I have worked on various little project with King Lizard since I accidentally ran in to Niro Knox (guitar) at the Big Red pub in London somewhere in November/December of 2007! I recorded and mixed two live shows for the band with the Underworld 2009 Live N’ RED Raw show released on DVD. But I was a lot more interested in getting the band into the studio for a proper album recording.

I was commissioned to engineer the band’s new album – A Nightmare Livin’ The Dream – which was going to be produced by Pedro Ferreira (The Darkness, Tank, Shikari, Therapy). Working with Pedro was an experience in itself. He is a very skilled rock/metal producer and I learned a lot from him.

The actual recording of the album started before Pedro came on board. We recorded two songs on the 11-12th of August 2011 at Snap Studios as a test and pitch to the band’s record label. We recorded If It’s a Sin and Down. I mixed the initial versions, but these were not the ones that ended up on the album as they had to be remixed to be consistent with the rest of the mixes.

I’d like to shout out to Shure UK who were very kindly had lent us a goody kit of lovely drum microphones to play with. They were absolutely brilliant and I was very sad to part with them at the end of the session! If any engineers – studio or live – are reading this, I urge you to give the Shure microphones (beyond the usual SM57, SM58 and SM7B) a shot. I feel that they are unjustly ignored in the UK.

Fortunately, the label liked what they heard and the album recording was scheduled for early February with Pedro producing the album and myself engineering.

We spend 3rd till 9th of February recording the drums, bass, rhythm guitars, some solo guitars and overdubs, and some vocals for the remaining 10 songs on the album. Additional recordings of solo guitars, vocals and even horns were done at Pedro’s studio in the following weeks.

All drums were tracked to sync’ed 24-track tape and bounced back to Pro Tools. All tracks were recorded live with the whole band playing live! This makes a huge difference to the feel of a recording and isn’t always the preferred modern way of recording. We were lucky to use a studio that can accommodate this space-wise and more importantly the band were professional enough as musicians and were well rehearsed to be able to play all the songs live top to bottom. Respect!

As you will see from the photos below, February 2012 was an especially cold month, but the studio was kept very warm by the music, gear and excitement. For me, this album was a fantastic thing to be a part of and I am very proud of the result. Working with the band, Pedro and being at the brilliant Snap Studios with Ben Mclusky assisting was just a joy. I think the band’s rockumentary explains it better that I can though:

The album was released in November 2012 and has received dozens of smashing reviews from around the world by rock and metal magazines and punters who got to hear the band for the first time following this release. The band is booked for major tours around Europe in 2013. I highly recommend catching them live as they put on a hell of a show!

The album was mixed by Pedro Ferreira, mastered by Ade Emsley at Table of Tone, and released by Bad Reputation Records.

Recorded at Snap Studios and assisted by the brilliant Ben Mclusky.

You can buy the album on iTunes or the band’s website at http://www.kinglizard.co.uk/collections/shop

Also, please follow King Lizard on their Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Camden Town was composed by Denise Jahnigen who not only wrote the music and lyrics, but also wrote and orchestrated all the string parts which were recorded in New Orleans with a proper New-Orleans-style rhythm section. The album is full of gorgeous melodies and jazzy, yet poppy, chord progressions. Denise has a great ability of taking complex chord progressions from the world of jazz and making them very accessible and natural to even an untrained ear.

I had the great fortune of being able to play electric guitar on two tracks – Amy and Crazy Magnolia – which I recorded in my studio, and also engineered/recorded various elements like drums, piano, bass, French horn, percussion and BVs in Snap Studios and Alice’s Loft Music (see below). More importantly for me, was the chance to mix 7 tracks which I am very proud of. The album was skilfully mastered by the great Ray Staff of Air Studios and is now available on CD and Vinyl (my first vinyl release!).

“…Adam Crowe for his incredible patience, support, and advice throughout this entire project…”

Credits

This album has been in the works for a long time and I know how hard Denise worked on it, and I believe the result reflects that. I’m very proud and honoured to take part in it. I encourage everybody to have a listen to the album below and moreover, buy a copy!

Buy Album

• Click here to buy the album on iTunes
• Click here to buy the album on CD Baby
• Buy the album from Denise’s website!

Apart from the lovely music, Niche were a treat to work with! They were also very accommodating to the little microphone experiment I carried out (see below) which was very kind of them.

It was interesting to see how the live room at Snap Studios would respond to a quartet and what microphones in the studios’ mighty arsenal would be suitable for this task. As an experiment I attacked with everything I could! The recording comprised of:

• Decca Tree – two Coles 4038 on the sides with an RCA DX44 in the centre.
• Spaced Pair – AKG C12
• Coincident/Blumlein – Royer SF-12
• Other – Schoeps Stereo Sphere Microphone KFM 6
• Cello spot – Neumann U47
• Viola spot – Neumann KM64

A bit extravagant, I know… But why the hell not?! I’m trying to get the best result here! But I’ll let you be the judge. All the microphones went through the Studio 1’s Neve 53-Series console with Neve 33114/5 mic pres.

Obviously, everything sounded different. The Decca Tree ribbons sounded lush but slightly too roomy/distant for my taste; the AKG C12 spaced pair sounded ‘bigger than life’ and very detailed; the Royer SF-12 had a very natural representation of the room and so did the Schoeps Sphere mic – for more critical and classical recordings, I would have definitely chosen these as the main microphones. The Neumann U47 had an extraordinarily beautiful bottom end as one would expect, and provided a brilliant bass ‘anchor’ for the stereo image of the group. And the Neumann KM64 on the viola was used gently to bring out the softer-sounding pizzicatos.

In the end I just couldn’t resist and ended up using a mix of all of the above with the help of Little Labs IBP phase alignment tool to keep all the signals in phase as much as possible. The mixes were brilliantly mastered by John Webber at Blue Pro.

Update: The guys have editing a video of I Need a Hero by Bonnie Tyler preformed live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3XfTSxLXw4

Have a listen to a little showcase of the several songs we recorded that day. See if you can recognise the contemporary ones:

Please check out Niche London Quartet and bare them in mind if you or one of your friends is having an event this summer!