Our music studio would be nothing without the people who run it. But who are they, and what makes them tick? In this new series, I'll be sitting down with our talented audio engineers (and videographer) to see what they're all about.
This week, I'm chatting to David who has engineered sessions for some of the UK's top performers including Clean Bandit, MNEK, John Newman and Ed Sheeran (just to name a few).
He is also one of a few engineers mixing in Sony 360 Reality Audio and Dolby Atmos - having recently worked on projects for Lianne La Havas, Dua Lipa and even Jeff Wayne's musical version of The War of the Worlds.
And with that introduction out of the way, let's get down to the hard-hitting questions...
Use 3 words to describe what you do:
Head. Engineer. Etc.
How long have you been working at The Crypt?
Around 5 years now.
If you could take one bit of kit from the studio home with you, what would it be? Why?
Our Avid MTRX interface. It’s the central hub of our setup and it can do just about anything you can imagine, from output EQ curves to Dante routing and super low latency tracking.
What are you listening to right now?
Just diving into Taylor Swift’s latest album. Albums tend to take a while to grow on me but a few of the tracks have already caught my attention.
Trust your ears: it took me a while to really...just trust my instinct when I feel something isn't working.
What’s a neat trick that you know?
Everyone’s probably sick of me talking about this but Soundflow has massively upped my productivity. It allows me to automate a bunch of tasks that would normally take hours. I can just leave my computer bouncing stems and come back when it’s done. Life changing in my opinion!
Favourite pizza toppings?
I’m a pizza minimalist, so at most it would be tomato base, mushrooms, basil and some vegan cheese (although that can be a bit hit or miss).
First album you ever bought:
The Hoosier’s first album on CD from my local Tesco.
Best film score you’ve ever heard:
The Grand Budapest Hotel is one of my favourite movies and the score really captures the whole style and toy-like visuals. Aside from that, Pirates of the Caribbean will always be a classic!
Favourite project you’ve worked on so far?
I had a great couple of days recording with Birdy in 2020. She really is such a talented writer and performer. We spent the first day tracking drums and acoustic guitar with Jamie from the Stereophonics and the second day tracking strings and double bass. The string parts were actually arranged overnight and brought in for 8am the next morning.
And finally, what's the best bit of advice you’ve ever been given?
Trust your ears: it took me a while to really have the confidence to stop a session and take some time to move or change mics and to just trust my instinct when I feel something isn’t working.
Want to work with David? Give us a shout and we'll make it happen.