For nearly a century, The Astoria has woven its own distinct musical heritage along the banks of the river Thames, just southwest of London. With its lush and leafy surroundings, highly reminiscent of what one might imagine in Kenneth Graham's The Wind in the Willows, the 90-foot houseboat has achieved near mythical status. The Edwardian-style boat, built in 1911 by the finest craftsmen available, has been synonymous with an elite, musically inspired clan of entertainers, musicians and producers spanning multiple generations. Fred Karno, a famous music hall impresario who managed the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy, was the vessel's original owner. When he had it built, Karno described it as "...rather an elaborate affair, with mahogany paneling and state-rooms for guests. At night it was lit up with festoons of coloured lights...".
Throughout the years, The Astoria was the site of many elaborate banquets and gatherings, whose guests were often entertained by "special amplified orchestras". From 1926 to 1950 it was owned by Vesta Victoria, and then by Sir James Greenwood, who commissioned an orchestra to perform on the Astoria's deck to an audience of over 2,000 moored in small boats and on the far river bank, beneath a grand display of fireworks. In 1986, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd acquired the vessel with the intention of using it as sanctuary for his own composing and recording.
The grounds of The Astoria, named after the famous 18th-century Shakespearean actor David Garrick who is credited with helping bring the bard's dramatic genius to the masses, cover one-third of an acre and are breathtaking in their natural beauty. One enters through an ornate tunnel, designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown. Capability Brown also designed the gardens at nearby Blenheim Palace and Windsor Castle.
For almost two decades, Phil Taylor has been the steward and driving force behind the current iteration of Astoria, which is now one of the most technologically advanced recording studios in the world; it is exceptionally unique. Its idyllic ambience is matched only by its technologically superior, hi-fidelity infrastructure. Taylor's own musical heritage includes having been Mr. Gilmour's right-hand man and guitar tech since 1974. He has also handled Pink Floyd's back-line for their live shows since that time.
One summer afternoon, I had the privilege of meeting with Phil, who, despite being charged with such a great responsibility, was very gracious with his time. With his easygoing character and down to earth nature, he struck me as someone who had clearly hit a rhythm in his career and successfully married his passion with his natural abilities.
How did you originally come across the Astoria? Why a boat?
The boat was five minutes away from David's house, and it was for sale. So just out of interest, we went and had a look at it. When we drove away from it having been shown around, David turned around and said, "What do you think?" to me, and I said, "Well, I think it's fantastic." Then he said to Warrick, a friend of his who used to be the Floyd's personal roadie, "What do you think?" "I think you've got to buy it!" David said, "Yeah, what are we going to do with it?" And it was almost one of those Spinal Tap moments. It seemed, for what it was, a very inexpensive, fabulous place. David thought that it would be a good place; conducive to being creative and writing music.
Before that, David had had different home studios, but was currently living in a house where there wasn't room for a studio and his equipment was in storage. We were bowled over by what a wonderful place it was; not only the boat, but the riverbank grounds and buildings.
What kind of shape was the boat in? It obviously wasn't in the pristine shape that it's in now?
It was in pretty good condition. It was a beautiful, furnished houseboat, with a caretaker living on board. David thought he could use it for songwriting; he didn't have anywhere else available. David's brief was to get his equipment out of storage and put it in the large end room while he was away for six weeks in the summer. When he got back, we'd start doing some work. Well, having worked for the band for a while at that time, I thought, if I do that, they're going to want to change it, and I could see how it would work out better. I took it upon myself to change the plan somewhat. I converted the next room along, the master bedroom, into a machine room, where we put power amplifiers, all the tape machines, camera supplies and that sort of stuff. And I converted the room at the other end of the boat so it could be used as a live room if required, running mic lines, red lights, foldback, CCTV, etc. And then I had air conditioning systems put in the machine room and control room. The control room I had secondarily glazed. We had an old Soundcraft 2400 desk from David's old home studio. It was all right, but pretty noisy; too noisy, in my opinion, to put into a new place. I phoned David in Greece, and said "I want to change this desk to a DDA AMR 24 I've got a great deal, and a really good price." David was of course very reluctant over the phone to change the desk as he was very hands-on and knew how it worked. I assured him that the layout was fairly similar but it was actually much quieter with a cleaner signal path. So he said, "Okay." I had Nick [Whittaker] in to do some acoustic tests and design work for the room. I had to get it completed before David came back six weeks later. The logistics were unusual; I had to get a crane barge and a tug to get both the tape machines in through a window opening in to the master bedroom on the far side of the boat and the air conditioning unit for the control room on to the roof. The last two days of construction, I think I just stayed there, having barely slept at all, trying to get 20 workmen out of there who had been doing the whole installation getting in each other's way in a fairly confined space with desk installation, wiring, electric, woodwork, glazing, air con, CCTV, decorating, etc., with the floors up and all going on at the same time and I had to get the place finished and running to be ready for use. [laughs]
Did David know the scope of what you were trying to achieve while he was away?
No, I didn't tell him. The whole thing, including the desk, to put the air conditioning in, do secondary glazing, do the acoustic work, have things custom built such as racks and monitor stands, putting in the CCTV system, mic lines, wiring — it cost 50-60,000 pounds. With all things considered and the facility now available, it was very inexpensive, really. He flew back in from Greece and immediately came to the boat. He walked around, went up to the control room, walked round some more, came up the other end and found me. The only thing he said was, "Well, how much did it cost?" [laughs] And that was really the start of it all here. We then started work on the Momentary Lapse... album and everybody really liked being here. The whole thing worked very well. As time went on, the studio and grounds went through many different stages of being upgraded and changed.
So this was since 1986?
Yes.
Who did you involve getting the boat up to snuff? Did you get a serious team together?
Nick Whittaker, the acoustician, who had done a couple of other things for us and who we still use now. But also the Pink Floyd engineers, James Guthrie and Andy Jackson, who have done every bit of David Gilmour and Floyd work between them since The Wall, really. James started in '78, I guess. They're both fantastic engineers and have great ears. James lives in Lake Tahoe now and he has his own studio there. Andy lives in London. In fact, Andy used to be James' assistant at Utopia studios in London in the mid-seventies. But they both grew up doing all sorts and styles of music and honing their craft, as did other well-known engineers from Utopia during that time, such as Greg and Pete Walsh. So there's always been a team of people, with Andy or James' ears, along with Nick Whittaker's ears and his measuring equipment. I've always been the driving force and the motivator.
How do you like being the ringleader of it all?
I am by default, really. It all started doing the Floyd's back-line. After doing the Wish You Were Here and Dark Side... tours, it was time do re-do all the back-line for the Animals tour. I kept David's 4 x 12 cabinets and Hi-Watts, keyboards and specific effects, but re-did everything else. Bass equipment, got stabilizers, isolating transformers, re-did all the mains runs, every bit of cabling, casing. Again, even in those days, my approach to doing it was that everything had to be done as well as possible to the highest quality — top class for a great band. I felt it was my role, without anything being said, to keep things to the highest standard possible. It's rubbed off from them, from doing their live shows into this area where I've ended by default; somehow running a studio — well, building one.
You have the best aesthetic and sonic environment here.
It's unique. The way I've done it on this boat is that this studio could be taken completely out of this boat, and, with not very much work, it could be turned back into just a beautiful houseboat. The alterations in the ceilings and walls are not very many. I have stored any wood that has been removed in our warehouse.
Does David come to the Astoria often? What sorts of thing draws him aboard these days?
It's his place and he likes it here, so he comes in when he has something to do.
Can he get around on your Neve 88R desk?
Yes, he might fiddle and be hands on, but either Andy or Damon [Iddins] will be here to run the room, so he doesn't need to, really.
How have you approached the Astoria as a commercial studio? Is there an unwritten policy on who can record here? Do people have to know you or somebody else who works here?
It is not a commercial studio in the normal sense. It is David's private studio which, when he is not here, we do let friends and acquaintances come in to use the place. It's down to my discretion. We're ex-directory, and we're not in any studio guides and we don't advertise. It's still really private. David was happy with closing it down and not doing anything between the periods when he wanted to work. But of course, inevitably when you do that, you switch it all back on and it doesn't work properly or it's out of date. So what I put to him was, if I made it available to friends, which actually he really didn't want me to do, I said it would be good to get other people in; other engineers and producers, to see what they thought of it. It would be good to get other input to help improve it keep the place running and up to scratch for when he wanted to use it. So it's very low-key and discreet. As the years go by, more people hear about it.
When was Roger Knapp brought in for maintenance?
I'm not sure. About ten years ago, probably. He's in about two or three days a week. It varies, depending on what's going on, but generally about two or three days a week.
Just to make sure all the machines are running up to snuff?
Well, [laughs] one of the things he did when he worked for Pete Townshend at Eel Pie was — Pete had a studio on a boat, albeit a very different type of boat, a big Dutch barge, which Roger put together, and Roger's very good at all sorts of things, other than just electronics.
How has your monitoring system evolved over the years?
First of all, when we put the monitoring in, we used UREI 813s, with external crossover and Phase Linear amps, which for the time were okay. No one ever thought they were fabulous.
What was your general feeling about those monitors?
Well, they were alright. No one was ever very happy with them. We then, in I think the late '80s or around 1990, discovered ATC speakers, which were designed by a guy called Billy Woodman in England. He'd designed this soft four-inch midrange dome, when a lot of studio main monitors were using horn-loaded mid-range. Never very pleasant to sit and listen to for any period of time. And these soft-dome speakers were a whole new area, really.
Does the four-inch dome midrange design on your ATC monitors also help even out the dispersion?
Much more so than the horn, yes. James Guthrie was the first person to come across ATC speakers; he raved about them and suggested we have a listen and check some out on the boat. He was already using them himself. We finally did, in I think around 1990. We got some ATC 200s. They were a huge step forward in terms of detail, clarity and neutrality. They appeared a bit bass light — but actually the problem was with our room, not the speakers — we needed more room tweaking. Since then, we worked over the years with the 200s, changing physical support, changing tweeters — they used to come with Audax tweeters and we then changed those to Vifa, as used on their smaller ATC50 speakers. They seemed to work in conjunction with the mids much more seamlessly through the crossover point.
So you completely customized them to your needs.
Yes. Eventually we customized them completely. We changed them from Vifas to Scan Speak Revelators, we changed the cabling several times, we moved and changed the cabinet position — height, wall proximity, angle, etc. We tried many different amplifiers and physical supports and their location several times, and in conjunction with that, we've continually worked on the room to give a large area behind the desk — so wherever you move about, the monitoring remains fairly constant and phase coherent. When you're at the back racks EQing or compressing or whatever, you're not getting any secondary reflections or funny phase problems when you move. It's taken us years to achieve that.
So there's a comfort in knowing that all the sound is equally distributed.
Yes, to a very large area behind the desk, which is not the case with most control rooms. It is very phase coherent when you move about, and it all relates very well. There's almost no change for a pretty big area behind the desk.
Did you try any other monitors?
We have tried almost all types, Genelec, KRK, PMC, etc. We tried ATC 300s [but] they did not work in this room. Before the refit, putting in the 88R, we tried a pair of ATC 150s, which James had been raving about. He replaced his 200s in Tahoe with 150s. And we tried those, with a bit of juggling about. For various reasons, we preferred them to the 200s. I think the size of the baffle on the front created less of a spike from the mids going into the tweeters and a single 15" driver worked better in our room than the 2 x 12"s. And our monitoring at that point, with the 200s, had been one of the best monitoring systems in the country. Now this was yet another good step forward.
How about the rear of the control room? How did you treat the acoustics on the rear?
In the back, in the corners, there's some bass traps, and in the middle rear, the glass has been angled in the center to take reflections away from coming straight back at you. And there are various absorptive areas below and above the windows on the ceiling and on the seating.
And what about these?
These are ATC 50s, for the rear surround sound for doing 5.1 work on the main system. Also at the front — center of the desk another ATC 150 on an electronic scissors stand sitting on top of an ATC sub woofer.
Do you typically use NS10s as near-fields?
Lots of people use NS10s. We've got lots of different near fields. Currently NS10s and Auratones are set up as Stephen Fitz-Maurice has just been in, and that's what he likes to use. In terms of alternate monitoring systems, we have a whole selection of different near fields. We also have off to one side a very small JVC ghetto blaster, which you can access off the mix bus. This is interesting — no tweeters, no silly wide bass. It's very good for setting up quick mixes and listening without hearing too much depth of detail.
So here are your amps and crossovers. You have direct amps serving the bass, mid and tweeter, right?
They're all sitting on these Torlyte stands on these oak cones directly behind the cabinets. The speaker cabling is very short, it goes directly from the amps straight onto the drivers — three feet long.
Can we now talk about the desk a little bit? Why did you install the Neve?
Well, first of all we had the DDA AMR 24 and when we were working in '93 on The Division Bell, the band all liked working here — they wanted to stay here to mix. Andy said, "Well, I'd really want to get a desk with some automation on it." We looked for a window of opportunity and found that there was a week of school holidays in October. "You've got a week then, can you just change the desk?" [laughs] Anyway, we decided that what was available and easy to get at short notice at that time, which actually sounded quite nice, was an Amek Hendrix.
How many channels?
Fifty-six, I think. But the automation never functioned correctly. It was only a kind of stopgap thing. And actually, the mixing of the album drove Andy bananas, because... and later James Guthrie doing Pulse... because with the automation, the faders wouldn't actually return to the same place — some would creep up with each pass. It was a nightmare. It had to go or it was destined for the river. Roger Knapp, our maintenance chap, who used to work building consoles at Helios — the Rolling Stones Mobile, Island Studios, all the Eel Pie Studios, etc. — before coming to work for us he said, "Pete [Townsend]'s selling his VR desk that I put in Eel Pie a couple of years ago, and it's hardly had any use." I talked to David and explained that we're all sick of this desk, and I want to buy this VR. He said, "Alright" and that was it basically.
Well, it sounds like everyone was tired of the Amek desk anyway.
As I say, it sounded good. Some of the older Amek desks were very good. This one was cheaply constructed. It had cheap components and the automation was dreadful. We got the VR desk, we put that in and we listened to it and thought, Well, I don't know, it sounds all right, but it isn't fabulous. We made various improvements, altered the grounding, and had Tim de Paravicini build some alternate valve mix buses for us. The whole monitor system was going through VCAs and JFETs. What was actually coming out of the mix bus and what you were hearing through the monitoring were two different things really, in terms of the clarity and sonic quality. So amongst other things we had Roger build a passive monitoring system for it, and we did some modifications to the power supplies and got it sounding as best we could. Then I considered the 88R, which we had heard some good reports about. I asked Robin Porter to come down, who had designed it at Neve. We asked him to bring a couple of channels and told him that I wanted him to put it into our bussing on our VR, and actually do a proper A-B comparison between channels on the two desks, which he was very happy to do. So we put a day or so aside and we did that. Robin came down and talked through the design, which he had been working on for a few years, which in theory seemed good. Talking's all very well and good, but the proof of the pudding is listening of course. At the end of our tests we were very, very impressed.
So you could hear the difference immediately?
The difference was significant. I mean, ergonomically, it looks like the VR desk, but actually everything about it is different. It was a vast improvement over the VR, and it does sound really good.
The detail, clarity...
Yes, the clarity. Depth of detail and information and cohesion, the noise levels, and it was designed for surround mixing, of course, which was another reason for considering changing the desk. Although we have more and better outboard equipment than most other studios, you know, it was still very important for the functions on the desk, the EQ and compressors to work very well. And they did.
Do you do much 5.1 work in the studio?
We've done a few 5.1 mixing sessions for both DVD and SACD. I think that as a format SACD sounds good and the DSD stream has a type of analogue quality about it. I think it is both logically and sound-wise a better system than DVD-A. These format wars always seem to be counterproductive to what is important with a lot of misinformation being released. James's 5.1 mix of Dark Side of The Moon on SACD is excellent. Let me play you some of it.
[We listen, and I am speechless in awe... best album on the best system I have ever heard, period.]
Look here... Neve put this quad pot control box in yesterday. Apparently we are only the second studio they have supplied with them. David asked for them specifically, he likes to be able to be hands-on and creative with quad panning. It enables him to sit in the middle of the 5.1 monitoring and pan where he chooses — you can alter the divergence — it's recallable and analogue!
You're kidding.
No, there's one in Japan and one here. This is the new 88R quad pot controller.
Pink Floyd has been doing quadraphonic sound for years... was the evolution to 5.1 natural for you?
Well, Pink Floyd invented quad and the quad pot in 1967.
[We walk into machine room, in front of console behind the chimney.]
This machine room used to be Fred Karno's master bedroom, right?
Yes. This is the original glass chandelier, and all these windowpanes, these are all hand-beveled crystal, each one. So all the noisy equipment is in here: the computers, the Pro Tools, SADiE, desk supplies, tape machines, etc. Obviously the computer screens, etc., are next door in the control room. The digital audio from the control room to here is all in solid silver. It comes here into these Weiss anti-jitter boxes, which are supported on cones. They have got a Shakti stone on top of them [which has tuned ferrites and quartz crystals in — these help eliminate RF, EMI and microwave interference]. Twelve-volt power supplies power these boxes, and the people who supplied these have tested 30 different wall warts, all sounding different. So they picked the best, modified them and used high quality copper for the supplies. I have gone into specifics here to show you the care taken with one digital cable run to show you how mad we are. But the proof is in the pudding, as they say — if any of these things did not help retain the audio quality they would not be there. Our Pro Tools system here, which as you can see is housed in this special acoustic-enhancing support cabinet. Let me talk about that for a moment. In my opinion there are a lot of misconceptions about digital audio. Disregarding the good points, some of the bad points are that it is almost impossible to do a digital to digital copy and retain the resolution; it is far more susceptible to the sound changing from many different reasons — RF, A/C mains, harmonic distortion and fluctuation, physical vibrations, etc., than most people realize. What we have tried to achieve is to get our HD system sounding as good as possible, given the parameters of what it is in the first place. We have spent many days listening and testing. Accordingly, every area of improvement has been implemented to the highest degree: all the A/C mains, audio cabling, digital cabling, anti jitter boxes, master clocks, physical support of the units, etc.
Did Tim de Paravicini modify these Studer A827s?
He modified some of them — both the record and the repro electronics. And the difference is considerable. I sent him a record/repro board for testing, and said, "What can you do with it?" I sent him all the circuits. Tim said that these machines are designed to serve a purpose and that purpose is for a blanket use across the industry — whether it's television or broadcast companies, or whatever. They are designed with an element of playing safe to work in different environments without potential for destabilizing transmitters, etc., so they're not necessarily designed for the very best audio performance. They cut off at 20 k. Tim's opened up the whole top end and they sound really nice, as do his other modifications to the bottom end.
How about the ATR 100s over here?
This one I've actually just put the original electronics back on yesterday; just sat them on the top and plugged 'em in. Of course these machines were originally designed to be 4-track and the way Tim has modified the machines to use his valve electronics still enables us to slot in the original audio boards in positions 3 and 4. One can plug the cables in from the penthouse, switch the head jumpers and go back to the stock electronics if desired.
Who actually does the tape editing in here? Is that something Damon does?
Whoever. Depends on the engineer. I've seen some crazy editing in my time. I remember, on The Wall album, it was James Guthrie. He did a window edit. Got out a ruler, marked the tape, I think it was eight tracks of drums for several feet. Cut down the tape and then cut it horizontally, then replaced it with another similar section. Eight of the 24 tracks, you know.
And it came out okay?
Brilliant. It's what's on the album,
I guess he's a real craftsman. I notice you name all your machines....
We have three identical A827 multi-tracks here. Instead of calling them Right, Center and Left, we called them Reg, Cyril and Len — the boys. We have also got a fourth — Syd, the spare. I think I got naming the machines from Producer's Workshop in L.A. doing The Wall. They had 2-track mastering machines that were identical, Mork and Mindy, which we would simultaneously mix onto.
Can you tell us about when you got into testing cabling and patch days?
Well over the past eight or nine years, every month or so, we have a test day with a team of people which involves Andy Jackson, Nick Whittaker, the acoustician, Damon, sometimes guest engineers who have asked to come along for the day or that we have invited. James Guthrie, whenever he's in the country. What we do on these test days is we listen to everything, really, from converters to cables to mics, anything we feel like.
XLR connectors...
We did that more specifically when we got near, when we knew we were going to buy the 88R. And we've done years of testing already, in regards to cabling, physical supports to the equipment, different mains cabling, filters and all sorts of things like that. When we knew we were going to buy the 88R, I said, "Okay, this is our one opportunity to actually rip it all out and start again." Because you can't take the floors up, even if you discover a better cable and just re-do everything. You can only do so much with the equipment in place.
This was a perfect time then.
Absolutely — our one chance to get as good as we could. We underwent a testing program. We wanted to listen to every type of different connector we were going to use, every cable we were going to use and also pay attention to the physical aspects of the support of the all the equipment. All this stuff we had learned had basically come from the high-end hi-fi field, which we'd been trying out over the years and discovered a lot of that stuff made a difference. Some of it was just different; some of it was detrimental but some of it was an improvement. So we went though and we listened to a whole bunch of XLR connectors, we listened to 20 different audio cables, because I needed 23 kilometers of cable to make our own patch bay and rewire everything in the studio... all the outboard gear and the machinery. We listened to 20 different cables. We directionalized them all first, of course. Every cable sounds different in a different direction. It's small, but it sounds different. And actually, the most amazing thing we discovered was when we listened to our technical earth cables, which we have going into copper rods in the riverbank. Our technical earth cables are just a heavy duty, high quality, regular, copper thick- sheathed cable. We'd been recommended to try this multi strand thinner cable, which had been woven like some of our audio cables.
These are cables for electric?
For earthing, woven to cross individual strands at 90 degrees to each other as much as possible to help eliminate RF etc. We listened to this, and we ran it straight out the door of the boat, over the bridge to the copper rods and we did an A-B and listened. Even the technical earth cable, you could clearly hear the difference from the original earth cable we were using. But even more surprisingly, we said for a laugh, let's just turn the cable around the other way and see if we can hear any directional difference on the technical earth cable. And we couldn't believe it, but we could.
What was the difference that you heard?
A difference in clarity, I suppose. One way it sounded a little middle-ier, and a little more distorted than the other direction. Anyway, back to audio cable. We went though all these regular cables that people wire studios up with that are fairly inexpensive. And the one that we ended up using was made by — this is for the 23 kilometers of cabling — was made by a high end hi-fi audio manufacturer called Van den Hul from Holland. I'd actually later found out they had originally designed this cable for the Philips Studio in Holland. Now because they had a lot of stock on the shelf, ready to go, I was able to negotiate a terrific deal. It only cost five times more than a regular cable would cost. But it was worth it. It was our one chance.
On the scale of what you are doing, you had to do it right.
And all the cabling is all, every run, directionalized correctly through the whole place. It's all running in the right direction in regard to the signal path. And every termination is made with silver solder rather than lead solder, because again, it sounds better. I had various discussions with James Guthrie about patch bays, and we needed to find out whether 1/4" sounded better than bantams. I got all the 1/4" and bantam pairs of sockets I could find from the different manufacturers, and got Roger, our tech, to mount them on a long strip. He wired them up, all in pairs, just so we could go in and out of them, using the same hi-fi cable we used for patch cords, using the same length of cable in the same direction on each socket with silver solder. So it was a very fair test. We went through and we listened to all pairs of sockets. What was very interesting was that neither the 1/4" nor bantam was better per say, but what was better was the manufacture, the contacts and the metal and the plating on particular sockets. Size didn't matter.
Were you testing for reliability as well?
Not for long term reliability — just sound at this time. It was quite incredible, and in fact it was one of the biggest differences of all the tests that were done for this project. There were bigger differences in that than we heard in other things. And among the worst were the patch bays that were being supplied with (not to mention any names) two very large console manufacturers. So together with the cable they used and the lead solder and those patch bays, we thought, "No, we're having none of it." So we did our own patch bays but we listened to Edac pins, XLRs, all the various different bantam plugs, jack plugs, everything. Everything we were going to use, we just listened to all the different makes and bought what sounded best. That's really how the audio wiring was put together.
What is the lifecycle of these high- end cables you buy? How long will they last?
I have no idea. I have no idea how long the cables are going to last but they do take a while to 'burn in' and sound at their best. How long will we be here? The point was to try to build the best studio we could.
Are there certain manufacturers that have been more proactive in terms of helping you out with customization of certain components and gear?
Tim de Paravicini at EAR is a brilliant valve boffin and he does all sorts of custom things for us. Even down to the smallest things. Once I said to him, "Tim, I'm sick of when we're DI-ing bass guitars or Telecasters or something, going into a DI box, going into a transformer, you know you've got this high impedance signal, going into a transformer, you're loading it down and taking the sparkle and the attack off it. Can't you design a DI box that doesn't do that?" And he said, "No problem!" Anyway, a couple of weeks later I got this little metal die cast box through the post. We plugged it in and A/B-ed it against all the different DI boxes we had — different valve DI boxes, ones we got from Abbey Road in the seventies, all of them — and this sounded better than any of them.
Didn't Tim build guitar interfaces for you and David?
Tim has built us a couple of two-channel valve guitar pedal interface boxes. So if you want to use a stomp box effect — send anything off the desk in to a stomp box — you can via these with level in and out controls. Simple, but effective.
What about those EAR units right there?
There's quite a lot of those about. They're valve compressors. We've got eight here actually, because there's three in the store. These are Tim's EAR 660 valve compressors, which is his take of a Fairchild 660. Which you know, sounds slightly different, more transparent, but fantastic.
He built it around the original specifications of the Fairchild?
I'm sure, knowing Tim, he didn't do it by copying the original specs. "It's not bloody good enough!" The thing that he custom-built for us as a one-off, which is quite interesting, is a multiband compressor valve controller. It has very similar controls to a Tube Tech SMC2A. You use it with six of the 660s, three on each side to give a very high quality multi-band compressor. Andy Jackson used it on David's Live In Concert DVD. He used one side of that with three 660s on David's vocal. And on the other side he used as a two-way with a pair of 1176s on his acoustic guitar.
That's another of the many things that Tim has built for us. Those are Klein and Hummel valve equalizers, UE 100s, which are quite rare old German valve cutting room equalizers, and then above those is a CLS222 Leslie simulator, which has been modified. Those little ten turn knobs on the right hand side enable you to set the bass and treble rotor speed individually of both fast and slow.
So you can completely control how quickly each goes in relation to the other?
Yes.
Are those LA2As over there?
Yes, they are LA2As. What's above the LA2As is a pair of Pye Compressors from the old Pye studios. Then there's a Fairchild 670, and an RCA 6ABA mono valve compressor above it, which is good sometimes for things like bass. Here's a Fairchild 666, which we've modified quite heavily. Here are some EAR 825 equalizers and there 822s. These 825s are brilliant.
What model are they based on?
What they're loosely based on are Pultecs. One 825 contains Tim's version of a pair of EQ1Ps and a pair of the ME5, giving two channel, five band all in one box.
Does Tim do anything special for your versions of these? Does he modify them to a further degree for you?
Not those, no. We've done some modifications to his 660s. These input attenuators — we put these multi- turn pots on and did a power supply mod as well. These are quite interesting, these 1176s, they're Haecos, made by UREI. They were made for radio broadcast and the meter used to be remote. See the four holes? There would be a blank panel in there just with a light showing you it was on.
How do you manage the noise factor on some of these older pieces?
I wouldn't say the noise is nonexistent. Every piece is looked at and assessed individually. We've done mods to things. Everything is kept in top working condition.
What are James' favorite pieces?
EAR 825s for EQ and James likes the 1176s and Tim's 660s for compressors. James said he can record anything anywhere if he had some 1176s and some 660s. I remember when we were in Los Angeles, doing The Wall, and he was trying to hire 1176s. Everyone was going, "No, no. Use dbxs!" And he said, "No, don't like them. I want 1176s." At that time in America, they were cheap and unpopular, and those we came across, nobody was interested in them.
What are these?
Not many people know about these or are frightened off by the German on the front panel. Consequently you can pick them up very cheaply. The Klein & Hummel UE 400, we have four of those, and we have one UE 200. They are discreet German '70s cutting room EQs and they're not very common. James came across them, before we did The Wall. We've always used them with the Floyd since then as equalizers, particularly on drums, tom toms and things. They sound very full and very clean. Very good.
Damon: They're great for carving stuff. Really narrow Q. Phil: So we have four of those stereo units, and we have one UE 200 seven band mono unit. I think Andy used this on double bass on David's Live in Concert thing. Good to get in there and sort it out if you've got a problem.
What other pieces here might be good for drums? Do you use the RCA for kick drums?
Damon: The 162s dbx are used on a lot on kicks. Snares, the 2254s Neves are nice.
What about the APIs?
Damon: Yeah, absolutely they are used. Depends on the kit. Each kit sounds so different.
Phil: We've modified these APIs to sound a bit more transparent.
Are these your converters here? How important are these in your set up? Did you do A/B comparisons with the converters?
They are critical. We did a bunch of tests, though we haven't done any tests on converters for a little while. What we bought at the time were these units made by a guy called Daniel Weiss in Switzerland, who makes mastering room equipment. Also, James Guthrie has his own studio. We don't necessarily always go through A/B-ing everything. Because if there's something available that James has, he's thoroughly listened and tested it already. As was the case with the Ed Meitner EMM labs eight channel DSD converters we use for SACD applications.
[Phil shows me around other sections of the boat. We walk into the marble bathroom.]
This is the marble bathroom. Small though it is, we occasionally record in here.
I heard about this.
This is the only studio in the world I think where you can sit on the toilet and feed the swans.
[We walk into the studio room.]
This is where you track all the vocals and everything.
This is the main live room, which is pretty small and not very live, as you can hear. We did the Division Bell in here, except for the orchestra and grand piano. We've had the Floyd playing in here live quite a bit actually. Rick and his Hammond and Leslie up on that stand there, Nick's kit here, and David with his amps over there and pedals here.
In general, how have you gone about mic selection on the Astoria?
Both James and Andy have grown up in the age of recording all kinds of music and bands — rock bands, jazz bands and all sorts of things — so already we had accumulated an array of good microphones at previous studios, and that was bolstered at times by looking at the list and thinking, "What do we need that we haven't got?" Things like a good Neumann M49, which is a nice acoustic guitar, female vocal mic. But of more recent mics, the only thing we bought that we thought was really good was a couple of the Sony C800Gs.
I know you recorded Pink Floyd's drums in here. How do you record drums there when you do?
The room works very well, but obviously it's not a live ambient room. There's a place near this corner of the studio. By putting the drums near the corner, they tend to get a little corner loading so they sound, thicker and fuller — like a speaker would if you placed in a corner. It would increase the low end of it. We've got some great drum sounds in here. We have a kit that we keep there, actually, which is one of the Floyd's kits, which was used on The Division Bell. It's a Drum Workshop small kit, and it sounds fantastic. You've got to think also, it's in a small room. You don't need a lot of mics. Usual choice here is a D30 on the bass drum, one of various snare choices and a pair of Coles 4038s.
Overheads?
Not really, just over the top to pick up the kit — of course positioning is critical for balance and to ensure no phase problems: usually about four or five mics at the most. But we have about 120 mics to choose from. We have 30 channels of modified Telefunken V72, V76, V77, V78 valve mic amps. We've got those new Neve mic amps, the modern version of 1081s, the remote mic amps that come with the 88R they sound good as well. Our mic cabling is really high quality stuff. What you realize, about recording anything or doing anything in the studio, is that everything makes a difference to the sound. We try to ensure everything in the signal chain is the optimum — even the power supplies for the valve mics sit on cones on Torlyte stands. It all helps.
[We walk back down the hallway towards the control room.]
I have never seen a studio that has this level of attention to high fidelity and sonic detail. The more I hear you speak, the more this place reminds me of a mastering studio.
Well, you are absolutely right. The thing is though, what you must understand is, you can't polish a turd. Whatever it is — an instrument or somebody singing or whatever — what you have to do is try to retain that; you cannot regain lost resolution. It's not as good recording on a load of crappy equipment and trying later to improve that. What we've done here is try to optimize everything that has any relation to the audio quality.
You are very technically advanced.
But I'm not, really. I'm not that technical. It's really about common sense and the desire to improve other than any great technical ability as such. I am aided by the team around me, who I've put together along with great engineers with great ears, who know what they are doing.
I bet you could not have imagined where you would be now, looking back to where you were in '74.
Absolutely not. Who in this business has worked with the same people for thirty years? It's fairly unheard of. I always thought when I got to 30 I'd get a proper job!
It's clearly turned into more than a proper job. You've gone out of your way maintaining the beauty of this very historic vessel.
I've always had some interest in old buildings, so the last thing one could ever think of is in the initial stages were changing things. David was always adamant. He didn't want anything changing within the structure of the boat itself. Which was how I felt. There would be no point in having this boat if we gutted the inside and did it differently.
The love for what you are doing here is very apparent.
I think it is partially the love, but also partially because it is Pink Floyd. And of course, Pink Floyd has always been known for good sound and visuals and this comes from the band members. Having worked with them live, and being lucky enough to be in the studio with them making records, I've been a keen observer of what's going on. There is a drive in that we've got to make it sound as good as possible at the start of a project live or in the studio. This is discussed and a system or method decided upon. The way in which work is then gone about by the people doing the job. It's got to be done properly. And things are recorded properly — corners are not cut, therefore there is no room for it not to sound good. Being around the engineers who have worked with the Floyd, and being great friends with some of them as well, one knows from them over a course of time how things should be done and this will continue to be discussed through both the project and in general. It's simple — outside of the band you need three things: excellent, talented people, excellent equipment and the budget to pay for it.
