Part 2 – Cloning Made Easy

Recollections of THE RED SHOES by Del Palmer

Well, here we are again. Finally you now know what we've been working on for so long and I hope you will forgive us the time it has taken.

T SEEMS SO LONG AGO now since we started, since Kate stood on that stage at the convention and told you we were working on a new album. So many people who were so close are now no longer with us. Many problems had to be overcome which, truthfully, we had absolutely no control over.

Anyway, I thought I'd give you some more insights into how Kate (and I) work. As usual, there was the process of writing and constructing songs which the musicians we were to use could both work on and understand. However, there were to be many differences.

Firstly, from my point of view an important decision was made quite early on not to play at all on this album (apart from the usual Fairlight drum programs). This was to be a long and involved project for me, being responsible for not only recording the material but also mixing it too. It seemed to me that to play as well was to take on rather more than I could handle without the loss of much of my hair so I left the majority of the bass duties to John Giblin, a good decision I think you'll agree.

Secondly and most importantly there were the two new Digital recorders. They arrived about three months into the project as a result of meeting several people who would change our attitude to the whole issue of Digital recording. Luckily, there were no problems in transferring material from the old Analogue machines to the new Digital machines.

After just a few days I was totally convinced of the viability of these machines to what we were about to do. Kate's music, as you know, does involve much light and shade, space and colour. Analogue recording was always a compromise between noise levels and artistic content. With digital, however, you need make no such compromise as I'm sure you'll be aware by now.

There were times during the making of this album that we both thanked the powers that be for bringing Digital technology into our lives. I can remember many occasions when I would press the PLAY button on the remote and the running light would come on but I still had to look at the Tape transport to assure myself that it was running. The playback was so silent.

One of the biggest revelations about Digital was the belief that certain instruments with very basic sound structures would not come across as dynamically as they had on Analogue (i.e.: drums and bass). We need not have worried ourselves, after the first session with Stuart we were both totally convinced that the reproduction of the kit was altogether amazing. So clean and transient I found myself not needing to make allowances for the tape compression normally necessary when E. Q'ing the individual drums on analogue tape. With digital whatever you recorded you heard back exactly.

There were many other quite startling innovations we discovered to do with the Digital technology we were using which I will discuss further, later on.

Another thing I found useful was the good old roll of masking tape. During the sessions for the Sensual World I must have used 30 or so chinagraph pencils and at least a litre of I.P.A. (Isopropyl Alcohol which is used for head cleaning etc. not a popular type of lager). Thanks to the masking tape I never even held a chinagraph except in the early stages to edit the Analogue tape.

My marker strips which adorned the door to the store room for the entire duration of the project, became fuller and fuller. Each track had two strips – one for the Master and one for the Slave.

I would stick these strips to the desk in order to mark the tracks and what they contained. It was quite a simple yet very effective method because when I changed tapes to work on another title all I had to do was to pull up the old ones, stick them back on the door and stick the next title in their place. Easy!

Not too far into the project it was becoming clear that the music was of a far simpler nature than had been the case on some of the earlier albums. It seemed that the whole vibe was becoming more of a "band" sound than before, so on many occasions we recorded at least the bass and drums at the same time.

The usual procedure was to get Stuart in about an hour before John so that we could set him up and get a basic sound going. After several of these sessions the set up times became shorter and shorter as we got more into a routine. Most of the sounds we used for the drums were samples which were triggered by a set of pads which Stuart set up as he would a normal acoustic kit. The pads were fed into the control room via the mic. lines so total separation was possible.

Cymbals however are a different story. There are no short cuts to recording them so each one was mic'ed using a Neuman U87 (see photos in The Sensual World mag) and the hi-hats by a Neumann U67 pencil mic. I can recall standing in the studio on several occasions watching Stuart playing the pads and cymbals and hearing just a series of clicks from the sticks on the pads and the ear shattering blast of the cymbals. It was highly amusing.

After an hour or so John would turn up and the usual series of jokes and comic capers would finally lead to his small amp being set up in the kitchen with an RE 80 mic on it. The signal would be split between the amp and a Direct Injection box. This device is just a small line level amp which allows you to plug straight into the console. This was done to cover all eventualities although I can recall no time when we used the D. I. at all.

Again, the routines of getting a bass sound grew shorter as the sessions passed. I have to say that the understanding between John and myself, both being bass players, made the whole process easier. I personally have nothing but admiration for John as a musician and to work with him at last, after so many years, was one of the highlights of the album for me.

This system of recording the rhythm section was highly successful and, indeed, most of the final tracks were done in this way. In fact both Kate and I looked forward to these sessions with John and Stuart because they were always a great source of amusement. Stuart is in fact one of the most naturally funny people I have met and his capability to keep that going all day, sometimes for 12 hours, was remarkable.

During the early times of the project we went along to see a concert given by Prince at the Wembley Arena. The reason was originally to see the viability of the place as a venue for Kate to play [EEK! – M.H.]. Just before the concert started a well dressed man came up and gave Kate a small scrap of paper. It was to quite radically change the course of one of the songs we were working on and, consequently, the album. It was a message from Prince.

The note was brief and quite cryptic and simply said that he loved her work and that he would keep on "checking her out" if she would continue to "check him out". As usual, Kate's mind was whirring away turning over the possibilities of the situation.

After the concert we went backstage in the hope of catching up with him but he had left the gig as soon as he came off stage. This was not going to deter Kate though and after a series of phone calls to America, Kate had secured Prince's agreement to work on one of the tracks.

So, as this was in the pre-digital days, the first thing for me to do was to prepare a slave reel with the track on and send it out to Paisley Park for them to work on. As no two studios use the same line up I had to include test tones on the reel for them to align their machines to the same standard as ours. This entails putting one minute each of 50 Hz, 100 Hz, 1 kHz, 5 kHz and 10 kHz. This selection just about covers the complete spectrum of frequencies for the average recording. The tones are recorded on all 24 tracks so that a zero setting in level gives you a zero reading on the meters. I also included five minutes of tape as a record pad. This is purely to allow the record side of the machine to be aligned to the optimum configuration for the tape being used (even reels of tape of the same brand can have completely different characteristics).

This done, I cut in a section of leader tape which will separate the tones from the actual track (test tones on analogue tape have an annoying habit of turning up where they're not wanted). The actual track was "bounced" on after that. It was important to try to leave as much room as possible for them to work on, this was done by making a series of two track mixes on the tape. One for the bass and drums, one for keyboards, one for vocals, etc. This would use up only seven tracks of the original 21. When I'd finished, the reel was parcelled up and sent off to the US.

Time passed and we continued to work upon the remainder of the tracks. Musicians came and went and, it seemed to me, that prince had forgotten us. Then one day the tape returned. I was so excited that I went to the studio bright and early whilst Kate was doing her dance class which she regularly did most mornings.

I put on the reel and put up the faders. SHOCK!! the tape was just as it was when I had sent it out. It had nothing on it at all. Friends, you cannot believe the anticlimax which I suffered at the hands of this tape. I told Kate and she called the States but things seemed a little vague. This went on for at least a month and then, one morning, a parcel turned up.

Inside the box were two complete 24 track tapes marked with Paisley Park labels. We were taken completely off guard by this and could not wait to put them up and see what was there.

Not in our wildest dreams could we have prepared ourselves for what the tapes contained. Prince had taken a small section of the original track, made it into a loop so that it went around and around and then filled the tapes with guitars, keyboards and other goodies. I was completely stunned but Kate was quick to see the possibilities of the thing. It was not the track she had written but with a large measure of rewriting and sampling she would turn it back into a Kate Bush song.

During the time that the track had been with Prince we had decided to go over to Digital recorders so the first thing to do was to transfer all the material from the Analogue tapes from Paisley Park, to Digital tapes. This process we did at good old Abbey Road Studios, our home from home.

The next job was to replace the rhythm box used by Prince with Stuart's drum kit. Next a digital edit was done to trim the time of the track down and also to tighten up the whole thing. Here another innovation of Digital recording was shown to us. The process of Cloning.

When you copy material from one Digital tape to another what you end up with is a perfect clone. You don't lose any generations as you do with Analogue tapes, you get a one to one and you can't tell the difference.

Digital editing is done by using a series of offsets which puts one machine out of sync with the other. For instance, suppose you want to remove a verse from a song you have on tape. First you connect the two machines together using a 27-way cable. This allows for 24 Digital audio tracks, two Analogue tracks for edit purposes and one time code track. Prior to this the tape has already been striped with control code which is of vital importance to Digital audio. Without the control track your tape is useless.

You then place your original tape onto the slave machine and your blank tape onto the master machine. The two are locked together using a zero offset so that the control code times match. You then copy your original onto the cloning tape up to the point where you wish to edit out your verse.

At this point you dial in an offset into the slave machine which will place it ahead of the master by the duration of the verse to be removed (i.e.: if the amount of time covered by the verse is one minute then the offset will be plus one minute).

This done you then run the machines again and drop into the record at the point of edit and HEY-PRESTO! you have removed the verse. You also have an exact clone of your original. This cloning process (without the editing) was used extensively as we went along.

There then followed a lengthy period of experimentation in which we sampled various things from one point in the song and "flew" it back into another. The Fairlight was used exclusively for this process as it saved much time and effort and the samples could be stored for future use.

The evolution of this song continued right up to the time I began the remixing process on it. Indeed, Kate totally rewrote it so that, in the end, it in no way resembled the original song. It was an epic but I think that what we have is quite unique and very interesting to say the least.

The long routine of writing and recording was punctuated here and there with the odd special treat like the day Eric Clapton came down to play some guitar for us. I just can't put into words what it was like to be engineering a session with Eric. I guess you could say that he and I go way back. I remember going to the farewell concert given by Cream back in 1969. He was one of the most influential people in my musical development. To finally work with him was miraculous to put it mildly.

There isn't really too much to tell about Eric except that what he played was simple, effective and very Eric Clapton. As a person he was warm, confident and completely relaxed. His assistant brought along enough equipment for us to cover any eventuality, although most of it was not used. It was rather a simple affair. Like Dave Gilmour on the last album we wanted that typical "Clapton" sound which we got.

However, there were many interesting people who were most unusual. Justin the Valiha player from Madagascar was one such. I believe that he was an acquaintance of Paddy's and the song he performed on was especially written for him by Kate. This was to be one of our rare excursions to another studio, due to the fact that Justin could not come to England. We, therefore went to him in Paris and a studio called Sun Studios. First off the basic track was laid down by Kate with Stuart and John at our studio in England. There was much experimentation involved because no one really knew what the Valiha would be able to add to the track.

Justin's English was rather patchy but after a day or so, with the help of his interpreter, he had mastered a number of phrases which were very amusing. There was nothing amusing about his playing though. He proved to be a very competent player whose style was most suited to Eat the Music in particular.

As you may or may not know, the Valiha is a harp like instrument made from a large diameter wooden tube. The strings actually run all around the circumference and are plucked alternately by each hand. [He means the strings go from end to end, but they are invariably placed side by side all around (although the example shown in the Red Shoes film is of rectangular section with the strings on the widest 2 sides). Because Madagascar is a poor country Valihas are invariably hand-made from whatever is handy, and the strings are steel strands taken from unravelled bicycle brake cables. They are tuned by the simple expedient of shoving wooden wedges underneath in the right places – M.H.] It soon became clear that the best way to record it was with a U87 each side of it about three feet away on a level with the players hands.

Individual microphone equalisation in this case was frowned upon as we felt that it might alter the basic woody sound of the instrument. We would run the track and I would say to Justin "Rolling" and he would reply in a beautiful sing-song English "OK".

Another instrument which Justin played was a small guitar called a Kabossy (pronounced Ka-bos). This supplied a wonderful kind of shuffling rhythm which just made the track. We doubled this so that we could put one either side in the final mix. Again I used the good old U87.

Finally there was the question of him singing some backing vocals along with Paddy. There was not too many problems here as Paddy's French was quite passable so he was able to help Justin with the English pronunciation [Madagascar used to be a French colony – M.H.]. It worked out very well with a very special flavour, so much so that Kate decided to have him sing an actual lead vocal for part of the song.

The session with Justin, who I might add, is a very popular and well respected musician in his own country, worked out amazingly well and holds many great memories. The vibe of the main track we worked on, Eat the Music, is so wonderfully sunny that it fast became one of our favourite songs.

The album was full of highlights such as these, like the day we had the brass players down at the studio. Four hulking great men who were as hard as nails except when it came to Kate. With her they became quiet and very respectful. The session was so far removed from what they would normally do that they behaved like small boys on an outing. The usual thing for brass is to rush them in, do the track in two or three takes without letting them get a feel for the song and bundle them out without even letting them hear what they'd done.

We, on the other hand, had them at the studio for a whole day. They got totally in touch with the songs and even started to suggest things we might try. Kate made them tea and generally looked after them and they rewarded us with some terrific playing.

As I said there were so many notable moments, not all of which were good but all contributing in some way to the outcome of the project. We had many technical problems which lost us much valuable time. These were dealt with by our trusty maintenance duo Simon Quill and Alan Cundell. They would come at our beck and call at almost any time of day and saved us much trouble.

Finally though we were into mixing the songs. When you reach this stage you have a feeling of great relief as you know that the worst is over and the really interesting part is about to begin. You finally have all the material down on tape and it's all down to making it presentable for people to listen to.

Again there was the routine which quickly established itself. Firstly, we spent a couple of days in making rough mixes of all the songs so that we could listen to them. Surprisingly, this was the first time we had actually had all the songs down on one tape so that we could listen to it all in context. As is often the case we were surprised by the experience.

The mix routine mostly entailed my spending several days setting up sounds and balances. Much of this was experimentation and lots of it didn't work. After so long with the tracks I had a firm idea of how the songs should sound and it was a matter of achieving this.

Kate was able to leave me to this and she began to get back into a regular fitness programme of dance classes with old dance partner Stewart Arnold. I would spend my time in trying effects and various set-ups and she would come in with fresh ears later in the day to give me some needed guidance. I would then make a copy of the track in order to take it home so we could listen to it outside the studio environment.

After this initial stage I had a very good but basic mix going. At this point it was time to go over to the control of the computer. The Solid State Logic console includes a wonderful mixing system which enables you to refine the mix as you go along, one bit at a time.

First off was to do a number of passes into the computer to get all the cuts done. This entails switching in the various tracks in the song as they are needed. When the material on the track stops you cut the channel to maintain the cleanliness of the overall mix. Once you have done this and saved the result to disc, the computer will continue to do these cuts for you.

Once the cuts are recorded the most interesting part of the whole process of making an album can take place. By a series of many passes the mix is gradually refined down to a slick and atmospheric song. On some of the titles on this album we did no less than 100 passes in order to arrive at the final one.

Each instrument was given its place and the difficult task of creating space was dilligently worked on. The pace of the mix was also kept firmly in sight the whole time.

It's a remarkable thing to watch the cut lights going on and off under their own steam and the faders moving up and down. The progress of the mix can be checked at all times upon the studio video monitor which gives you a read out of the entire process, movement of the faders, cuts and cycling of effects.

On some occasions two different effects were required on the same tracks. This is achieved by sending the signal to a parallel patch point. This gives you up to three separate outputs of the same signal. These can be sent to independent faders for individual treatments. When the change in effect is required you simply cut from one fader to the other. Again, once this is written into the computer it's there forever.

The ultimate aim of the process is to arrive at a listenable two track stereo representation of the whole 48 tracks contained on the multi-tracks. When we began the project we had no thought of working in the digital domain beyond the multi-tracks. In actual fact we thought that the limitations of the available mastering machines would prevent us. However, when the chance to purchase a two track mastering digital machine came along we felt that the opportunity should not be missed. As it turned out the digital two track was just like using the old analogue machines. We were able to razor edit and compile master reels as usual.

Again the reproduction we achieved was far beyond our expectations as you will now know. At the same time we ran a half inch analogue two track as a back up for our masters.

With the last of the mixes the hard work of the album was, at last, over. It only remained to make some extended mixes of the likely singles. These extended mixes are really an editing nightmare. It involves taking pieces of the songs and cutting them into different positions to arrive at a dance oriented mix. Usually one would do things like leave out the vocals, put delays on the drums and sample the voices.

All that was left was to cut the mixes into the order that you now hear them in and then master them. This process was far more difficult than it might appear as the running order can really affect how you hear the songs. Mastering really is an important part of the recording process. It's where you get your very last chance to rectify such things as differences in levels between tracks etc.

We always go back to our old friend Ian Cooper. Ian's job is to assist us to make up what is called a Production Master. This Production Master is the tape which will be used to cut the master discs for the records and producing the compact discs.

Much of the time is spent listening through to the whole album to get a feel of how it works. It soon became obvious that some tracks seemed to be quieter than others due to their relationship to one another. Some of the mixes will also need minor adjustments in the overall E.Q.

When all this is done we clone the original onto a specially modified U-matic video machine. This format is the accepted way of producing masters for the compact disc process. Don't ask me why, compared to the DASH format it's almost as backward as Analogue recording.

[The reason is because, in the initial CD boom when but everyone wanted to transfer all their LPs onto CD, there weren't enough compatible DAT machines to go around. There were, however, plenty of U-matics, so someone developed an adaptor add-on for digital audio (they aren't very different to proper DAT machines from a basic principles point of view). This was so successful and reliable that the method quickly became an industry standard, which is why it's always asked for – M.H.]

So, there you have it. Palmer's guide to easy cloning. Well, it sounds easier than it was but it would have been much more difficult without the assistance of several knowledgable people and to them I now say thank you.

This album means so much to me, in many ways I feel it's as much mine as anyone else's and I therefore feel a justified sense of pride in what we have achieved.

What follows is for those interested in the major equipment we used ...

CONSOLE: Solid State Logic 48 Input Mastering Console equipped with a G-series computer system and Total Recall.

RECORDERS (Digital): 2 Sony 3324A 24-track DASH digital recorders (DASH means Digital Audio Stationary Heads). Sony 3024A 2-track DASH digital mastering recorder.

RECORDERS (Analogue): Studer 2-track half-inch Analogue recorder.

RECORDERS (Cassette): Nachamichi Z900 Cassette Recorder. SONY PRODAT recorder.

REVERB SYSTEMS: Lexicon 480 with LARC computer. Lexicon 224X with LARC computer. lexicon 224. Quantec Room Simulator (used mainly for Kate's vocals). Yamaha REV 5. Yamaha REV 7.

F.X.: Eventide H3000SE and H3000. 24 track DASII digital recorders AMS 15-80 Digital delay (2). Yamaha SPX90. API 560B 7-band graphic equaliser (4). Audio & Design Compex digital mastering recorder. Limiter (2).

See also Kate's Summary

fr. Red Shoes magazine Copyright © 1993 Novercia Ltd./Kindlight