When I started Southside Studios 50 years ago in 1976, the first affordable 4 track reel to reel, the Teac 3340s had only recently been released. The ‘s’ stood for simul sync. This device effectively bridged the gap between the play head and the record head and did away with the usual delay caused by the physical distance between the heads.
For the first time, the ability to overdub had become affordable for non professional musicians. It cost around £700, that’s £4.5k in today’s money.
Up until then unsigned bands in the age of the supergroup had no access to this technology. Access to the recording studio was only available through a record deal with very large recording budgets, even by today’s standards and not taking inflation into account.
We recorded demos for emerging punk and bands, The Scars, The Valves, Freeze and TV21. It’s arguable that this advance in affordable tech actually may have made punk possible. Ok, the budget tape machines didn’t sound that great by today’s standards, but they didn’t have to. By the time I was 21 and running the studio, I was already an old hippy in the eyes of the young guns of punk.
We rode the wave for a couple of years and eventually got two Teac machines which allowed us to advertise ourselves as 8 track, which was perhaps a stretch. We did attempt an 8 track recording for a band called Jack Easy in 1977. This involved having to hit the play button on both machines at exactly the same time after numerous failed attempts in order to sync them together with unpredictable results. Attempting a mix was extremely hit and miss. Literally! We eventually settled for a mix which was more or less in sync all the way through, but it was a painful experiment. Luckily the band were extremely proficient so we got a result of sorts.
For the most part we would record a band with a live instrument mix on two tracks of machine 1, and then add overdubs on the remaining two tracks before bouncing all four tracks into stereo on the first two tracks on machine 2, usually adding another musical part or two at the same time. Then we would have the sheer luxury of having a whopping two more tracks to add vocals.
It was extremely limiting but it did sharpen your mixing skills. And for musicians there was no faking it and going for perfect live takes would improve a bands performances dramatically.
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As the engineer, if you got the initial stereo bounce wrong it was usually fatal to the end result. Especially as tape was so expensive that recordings would inevitably be wiped over by new projects. Then the final 4 tracks would be mixed down to stereo on a 2 track Reel to Reel. Tape hiss was real!
Still, the new tech had allowed us to be players and caused a loss of business to the more traditional studios who had invested massive amounts in their facilities.
But pretty soon our studio was knocked off its perch too by the invention of the Tascam Portastudio. A cassette based 4 track with a built in mixer. It didn’t quite manage the fidelity of the Teac reel to reel but it was significantly cheaper and you could record in your bedroom.
Songwriter Jamie Campbell and I retreated to the living room of my tiny basement flat in Albert St in 1981 and recorded a bunch of demos on a Revox B77 two track reel to reel as we couldn’t afford a portastudio. We created a bunch of demos using the sound on sound technique. This involved recording a cheap Dr Rhythm drum machine on the left channel whilst playing a guitar. Then bouncing over to the right channel adding a bass. Then back over to the left adding a keyboard and on we would go adding more and more parts as the tape hiss would become increasingly loud. Still, it worked and soon we were booking into Jon Turners Palladium Studio to improve the demos. Jon h had a half inch tape based 8 track system.
John was an incredible engineer. Having played in a band with Demis Roussos, he had built up a massive collection of keyboards including the Prophet 5 and the Roland Jupiter 8 and an array of impressive outboard gear. By this time we had a band and the demos got us a deal with a then unknown guy called Simon Cowell who had started a publishing company called E&S Music in Soho with Ellis Rich. As music publishers they went above and beyond to support the band and arranged a series of gigs at Londons Embassy Club. They paid for us to rehearse on a London riverboat owned by a mate of our called Steve.
They booked us into Castle Sound with Callum Malcolm recording with Blue Nile’s Robert Bell producing. Callum ran a sumptuous 2inch 24 track studio outside Edinburgh which is still going today. The sound of the rooms was incredible and the recordings sounded amazing. This was our first experience of top quality studio sound. It was at this time in 1982 I met Kirsty.
After our superb drummer Pete Griffiths inexplicably left to become a Jehovah’s Witness straight after supporting Level 42 in 1982, we vainly tried to replace him with a Linn Drum as we had booked a tour which we didn’t want to cancel. The Linn Drum costs a staggering £3000 back then and it came in a series of pads that didn’t include a crash cymbal. For that luxury you had to pay an extra £1000 to fit the cymbal pad onto the machine. It was way out of our price range so we had to book into a studio in Brighton to program the live set. As the Bass player in the band, I was familiar with the drum parts, but it was an intense weekend session getting through an entire 45 minute set and then copying it onto the Revox reel to reel so that we could play live.
At the time no one wanted oversized valve Orange amps and cabinets, (which are very collectable and expensive nowadays) you couldn’t even give them away so we bought an entire rig for very little cash, and off we went in our transit band to do the tour. Needless to say, the drum machine didn’t adequately replace Pete and the band fizzled out. Pete was the glue that held the band together, especially when it came to playing live.
I came back to Edinburgh to stay with Kirsty at her top floor flat in the Royal Mile and started working on a new set of tracks. I had a Moog Source mono synth, a Fostex 4 track cassette system, a Roland Drum machine, a Fender lead Guitar and a beat up old Acoustic Guitar. After I had recorded some very basic demos I booked into a studio in Hastings run by a called called Tony. I had met him when I was in Flying Colours through another mate called Peter Bacon who lived in Hastings.
He had an extremely well equipped 8 track one inch with an astonishing range of outboard gear including the newly released Roland 808 drum machine which I loved. The quality of the tape machine was amazing. Even 24 track 2 inch machines didn’t have the physical bandwidth of one inch 8 track but I was limited by the amount of tracks and had to do a lot of bouncing to get all my ideas on there. Near the end of the sessions which lasted for around a month, I hired a Simmons Electronic Kit to try and add some realism to the tracks. It had only just come out and there was no give in the pads. After whacking them unnecessarily hard for two days during the hire my arms were shredded.
The tracks were mixed down into stereo on a Revox B77 with Tony’s help. My old friend and Bass player from Moonshine days, Ralph had been helping me during all the sessions on a very hot Summer which was made worse by the fact that whoever had poured and into the prefab building that housed the studio hadn’t dried out the sand so the dampness and a very foosty smell permeated the building which definitely degraded the experience of recording there. However I was happy enough with the demos and came back to Edinburgh.
I began writing new songs for an album under the name Zed but didn't know how I was going to afford a recording studio to make masters. I had heard of a studio called Planet so I dropped in one day and met the owner Wilf Smarties to ask if there were any jobs. Wilf ran a 2inch - 16 track studio and was a bit of a boffin. The studio resembled a gang hut but the array of outboard gear and Wilf's extensive patchbay setup was excellent. I unsuccessfully pitched for a job.
I had a beat up old car at the time which had broken down and I was recommended a mechanic called Joe who lived near Barnton outside Edinburgh. (TO BE CONTINUED)
