Interview: Paul Epworth
This award-winning producer has helped everyone from Kate Nash to Florence & The Machine achieve radio and chart success.
Producer, engineer, mixer and songwriter Paul Epworth has worked with the likes of Bloc Party, Plan B, Kate Nash, Adele, Florence & The Machine and many more. So imagine our surprise when we found ourselves carefully picking our way through a tiny studio in West London to sit down with Paul and his engineer, Mark Rankin.
Paul explains: “I took this place on as a writing room about three-and-a-half years ago, but the nature of the work has changed and we’ve acquired more gear, which is why it’s so cluttered. Luckily, a lot of the more recent work I’ve been doing has been artists on their own, so there’s little need to go into bigger studios.” But when a bigger place is required, usually for the recording process, Paul has used places like Eastcote Studios and, more recently, The Pool at Moloko.
We were actually very lucky to get our interview time with Paul and Mark because they were in the process of moving studio while finishing a few projects. Paul explained: “So much of my work has been done in this studio, but it’s impossible to work with more than three or four people at a time. It also makes sense to have a space where we can have everything set up, so we can work faster.”
Studio magic
A Ludwig drum kit is set up in the corner of the studio, while a large selection of synthesizers and circuit-bent toys are at the other end. Paul explained the role of these toys: “They are great for happy accidents; you could do a pass of a weird circuit-bent sound and get something musical in there. Then, with a bit of editing, you can turn it into something more. The key device I like to use is the circuit-bent Boss delay pedal that’s been wired into a Speak And Math box. You can record into it, create a loop, divide it, cut it down or glitch it. A lot of the stuff we did on the Florence record that wasn’t drums, piano or strings was done with that. We had her singing through it and would take chunks out, which then became musical parts. I love how it lets you create synth-like sounds that have a more organic sound to them. I like sounds to have texture, grain and character, so they can contrast against other sounds that might be clean and pristine in a mix.”
The drum kit in the corner surprised us, as it’s in the same single studio room, with no acoustic division. Any monitoring would have to be done on headphones or retrospectively on playback. But then we were informed that most of the Jack Peñate album, Everything Is New, was recorded there – so this one-room setup clearly hasn’t presented as many difficulties as you might think.
Mark gave us a quick example of how they mic the drums and pointed out that they don’t need to monitor as much as you might think in any case, as they are very familiar with their equipment and the room itself. He went on to say: “We usually go quite minimal in this studio for drums, with an AKG 414 on the kick just in front of the outer skin and an AKG D119 placed as a single overhead. Paul’s long-time friend the Røde Classic 2 would usually be used on the snare and we’ll capture ambience at the other end of the room with a U47 copy we have [Apex 460]. When we worked with Primal Scream they had one and swore by it. The kick sound with a 414 is quite banging and if we need to we might reinforce it with triggered sounds.”
Paul then explained why this method of doing it all in one room is actually preferred, not just done through necessity. “I love the communication of it and that you get to feel what the artist is experiencing in the same room. It feels like a musician’s environment, not a technical studio environment. When it comes to my regard for technical excellence, I would much rather create a record that’s exciting, that feels good to listen to and also make, than strive for technical excellence or superiority with a need to use talkback systems or walking back and forth through a set of doors to communicate.”
When they use The Pool it’s also based on this shared recording space for tracking, and his plans for the new premises are similar, although he went on to say, “I want to try to make it a bit more flexible, so we can have one live room and have two joining rooms for recording if needed, but also be able to multitask, so someone can be songwriting or programming in another room while I’m performing a different task. It’s getting to the stage when I might need someone to be compiling vocals in another room, adding new sounds or trialling various edits. You can be so much more productive if you have the option to let people have isolation, so they can develop their ideas on their own. That’s what I’m after in the new studio.”
Mixing it all together
Although bigger studios may be used for recording, most of the mixing takes place at Paul’s studio. He told us why: “In most cases, our monitor mixes are strong enough for radio play. Whether they’re as strong as mixes by Tom Elmhirst, Cenzo Townsend or Alan Moulder I couldn’t tell you! But I think our mixes have charm and that they benefit from being driven by a gut feeling rather than finesse.”
Paul explained how mixing is part of his production process throughout the writing stage: “I’m always trying to balance stuff and make it sound good at the time, as it lets you know if the parts being added are working in the context of everything else. This also means you’ll finish with something that’s pretty close to a mix after tracking.”
In order to do this, Paul works in the box, and he explained to us why this works for him: “A part of its appeal is the way you can easily recall a session that’s run from just two outputs without any worries, so I can easily leave a session, come back to it with fresh ears, and instantly know if what I’ve been doing is any good.”
But he went on to clarify that he’s not opposed to working with a real desk: “If we’re in a studio that has a real desk, I’ll run mixes through it using delays and reverbs, as you’ll usually find something new when you’ve got the benefit of that tactile interface for doctoring sounds.”
Production lines
Paul is quick to note that his tastes – and hence his production techniques – have changed over time: “A lot of the earlier records I did had a particular sound,” he says, “because I was after that tight, dead drum sound, like a drum machine. Whereas now we could be looking for different things, like over-the-top tape compression on a roomy drum sound, to get those weird harmonics popping out for a rich tonal sound, which I feel a lot of sterile-sounding records lack.”
When it comes to mixing, Paul reveals: “I use the Overdrive plug-in in Logic a lot as it does a lot of what recording to tape does: a bit of saturation, and the tone control can be used to bias a sound and remove some of the nastier high frequencies. The first time I jumped into using it like that was on Jack Peñate’s Tonight’s Today and I still think it’s hard to tell what era that record was recorded in. We also achieved that kind of timeless effect by limiting ourselves in various ways, such as recording backing vocals in one take with no double-tracking.”
Mark chips in to point out another surprising use that the pair have found for distortion: “Say you’ve got a tambourine, which is usually quite thin and high-sounding. Stick a bit of distortion on it and all of a sudden you’ve got what sounds remarkably like a Motown tambourine.”
Paul and Mark also use various plug-ins from the UAD range, including the Pultec for additive EQ work and the new Studer for getting tape tone on certain sounds. Mark went on to say: “Old tape stuff was distorting and limiting as it got recorded, so it’s using that kind of process. The danger of mixing in-the-box is that everything can be too clean, so these elements give certain parts added character.”
As regards his overall working methods, Paul says it’s easier to start by setting parameters to work within. He gave an example: “On the Florence album we decided, way before getting to the studio, that we’d use only organ for the bass sound, which resulted in a heavier sound that was slightly synthetic. I think the only thing on that record that sounds like a bass is actually a guitar that we pitched down an octave for a twangy, slack and detuned effect.”
Before we left, Paul told us that after working on the next Florence & The Machine album he’ll be finishing his own project with Mark. So our last question was about how it feels to be the artist for a change. He answered, with a smile: “It’s making me realise how hard it is being an artist – and realise just what I put artists through in the studio!”
This feature first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 95
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