opinion, might need a little bit of looking at in order to get it where it should be. Obviously everyone has different opinions. And when it works, it's good. Obviously it works for me. Maybe I'm bringing something to it that they didn't even realize was there, so it works for them. That's a really happy experience, and that's what I love. On the other hand, it can reach that point where they totally disagree and it's not good. I get the job done. I'm professional, but it's not something I'll be pursuing. I can hire the studio out with another engineer.
Right. Does that happen often?
Yeah, it does. I had a full time guy that was on hold and he used to engineer sessions. If someone rang up the studio, like an unsigned band, and said, "Oh, we want to come in and a demo...," I'll check 'em out and see if it's something I really like. Maybe I'll just do it. But, if it's just something I'm not 100% mad about...
JB: Do you book and manage the studio as well?
Yes, I do. I have a manager, so my gigs go through a manager. We get less and less people just ringing up looking for a cheap studio to do demos. I try to price my studio out of that area.
[laughing]
You laugh because you know exactly what I'm talking about! It's like, "Why doesn't this sound like The Beatles?" You can't waste your time with that because those people are never happy anyway. They've got unrealistic expectations.
Red flags come up...
It's quite a broad variety of situations that can arise, depending on what's needed. If people want to work with me I just need to have a good conversation with them about what they're looking for me to do for them. I'm happy to do whatever is needed. Sometimes I might just be engineering. Sometimes I'm more in there. It just really depends.
