Mick has been hard at work on a slew of large scale projects over the last 12 months or more that are now taking shape.

One of these projects is for London based alt-rockers Sebastopol who have been perfecting their second studio album with Mick this time in the Producer's chair - having already mixed the group's debut LP 'Hello All Stations, This Is Zero' which received a very warm reception from critics on it's release in 2012.

Having rehearsed and recorded 6 basic tracks for the album at London's Snap Studios, they are now are now arranging and recording overdubs in Mick's studio in Shepherd's Bush, West London.


"The new basic tracks sound amazing." Explains Mick. "We recorded via the classic Neve at Snap and into Pro Tools at 96 kHz via some excellent Prism Sound ADC converters. Recording the drums, once again I used many more microphones that strictly necessary, some placed in rather obscure positions to capture unusual sounds which I can then use selectively in the mix."
While most of these extra mics will probably not get used, the extended multi-track facility provided by contemporary digital recording allows the band to take advantage of the unique features of the great-sounding room at Snap Studios.

“We recorded live tracks; drums, bass, guitar and guide vocals, having rehearsed for several weeks beforehand honing the arrangements of the songs. The three guys in the band are all very talented musicians and the intention was to record as few takes as possible in order to capture the spontaneity of their performances. 6 songs in 3 days...job done!” - Mick Glossop

The band were all in the same room during the tracking process. The bass amp was placed in an isolation cupboard and the two guitar amplifiers were placed in the chill-out area, next to the control room. Guitarist Phil Millo uses two Orange amps, one for the direct sound and one for the echo delays which - as Mick explains - provides a much greater spatial spread for the heavy delays used on many of the guitar parts.
 

The distinctive Orange Amplifiers are a hallmark of the next Sebastapol record, the sound of which was captured in a variety of different ways.

While the chill-out room was some distance from the main recording room Mick explains that there was "No loss of signal quality as I always use my Al Smart hi-lo-hi impedance, long haul converter boxes.” With the room itself having a great sound, Mick also sampled it using convolution reverb plug-in called Altiverb so that he can use it in the mixing stage on other tracks.

To capture the guitar sounds the Neumann U47 FET, U67, RCA 44 and RCA 77 ribbon mics were chosen for the amps, with the addition of DI feeds from the guitar and from various points along the guitar effects chain. In addition to this, Mick also recently picked up few unusual microphones online which are set up on the guitar amps ready to use when they sound right for particular guitar tones.
 

A variety of weird and wonderful microphones are on-hand to capture and create interesting combination of sounds. 

The bass was recorded with the Neumann U47 FET on the speaker and a direct line from the bass guitar. Guide vocals have been captured with a Shure SM-7. We look forward to showing off a slew of new tracks from Sebastopol very shortly.

Paul Clark - keyboard player from 1980s post-punk/new wave group The Bolshoi [see right] is continuing to work on his new instrumental synth-based LP with Mick. With Paul living in Seattle and Mick in London, it’s a long distance collaborative effort - made ever easier with today’s high speed internet. Mick can work almost as easily on the new material as if Paul was in the same room.

“I’ve mixed 3 tracks for for the project so far in my studio.” explains Mick. “I’ve been re-editing and re-recording some of the synth parts using alternative sources - for instance the Spectrasonics Omnisphere plug-in. I've also added some arpeggiated parts and some atmospheric sounds.” Mick comments that so far the project sounds “Like a soundtrack to a movie…vaguely reminiscent of the Vangelis soundtrack to the Ridley Scott movie, ‘Bladerunner’.”

Mick has also just recorded a live performance by classical improvisational artists Contakt. It was recorded in the basement room at Schott's Music store in central London [see left] - a live-sounding, quite small room which normally houses several grand pianos, and is mostly used for musicians' practice.

The eccentric lineup of Contakt features piano, oboe, tenor horn, cello, and vibraphone, with occasional improvised vocal parts. The recording is initially intended for promotion and we will be able to share more details about a release shortly.

In terms of new equipment, Mick is spending a considerable amount of time researching modular synthesizers. The idea is to put together a system that can be used to experiment with a wide variety of analogue synth sounds as well as manipulating recorded audio with a endless variety of filters, ring modulators, phased-locked loop modules and so forth.

An example of a modular synth utilising the Eurorack format, introduced by famous synth pioneers Doepfer in 1995.

“I’ve been using synthesisers for years now, having bought an original ARP Odyssey back in the early 1980’s” explains Mick. “The emergence of a new group of modular designs has re-awakened my interest and since the Eurorack system became a standard, it's inspired a whole new generation of synth designers who have produced some very interesting modules which go far beyond the traditional VCO, VCF, VCA modules of the old days.” Some of the brands Mick has an interest in include Make Noise, Intellijel, Cwejman, Harvestman and TipTop Audio.