We're privileged to have the incredible artist, producer and composer Matthew Herbert on the show this time. Matthew’s talents have seen him work as a DJ, film composer, electronic musician, creative director of the world-famous BBC Radiophonic Workshop and get knee-deep in some amazing studio gear along the way. In this episode, find out why he doesn't do hybrid mixing, how he ends up enlisting hundreds of collaborators for some of his records, and what it is about his favourite vintage sampler that's never been bettered. The new Herbert album Musca is due for release 22nd October. The new single Fantasy is out now.
We're privileged to have the incredible artist, producer and composer Matthew Herbert on the show this time. Matthew’s talents have seen him work as a DJ, film composer, electronic musician, creative director of the world-famous BBC Radiophonic Workshop and get knee-deep in some amazing studio gear along the way.
In this episode, find out why he doesn't do hybrid mixing, how he ends up enlisting hundreds of collaborators for some of his records, and what it is about his favourite vintage sampler that's never been bettered.
The new Herbert album Musca is due for release 22nd October. The new single Fantasy is out now.
STUFF WE TALK ABOUT (SPOILERS AHEAD)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Mills
https://burlaudio.com/products/b80-mothership
Brother PDC100 http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/brother-pdc100-pro-disk-composer/937
Alesis MMT-8 http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/mmt8.php
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Pulsinger
https://www.npr.org/artists/15289724/pierre-boulez
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Oldfield
https://www.musictech.net/reviews/chandler-redd-microphone-review/
https://reverb.com/item/14197856-1964-lomo-19a13-tube-condenser-microphone-vintage-set
https://www.rupertneve.com/products/high-voltage-discrete-mixer/
http://www.vintagesynth.com/akai/s612.php
https://www.akaipro.com/mpk261
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micachu
https://vintageking.com/chandler-mini-rack-mixer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fantastic_Woman
The Beast Must Die: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9062784/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_(TV_series)
Chris Barker:
I'm Chris Barker.
Will Betts:
And I'm Will Betts. And this is the MusicTech: My Forever Studio Podcast.
Chris Barker:
In this podcast, we speak with producers, engineers, DJs, and industry figure heads about their fantasy forever studio.
Will Betts:
The studio that our guest dreams up will be one that they have to live with forever. But as you might know by now, there are some rules in the Studio Forever land, understandable rules.
Chris Barker:
Yes, there are a few rules. Our guests can select a computer, a DWA, and an audio interface, those are given. Then they have the entertaining task of selecting just six other bits of studio gear, plus one non gear related luxury item.
Will Betts:
But there's one tiny little rule they must not forget.
Speaker 3:
No bundles.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, no bundles.
Will Betts:
Yes, that's it. Any collection of software or hardware sold as a single item is illegal.
Chris Barker:
Yes, today we are super privileged to have the incredible artist, producer, and composer, Matthew Herbert.
Will Betts:
Matthew's talents have seen him work as a DJ, film composer, electronic musician, creative director of the world famous BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and get knee deep in some amazing studio gear along the way.
Chris Barker:
Will he be able to narrow down his favourite kit to just six items though?
Will Betts:
Let's see. This is My Forever Studio with Matthew Herbert.
Chris Barker:
Welcome.
Matthew Herbert:
Thank you very much.
Chris Barker:
No worries. Thank you for joining us. So as you heard the rules are basically six bits of kit, that's your sort of dream studio. But first off, we want to talk about where you would put your dream studio in the world, if it could be anywhere, or out of this world in fact. It can be anywhere, and what would it look like? What would be the vibe? What's your favourite sort of creative environment?
Matthew Herbert:
It's sort of really hard for me to separate the kind of context around where the studio sits and the work that it contains or that it produces. But I mean my dream place would be in Kyoto, in a Japanese temple, a Japanese Buddhist temple. I'd have to obviously kick out all the monks, but need them to come and still do the gardening. But I still think to some of the favourite music that I've made or music that I most like, was made in a really unpleasant sort of concrete shed in Greenwich. And it was a place where they made different parts of fire engines. It was sort of an industrial unit, didn't really have any heating.
Matthew Herbert:
And well across the road was sort of a garage studio, was a UK garage studio and it was just at the beginning of grime and there was pay as you go recording in there. And I went in and played some keys for them and then we got my friend, Nick, who released some of my first records and was really into Jeff Mills and we scouted at lost parties and things. He had a little studio downstairs that I let him have. And then he got chatting to one of the guys over there, who was this young rapper kid, called Dylan. And that turned out to be Dizzee Rascal.
Matthew Herbert:
And so you'd have Dizzee Rascal downstairs with Nick in my studio and then me upstairs. And there's no windows, they'd cut this illegal mezzanine into my studio. But there wasn't enough head height, so as you walked up the stairs, you cracked your head on this concrete beam. And there was rats everywhere, it was totally disgusting. It was like the opposite of my kind of Kyoto Buddhist fantasy. But the music, in a way, I think is your way out somehow. It's like your projection and that. Often think about all the incredible music that came out of Detroit.
Chris Barker:
Sheffield as well and Berlin. It's all these kind of post industrial towns, Frankfurt.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, but then when you look at someone like Barcelona and all the cultural investment has gone in Barcelona, you think about how many iconic bands have come out of Barcelona. No disrespect to the Spanish, but I would struggle to think about the sort of global impact of the-
Chris Barker:
So what we're thinking is maybe there's no like, it's kind of like the equivalent of being born into money, I guess. It's difficult to chase your dream if you're sort of comfortable on the outset. If you're in Kyoto, and do a bit of gardening, you might not ever get around to making music, so you need to be in some hell hole to try and escape it.
Matthew Herbert:
I just sort of think maybe music is born of friction instead. And the creative process is forged. It's difficult, and it's a struggle, and it's hard work, and then it's suddenly upon you, and then it's gone again. Then there's a sort of relentlessness to it as well, of kind of the craft of it. I think nobody really explains properly to students and things, is the fact that it's not can you write a hit song? It's can you write 4,500 of them because to make a career out of doing music, you've just got to keep doing it and doing it. I mean, in the last six months, I've probably written somewhere between four and 600 bits of orchestral and electronic music for these TV series that I'm doing and a film that I did. And it's just the need to sort of keep doing it, you know?
Chris Barker:
Yeah, it's what separates somebody from being an amateur to being a professional in a lot of ways in the music industry. It's that old cliché that inspiration is for amateurs, isn't it? It's just, you can't wait. If somebody wants a film soundtrack, you can't just wait around until you have the inspiration for it. So you have to force and really push that on.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, or you have to create systems and structures around you, to be able to do that. And as I've got older, even though I'm sort of romanticising this time in Greenwich. It was also deeply unpleasant in terms of it was very, very cold. There was no café, there was no sort of mod cons. And actually, I'm nearly 50 and now when I come down, I'll maybe light some incense, I've got slippers that I put on to walk into my sort of studio bit, so that I'm trying to create some sort of barrier and try and create a nice working environment because I guess I need to have that kind of comfort. But the other thing as well is that I'm really aware that comfort can bring really boring music as well. I mean, I often think about poor old Paul McCartney, which, if he reads Dear whatever it's called now, Dear Stars or Dears, what's it's called?
Chris Barker:
Gear Space.
Matthew Herbert:
Gear Space. So if you read Gear Space, you know there's everyone chasing the perfect compressor, and the perfect microphone, and things like that. And you think someone like Paul McCartney, and I mean this respectfully, even though it's not going to sound very respectful. But he's got access to the best microphones, the best compressors, the best studio engineers, the best musicians. He can go to Kyoto and set up a studio there and yet the music doesn't have the same fire in it, doesn't have the same friction, doesn't have the same impact in a way I guess, that the music, when he didn't have any of those things or had less access to that stuff.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, and that's like a lot of dance and electronic artists, and I think a lot of people. That's why they've gone back to hardware, especially in electronic music, to using the machines and the limitations of this box does one thing because actually, it's really difficult to wrap your head around the fact that you could do everything in Ableton, or you just get option paralysis. It's like, "Oh, where do I start?"
Matthew Herbert:
And I think there's also the way that software is set up now and the way that we think we should mix for example, is that we think there should be a compressor on everything. And there should be master bus compressor, and everything should be queued and everything like this. And actually, when we first started, my generation, when we first started making electronic and dance music, you were lucky to have a... Well, there was no sound cards.
Matthew Herbert:
I had a Casio F set 1 that had eight outputs. So I had eight sounds going from each output into a pretty crappy studio master desk, and that was it. No compressors, you just had the desk EQ. And very little compression. And as a consequence, you'd get this kind of punch of the raw sound, it's not squashed or fighting. And so I think that we have to be careful with creating these dead ends for ourselves in a way. So I do think the hardware gives you a route out of that.
Chris Barker:
So I mean, what are we going to agree on then? We've got two kind of polar opposite studios. I feel My Forever Studio, the studio you want to be in forever, are you going to risk the luxury Kyoto environment? Are you going to go for something concrete?
Matthew Herbert:
I'm definitely, as long as I can take my family with me, I'm definitely committing to Kyoto. I mean, I'm really lucky, my studio is in a 16th century chicken barn on the marshes. And it's a really beautiful thatched barn and there's windows, there's 16 windows everywhere I look out I can see different, I see across the fields and things like that. But I've got a dire rodent problem in the roof, which is like it's full of-
Chris Barker:
That keeps you grounded, back to the Greenwich days. They're there just to remind you of those Greenwich days.
Matthew Herbert:
And it used to be Voles, and sort of dead Voles would fall out. But it's starting to sound bigger, I'm worried it's rats. But basically, it's this sort of really idyllic world and there's woodworm in the beams. So the woodworm falls onto my desk, the dead woodworm beetles. And then there's sort of rodent urine that drips out of the thatching. So even though you think you're in some idyllic, and I really am, it really is first world problems. So look, I'm really not complaining. But even somewhere this idyllic, you can still find that friction, sharing it with other living things.
Chris Barker:
Imagine if that rat urine causes some kind of amazing machine malfunction that gives you a one-off sound and then you're chasing that for the rest of your life.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah. I did an album called Bodily Functions and there's a track called Addiction and at the beginning of that song there's the sound of a, I can't remember if it's a mouse or a rat in the rubbish bin, that got into that crappy studio in Greenwich. So there's a little bit of a rodent theme going on here.
Chris Barker:
There you go. It feels like they're necessary. So I'm going to throw the rodents into Kyoto as well, just to keep you at home. I think you should have a few rats roaming around in that studio there, just to keep you connected.
Matthew Herbert:
Ah, thanks so much.
Chris Barker:
We've got the nice space and we know what it feels like. So the first three items are free, they don't come out of your six because we think that sort of everybody usually selects these. So you get a computer, an audio interface, and a DAW. So tell us about those three. What are you going to select?
Matthew Herbert:
I've already forgotten what they are. DAW, an interface-
Chris Barker:
Computer.
Matthew Herbert:
Oh, computer. Oh yeah, okay.
Chris Barker:
A computer. So it's just in case, some people might go Atari, if they're brave.
Matthew Herbert:
I've done the Atari thing. Yeah, no, I'm over that. So it'd be a Mac. It has to be a laptop. I long ago abandoned a tower because I mean I don't tour anymore because of COVID and Brexit. But when you're doing that, you can write and do stems and if you needed to in an airport lounge or what have you. So definitely be some sort of portable laptop. Interfaces, I've tried loads.
Matthew Herbert:
I loved Prism for a long time, but then I've moved onto Burl, and sort of modular system. And so I've had that for about five or six years now. And that's really fantastic, with the transformers, and I can choose to route whether, so if there are sound cards, some of them have transformers and some don't. So I can choose depending on what I'm doing, I can choose to route it through extra transformers or not. And likewise on the input, you can choose to record with a transformer on the input or not, just for a bit more body.
Chris Barker:
So I mean, you've sort of already got your dream audio interface. We don't even need to upsell your dreams on that.
Matthew Herbert:
No.
Chris Barker:
That's quite a heavyweight interface, isn't it? So what model is that? What's the top end Burl?
Will Betts:
Is it a Mothership B80? Is that what you've got?
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, it's the Mothership B80 and then I've got eight, 16, 24, 30, I've got about 32 outs and about 16 ins or something like that. But they're all slightly different colours, so I can choose, yeah, I can route it. And so I've got a Chandler Mini Mixer that's specifically tied to a certain set of outputs for doing things like remixes where I still want some... So my main desk is a Neve 5088 and it's got all the shelf, it's got self induction, EQs, and compressors, and things across it.
Matthew Herbert:
But for sort of dance, electronic stuff it can flatten the transients a bit too much. And that's really pleasing when you're doing acoustic music, or you've got time to really work on the mix to try and stop that happening. So I've got a sort of separate rig, so then I send it out to the Chandler sort of something mixer thing, which has still got transformers on every channel. But because it sums in a slightly different way, it allows me just to have instant recall on remixes in a slightly more sort of underground sound.
Chris Barker:
So we're going for Mac laptop I guess, and the Burl.
Matthew Herbert:
Going for a Mac laptop, yeah. Yeah, and the Burl and what was the other thing? Oh, that's it.
Chris Barker:
No, a DAW. What would be the one? I mean, you can select more in your six items. But this one you get for free.
Will Betts:
I mean, right now, just to warn you though, with your interface, you're not going to get the Chandler or the desk with it. So those will have to come out of your studio items, just-
Matthew Herbert:
That's okay. But there is some transformer options, which is something that I really miss doing the in the box stuff, I that transformer sound, way more than the tube stuff. I used to have tonnes and tonnes of tube stuff, which has all gone now. And it's much more about transformers. And the DAW would be Logic. Like many people, I did Cubase in the early days. Well that was before, it was hardware sequences, so I had a really crappy brother. I had a Brother two track MIDI sequencer. And it had no quantize and you had to do it real time.
Matthew Herbert:
And what happened was, you would put down a track, say a drum track that was unquantizable, as MIDI and when you were happy with it and I put that in inverted commas, then you had to bounce that onto the second track. And then you'd say, put down your base on the track one. Then you'd have to merge them before you could add anything else. So it was incredibly crude. And then my massive step up from that was an Alesis MMT8, which was really brilliant. I know Carl Craig used to use those. And it was a really brilliant kind of hands on. It was a bit like Ableton Push or something, but MIDI only. And you just sort of programme it as a series of sequences. That was really great. Then I did the Atari and Cubase route.
Matthew Herbert:
And then my friend, Patrick Pulsinger, who's a really interesting, sort of an important electronic music figure from Austria, he showed me Logic on a G3 Apple Mac some time in the '90s. I always remember this, this is one my favourite studio stories. He showed me a plugin for the first time. And then he put three plugins in, then he put a fourth, then the computer crashed on the fourth. He's like, "Oh, it's okay. You're never going to need more than three plugins anyway." That's what he said to me, really made me laugh. Seeing as what the sort of track count and plugin count that we now have.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, was that when Cubase was neon, that they had the little, or the little Moog type thing. Single oscillator in?
Matthew Herbert:
It was all black and white and I don't think I was recording audio then, so it wasn't putting any out audio, it was just doing MIDI. So I switched to Logic. Logic was really brilliant, then it got bought by Apple, then it went down the tube pretty quickly. But I'd sort of committed to that. And then now, it's got better again, I think. And actually, I've been helping them with some beats testing and helped design some of the new sampler. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say this or not, but helped with some of the new sampler stuff that's in Logic.
Chris Barker:
In the new one?
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, in the new one.
Chris Barker:
Amazing.
Matthew Herbert:
And now that Logic's a bit more back on track, I think it's pretty great. My favourite function, which I haven't found on any others, which I use probably more than anything else, is capture last take as recording. So you can just be playing something on the keyboard, and then you're like, "Oh, that was good." And then you can press something and it's sort of always recording into a buffer, so it captures it. And it now does this cool thing, which is even if you're not in record, even if the timeline's not running, you could just be playing around on the piano, then you can still capture last take as recording. And you're like, "Oh, I did something amazing and I caught it." And that's how I write now. I just write, and then if I do something I like, then I just sort of go back and retrospect-
Will Betts:
Kind of eliminates that kind of pressure of the record light being on, doesn't it?
Matthew Herbert:
Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, it's brilliant.
Chris Barker:
So there's your three locked in. We got Logic, we got the Burl, we've got a Mac laptop. Now we move on, we've got six bits of studio kit that you can have in your Kyoto paradise forever. What's it going to be?
Matthew Herbert:
It has to be a microphone. I wouldn't be able to do my work without that.
Chris Barker:
Awesome speakers and headphones as well.
Matthew Herbert:
Well, I still write and I mix on the laptop speakers. And I use the little cap locks key and often write music with a little computer typing on there.
Chris Barker:
This is going to be a very interesting My Forever studio if you have a Burl, but you're monitoring through the laptop speakers.
Matthew Herbert:
Well, I obviously do have better monitors than the laptop speakers, but I'll often be in the house whilst the kids are doing their homework or something and just at the kitchen table. And you should be able to mix on anything. You should be able to write and create music on anything. It's just a question of recalibrating your brain. And it doesn't translate very well, so I wouldn't commit to a mix. But in terms of writing and things like that. I think it's enough.
Chris Barker:
But item number one, what's it going to be?
Matthew Herbert:
It's going to be a Chandler REDD Microphone, which is what I'm recording now. And one thing I should probably confess right now, is that I've gone very deep into gear over the last sort of 30 years.
Chris Barker:
That's exactly why we wanted you on the show.
Will Betts:
Also, the moment when you said Burl Mothership as your interface, I was like, okay, yeah. We've crossed the rubicon here, we're going to get some good stuff.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, and I'm really particular about the equipment. And I've been really fortunate inasmuch as I've earned enough money to try most things. And basically, I pretty much sell the whole studio every three years and start again. And it's really fascinating what gear you miss and what gear you don't miss.
Will Betts:
Why do you do this? Why do you sell it all every three years? What's the purpose?
Matthew Herbert:
I think it's to stop myself becoming complacent. And also, it's just you hear the limitations of what it is that you're trying to achieve.
Chris Barker:
And also, is it not that it's really nice fun setting up a new studio? I swear I get more of a kick now out of rearranging my room and going, "Oh, maybe this needs to be over here. I'll plug this in here. Maybe it needs to be all repatched." That's my actual hobby, not making music.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, it definitely is fun to rewire it. But I've been doing it a lot. I'm getting old now. I'm sort of, not far off 50 and I've had so many bits of kit come through. So for example, if you'd have asked three or four years ago, one of my dream bits of kit would have been an EMT240 Gold Plate Reverb, which I had and was just the most beautiful thing. And then if you'd have asked me two years before that, it would have been an EMT 252 Reverb, which I had, which is just so beautiful, just sounds like nothing else. Better than a Bricasti, I think, for a particular sound that you're going for. Really gorgeous, but it starts to be unrepairable and also, they're going up in value.
Matthew Herbert:
So my EMTs suddenly was worth many thousands of pounds. So it was like, well, I'd rather sell that and do something... Also, because as plugin technology is getting better and emulations are getting better, it doesn't sound the same. I've never heard a plugin get close to an EMT 252 for example. But because I've got a really nice desk, the thing that's really missing, I think more than anything, is the hardware stage. So if you can run a plugin through a hardware stage and because I'm lucky enough to have a Neve board with transformers at every stage and induction EQs and things like that, you can sort of bring the signal a bit more back to life and a bit more three dimensional in that way.
Chris Barker:
Is there anything you really regret getting rid of over the years? Is there anything where it seemed like a good idea at the time, and you wish you still had it?
Matthew Herbert:
I had an EMT desk for a while, that used to belong to Pierre Boulez, who set up Ircam in Paris.
Chris Barker:
Whoa.
Will Betts:
That's very cool. What a legend as well, yeah.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah and it was really great. I did a record with Roshi Murphy from Moloko. I did a solo record with her on that. I did a couple of records on it. But it was the low EQ, only had a fairly simple EQ. Low EQ is a 40 hertz, which wasn't that sort of helpful.
Will Betts:
Very helpful for music musique concrète I'm sure.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, but for electronic music it was sort of not that helpful. And then I traded it for a Harrison Series10 digital console, which was Mike Oldfield's old one, which cost a quarter of a million pounds in 1980 something or the other. It's the first ever digitally controlled analogue desk. It had seven power supplies and it heated my whole house for the winter, just from the seven power supplies. My electricity bill was 1,000 quid for three myself because you had to leave it on constantly. It never worked properly and it sounded, the bottom end particularly sounded extraordinary.
Matthew Herbert:
It was really something really, really fat, juicy sound. But woefully outdated in terms of trying to sort of keep it running and up-to-date and fully functioning. But the best sort of fact from it, is that when he exported it from America, it had so much computer technology and chips on it, it had to have special dispensation from the American government, that it wouldn't be used as a weapon. So it had to travel from a America to England with sort of certification from the government that it wouldn't be weaponized. Now I realise some people would think, what Mike Oldfield did with it might be considered violent.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, they don't use his tracks in Guantanamo Bay though, do they?
Matthew Herbert:
No. No. No, maybe not. But yeah, it was an absolute beast. Then the quest becomes how do you get that proper, brilliant, big console, 3D, glowy, gorgeous, wide open space, but without all the maintenance issues? And that's how I ended up with a Neve 5088, which is, it's got one power supply. I can turn it off at the end of the day, turn it back on again.
Chris Barker:
So tell us about the mic though. The item you're choosing, the Chandler Mic.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, I think it's a sort of perfect segue in a way, which is that what I really want is I want a big analogue, valvey sound. But I don't want all the maintenance issues. So I got very into Lomo mics. So Lomo are sort of Russian Neumanns, and they're sort of half the price. They're maybe not half the price anymore. But really wonderful sound. So I had one of the rarest ones, which is one of the best male vocal mics, which is a 19A13 square looking mic. I've never seen one for sale other than the one that I sold. And I imported it from the Ukraine and really special mic, but constant maintenance, needed constant maintenance. And when in a professional circumstance, even though the studio is just for me, it's not like it's Abbey Road and funk you know all the same.
Matthew Herbert:
But you can't have a mic that just keeps going down. I have to work and record every single day. I don't even really have time for that much maintenance, even proper maintenance that I should be doing. So I just need things to work. So I had this huge Lomo mic collection. I loved them all. And then I just sold them all and bought this. And I'm so happy because it turns on every time, it works, it doesn't crackle. I haven't had to do any maintenance on it yet. It's got a really great sound. And what I really like about it, there's so much body in it, there'll be too much body, it'll let you do the EQing. And that's what I love about it, is that it can be sort of quite thin and modern sounding by EQing it. And depending on what compressor you put on it, or it can have really thick, weighty kind of sound to it.
Chris Barker:
The MusicTech: My Forever Studio Podcast is supported by EVO by Audient, the fantastic EVO Start Recording Bundle and the EVO 4 and EVO 8 interfaces.
Will Betts:
Yes, if you're a beginner, you can enter the world of audio recording with the EVO Start Recording Bundle. Professional, powerful, and versatile solution for home recording, from studio grade audio brand, Audient. This comprises the EVO 4 audio interface, the remarkably robust SR1 large diaphragm condenser mic with a shock mount and a set of the Audient EVO SR2000 monitoring headphones.
Chris Barker:
That's right, featuring loop back and smart game, the new EVO bundle and compact interfaces make sure you can achieve studio quality recordings from the start.
Will Betts:
Smart game means you don't have to worry about setting input levels, making it ideal for music makers who want to spend time creating, not engineering. And loop back lets you record everything you hear through the interface, making it a great fit for home recording rigs, podcasters, streamers, and content creators.
Chris Barker:
EVO Start Recording Bundle is suggested to retail at £199, £220, and $249 in the USA.
Will Betts:
Discover EVO online at evo.audio.
Chris Barker:
Okay, so let's move swiftly onto item number two. We got the mic locked in. Have you got that, Will, the Chandler, yeah?
Will Betts:
It's in, yeah. Locked.
Chris Barker:
It's locked in. Okay. So item number two. You are going to need some monitors or some headphones surely.
Matthew Herbert:
Can I just say? One of the best things about this mic as well, is that it comes with a builtin mic pre as well. So the box has its own mic pre, so I don't have to faff with a mic pre. So particularly on my desert island, I don't need to then also ask for a mic pre because as you know, you can't just have a good mic, you've got to have a good mic pre.
Chris Barker:
Whoa, that's a very, very cheeky work around. He's got around the no bundle rule. Well, he's done it very well, he's done it very well by getting a mic that's got a builtin pre. That's good. Saved you an item.
Matthew Herbert:
Well, because my second item, if it was mic pres, would be a D.W. Fearn mic pre. Doug Fearn, think makes the best modern gear. Totally extraordinary, it's not cheap, unfortunately. So I'd just done an album where I worked with nine different singers and because we were recording during lockdown, all the singers recorded at home. And of course, they all had a whole variety of set ups, some much better than others. And so what I did was when we've got these recordings, I've padded the mic signal down, the line signal down, sorry. And then run all of them through this Doug Fearn mic pre. So you get some of that warmth, and you get some of that body back into these quite thin sounding... Not all of them were thin, but some of them were a bit thinner than others. And you get a rounder, more present sound to it.
Chris Barker:
And I guess it glues them all together a bit, so they all sound like they sort of come from the same source a bit more as well.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, exactly. And it really, it makes a huge difference, suddenly the vocals pop forwards in the mix. And they come forwards rather than being back and a bit more apologetic. So I do want to shout out to Doug Fearn and his amazing equipment, even though it's eight grand for a stereo mic pre. But yeah, that stuff is really-
Chris Barker:
Yeah, amazing.
Will Betts:
Okay, so got the mic locked in with its builtin preamp. Item number two, what's it going to be? It doesn't have to be something that's in your studio. So it can be something you've already, it's fantasy.
Matthew Herbert:
Well the thing is, is and I don't want to say this in such a way that makes me sound like-
Chris Barker:
Say it, we know what you're going to say. Say it.
Matthew Herbert:
Well, I just, I know how lucky I am. I know how privileged I am, which is, I've bought and sold a lot of gear and I've got rid of the bits that don't quite cut it. And I'm there, I'm pretty much there. And so I am looking around because I've got rid of everything that I had. I've just sold a Culture Vulture 11th Anniversary with new old stock Millard tubes. It's a fancy limited edition thing because I was like, "You know what? I'm not really using it and there's other ways around this." And it's nice to, such a great feeling just to go, "You know what? I don't need this." So my next bit of equipment, am I allowed to take a console?
Chris Barker:
Yeah. Yeah, it's a single item.
Matthew Herbert:
What am I doing in this fantasy studio?
Chris Barker:
Whatever you want to do. You don't even have to use it. That's not the purpose of the podcast.
Matthew Herbert:
Okay, I would like a console. I mean, everybody would love an old Neve console. I presume you've got a lot of people with Neve consoles.
Chris Barker:
Oh yeah. Yeah, a lot of SLG series as well, classic. Yeah, a APIs we've had and a few Neves. It's pretty even spread actually. We haven't had anything too wacky console-wise, have we, Will?
Will Betts:
No, not yet.
Chris Barker:
We haven't had like a Focusrite, or a Harrison, or anything.
Matthew Herbert:
I'd probably have my Neve 5088 just because in my fantasy studio, are you paying the electricity bills as well in this?
Will Betts:
Oh yeah.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, we pay your electricity bills, servicing isn't an issue either.
Matthew Herbert:
What kind of fruit bowl have you got going on? Like is it...
Will Betts:
Oh, it's exquisite. We've got kiwis, we've got the tiny bananas, the little ones with the really thin skin, yeah. All of them, the whole lot.
Chris Barker:
Tiny bananas, but really massive oranges.
Matthew Herbert:
Outsize fruit.
Chris Barker:
Yeah.
Matthew Herbert:
Okay, electricity bills, studios.
Will Betts:
So is that the consideration, is what's my electricity bill going to be primarily?
Chris Barker:
After the Mike Oldfield scenario it seems important though, doesn't it?
Matthew Herbert:
Well, as I said, being a bit older, you've sort of found out what the pros and cons of all these things are. I had an 1176, had a Blackface 1176 vocal compressor for ages, that I was like, "Oh, this is so great." Then I was like, "But it's the same sound on everything." It's the same sound and you can't get away from that sound. And it's a great sound, it does that sound brilliantly, and I miss that a little bit. But it's just the same sound on everything. This is why I think Rupert Neve designed stuff, I think is so well liked, and revered, and loved is because it can contain a variety of different, or it can facilitate a variety of different styles of music.
Matthew Herbert:
I bought the SSL Fusion thing that they came out with recently, and I had it for a week and then sold it because it's just sort of again, it made the sound a bit more punchy. But it brought the stereo imaging and it took all the sub out of the base, and so you lost warmth and you sacrificed warmth and depth, to get punch. A kind of a modern sort of boxy sort of punch noise, which for certain things, I can absolutely see works and is useful. But again, it's one sound, you know?
Chris Barker:
Yeah. Do you think that the Neve that you've got there will be the Forever Studio Neve or is there one that you would have preferred to get, but you couldn't because of the size of the barn, or the electricity bill?
Matthew Herbert:
I think it's just more about the maintenance. I live down in East Kent, there's two engineer tech people around here. And one's just retired and the other one is so busy and very, very diligent. And so he's quite slow. And that's not a criticism of it, because he does brilliant work. But actually, if it goes down, getting somebody out here to fix it, or getting someone to Kyoto, I mean, are you, as part of your-
Chris Barker:
Yes. You have a studio maintenance monk, I think. Yeah.
Matthew Herbert:
Okay, good. Got a maintenance monk. Well that's good. I think I'd still go for this desk mainly because that's the one thing that I don't have a huge amount of experience with, is mixing on because I'm lucky enough to have my own room, I tend not to mix in other studios, other than the orchestral stuff. And then orchestral stuff has a very different, when you work at Abbey Road, or Air, or something like that, just the routing for all the different monitor sends and things like that. And then all the stemming required for pro tools and delivery of sort of surround stems to dubs and things like that, it's got so many functions that you don't need, that, that wouldn't be for me. So I'll take the 5088, and with some sort of EQ and compressors builtin, because it's modular, so it's missing those bits when you buy it, and you slot those in.
Chris Barker:
Oh, is that a bundle, Will?
Matthew Herbert:
I don't think that's a bundle.
Chris Barker:
Is it a bundle?
Will Betts:
Okay, I think we've allowed it in the past.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, I think we did with the APIs, didn't we? The APIs are similar, aren't they? Where they've got the kind of lunchbox things on there. We'll allow it, we'll allow it.
Matthew Herbert:
It's a really boring choice, but it's really, yeah, it's a good bit of kit.
Chris Barker:
Item number three.
Matthew Herbert:
Item number three, apart from a microphone it's probably the most important one, which is an Akai S612 Sampler.
Chris Barker:
Are you not going to get some monitors? I'm freaking out here. How are you... You're keeping me on a knife edge. It's like, is it going to all on laptop speakers? Okay, sorry. Go back to the sampler, let's get to that. Item number three is...
Matthew Herbert:
Well, you can't make music out of monitors, the most important thing is I want to make stuff. That's what I do, you know what I mean? You make things. Also, I'm still working out what I'm going to do in this studio. So yeah.
Chris Barker:
Okay, we'll freestyle it.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, exactly. But this is a most important one, which is an Akai S612 Sampler, which is the first sampler Akai ever made and they got it completely right with it. Yeah, it's completely perfect, I think. It's a perfect bit of equipment. And then bizarrely, all sort of went wrong now and they're still not done in the same way now. So the only downside is, it only does one sound, so you can only do one sound at a time. But it's basically an analogue synth equivalent of a sampler. So it's just got a series of knobs on the front. And it's got no internal menus or anything like that. So I'm going to look at it now, just bring my mic around.
Matthew Herbert:
So you have a mic of the line input, then you have a recording level, so you can just turn the knob to measure the recording level, monitor level. Then you've obviously got a sample button, then you've got a MIDI up and down to set the channel. Then you've got a one way loop or alternating types of thing, then you've got an LFO section, and you got a really nice filter section, and a decay. So you can take your sound and then you can add a little bit of decay to make it long, you can filter it down... You can add a bit of LFO and you've done it all. So there's sort of various clips of me on YouTube sort of making music on stage out of hamburgers, or broken glass, or what have you. And this is what I use to do that because you can instantly get a sound going and do anything.
Chris Barker:
And you can manipulate it with the knobs live, rather than going through menus and dialling stuff in.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah and then the best and most brilliant thing about it, which is still not on modern samplers, is it's got a little slider for the sample start and a little slider for the sample end. So you can move them in real time whilst playing and triggering a MIDI, whilst it's looping, yeah. And so you can get really dirty, nasty, extraordinary noises from it.
Chris Barker:
It's like doing the old Pioneer DJ trick of the in and out loop points and moving the jog wheel.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Really extraordinary kind of hands on approach to sampling, which has never been replicated. So, that's probably my most important bit of kit that I couldn't do without.
Chris Barker:
A great choice, a great choice. And a first for the podcast.
Will Betts:
Woo, now I'm I'm just looking this up on Vintage Synth Explorer and I'm seeing that it's only getting a two star out of five rating. Now given you love this so much, and it's clearly a very hands on device, why do you suppose this is getting so much hate?
Matthew Herbert:
It's the internet, Will. It's what it's designed for.
Will Betts:
Okay, yeah. Yeah, makes sense, yeah.
Matthew Herbert:
Well, I think there's probably two things. One is, they did this really sort of clunky sort of disc system that they sold separately, so you save onto sort of, they're not quite three and a half, but they're sort of particular type of floppy discs. So, that was a little bit clunky. And the fact that it's only one sound I think, might, but it's 12 bit. But what's really great is when you press a low key and then hit sample, you'll have an extremely long sample, but at a very low bit rate. And then just before you press the sample button, if you do the other thing or if you do it really high, you get the highest bit rate, but a very short sample. So it's just really very, very quick, very logical. You're like, "Well, do I want a crusty sample that's really long, or do I want a good quality sample that's really short?"
Matthew Herbert:
And you've made that decision and you've got your sample in under sort of two seconds. It's a really ingenious bit of kit. And I think this is something that I sort of made it my mission to talk about. But I just don't think that the Japanese designers of this hardware get enough props. We don't know their names in the way that I think that we should do. The people that designed the 909, the 808, the 303, the 4 track tape machines, the chorus echoes and the tape echoes. My first synth was a Roland Alpha Juno 2, all the analogue synths. Incredible Japanese designers and the contribution they've made to electronic music I think is really under talked about and really underrepresented. So maybe I can turn my Kyoto Buddhist studio into a retreat for retired hardware manufacturers.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, like what they do with at Army sometimes, and they have those kind of like the Chelsea Pensioners or whatever. You could have your-
Matthew Herbert:
The 808 pensioners.
Chris Barker:
The version of that for Japanese synth designers-
Matthew Herbert:
Exactly, but extraordinary. My whole shtick if you like, is built on this Akai 612. That's the thing that transformed my understanding of what sound could do. And wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been those-
Chris Barker:
Yeah, had that tool to do it.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Chris Barker:
Okay, so item number four.
Matthew Herbert:
How many am I allowed? Six?
Chris Barker:
Six.
Matthew Herbert:
Six, okay.
Chris Barker:
This is where the free styling becomes hard.
Matthew Herbert:
I'm just trying to think, do I need anything else? I was going to say, do I need six? Can I have four?
Chris Barker:
Wow.
Will Betts:
Whoa. Now okay, I'm just going to remind you here, that you are not allowed to just sneakily bring a piano and a guitar that's not mentioned. So you must be sampling something, what are you going to be sampling with the 612, for example?
Chris Barker:
He's sampling cheese burgers, Will, it's chaos, he doesn't care. He'll make music out of cheese burgers.
Matthew Herbert:
Well, you just record that on your phone and then just upload your phone into the thing. I mean, my next record is made out of a billion sounds. But what it is, is going to be one sound broken down into a billion pieces and heard in different ways. So I'm just trying to workout what that sound is. It might be a mosquito, the moment I swat or mosquito, or it might be somebody saying a phrase, or it might be a car driving over a cliff, or it might be a tree being chopped down. I don't know what it is yet. I'm still trying to work it through. But I just go out and record what I need outside of the studio and then bring it back.
Chris Barker:
I mean, would you, for that situation, let's focus on us doing that in Kyoto, in the My Forever Studio. You've got a Mac, you've got a Burl, unless you want to sample on your phone I guess. But I mean, do you want some kind of decent, portable recording things? Do you need earthworks, mics, and a high quality recorder? I mean, how do you go about sampling the outside world right now?
Matthew Herbert:
Increasingly, I get other people to do it. And I do that as a sort of partly a political gesture, as well as a sort of making my life easier gesture. But also, I really like sharing, like I really love working with sound because it opens up the world in a completely different way and it allows you to hear the world through different people. So I made a big band record about Brexit and on there, there's a track called No Man's Land, which I had somebody walk the Northern Island border and record sounds all along the border. That would have taken sort of three and a half, four weeks and I just didn't, I couldn't take that time away from my family to do that.
Matthew Herbert:
Charlie Morris, who did it with his friend, they just had a complete blast. And they recorded so many things that I wouldn't have recorded. And they missed their flight because they got the time wrong, so they did in reverse. So they did it in the opposite way that I was thinking they would do it. They got a shotgun for reason, and started firing shotguns. So you can hear the sounds of gunfire on the track. So what it does is it opens out the storytelling in a way, so yes, it makes my life easier because I don't have to be away from the family for three weeks. But it also starts to feel like the creative process is not just one slightly tyrannical, Trump-like white man in a studio, just deciding how the world should sound. And it starts to sort of share those-
Chris Barker:
So democratises the record a little bit, yeah.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, I think so, yeah. And that record ended up with over 1,000 people contributing. Over 1,000 musicians, over 1,000 singers. So ended up being a huge, vast sort of landscape of people and perspectives. And when you talk about Brexit and the idea of collaboration, you're sort of living the politics of it. So I'm not really bothered if it's recorded on a phone, or it's recorded on something fancy.
Matthew Herbert:
And as much as that's part of the story, if you're recording, I don't know, if you're in Myanmar at the moment, recording protests, you're probably there with fancy gear. And you might having to be record in secret because your life might be in danger if they catch you recording it or something like that. So the medium and the way that you're recording it tells you about the kind of circumstances that you're in. And so I'm interested in those format shifts as well.
Chris Barker:
So maybe item number four could be some kind of STARSy recording device.
Matthew Herbert:
Isn't that just a mobile phone?
Chris Barker:
Yeah. Oh yeah, that's true. You got that.
Matthew Herbert:
I mean, you've given up all your personal information.
Chris Barker:
We've all signed up to that.
Matthew Herbert:
For the chance of sending a GIF to your mate.
Will Betts:
Worth it.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, it's worth it.
Matthew Herbert:
It's worth it? Okay.
Chris Barker:
Have my life, I want those cat memes.
Matthew Herbert:
So I'm okay with that. I think probably the thing that I haven't said, that I would like, would be some sort of MIDI keyboard. And I'd be happy for you to sort of decide what it might be. I tend to use Akai ones, because they're sort of quite solidly built and the actions are quite fine, and you've got the pads, so-
Chris Barker:
Do you go for sort of synth action rather than the weighted piano key action?
Matthew Herbert:
Definitely not the weighted key action because if you're triggering the sound, I made a record out of pig, and if you've got a pig's head dropping onto a stainless steel floor or something like that, and you got quite a sort of sharp, spiky sound. You don't want there to be resistance in the sound because you might be trying to go...
Chris Barker:
Obviously if it was a different animal's head, maybe not.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, maybe if it was a ant head, that gives you some more leeway. But the thing with working with samples, is that the note off is as important as the note on. So how long you let a sample run and where it stops. It's not like a piano, that has this nice decay on it.
Chris Barker:
I think that's something that's often overlooked in synthesis as well. Like I remember interviewing Chromeo many, many years ago and the length of every MIDI note, the tiniest amount could change it from sounding funky to it's just sounding like-
Matthew Herbert:
Absolutely, yeah.
Chris Barker:
It can really change how a synth sounds. I think that's one thing with plugins and hardware as well, isn't it? The difference is how you interact with it. Like when you've got the keyboard attached to the synthesiser you're operating and it's all made to work as one, you actually physically play it differently than if you've got MIDI keyboards attached to a plugin. And obviously the latency and stuff that's involved in that, it just feels different.
Matthew Herbert:
I think that's right. And I did one record where I just used my MPC pads, even though it was all melodic record, so I wrote it all on that. And sometimes I write orchestral stuff on that, just to sort of change how you get stuff. Again, it's like moving the studio around. It's just to stop you getting into patterns and things, yeah.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, especially reaching for the same chords or the finger spreads on and things like that, yeah.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, exactly.
Chris Barker:
So where are we at in The Forever Studio? Are you going to be a complete rebel and only have what, three items?
Will Betts:
No, we've actually got four now because you got the MPK controller as well.
Matthew Herbert:
Oh yeah, so I've got some sort of Akai keyboard, a mic, a sampler, because once you've got a microphone and a sampler, you can do anything-
Chris Barker:
And a desk.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, or you don't even need the desk. To be honest, maybe I'll give the desk back.
Chris Barker:
What? No.
Will Betts:
I love how caviler you're being about this because you're breaking the format. But it's good, it's good.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, it's good.
Matthew Herbert:
I think about this a lot, I think partly because I spend so much money and so much time trying and working with loads and loads of different equipment and selling it quite quickly, you realise how important these tiny increments are. And also, how completely pointless and irrelevant they are. And I often think somebody who I found had a similar sort of approach, or what have you, but was even worse than me, well, worse is not the right word. But it was Mica Levi, who people might know from Under The Skin soundtrack or Micachu and the Shapes. But she just did everything on the laptop. Again, my caps lock and no EQ, no compression, no anything.
Matthew Herbert:
And she would create the most extraordinary stuff just with whatever was to hand, and there was no thoughts, not that there was no thought, but there was no fetishization of gear or anything like that. And so as a consequence, there was a sort of real freshness to it. But that came from her musicality, and her understanding of the materials, and being able to construct gorgeous shapes from anything that she could turn her hand to, in a way that I guess, an artist, presumably Picasso with a twig that's fallen on the ground and kind of an apple core or what have you, could make something extraordinary, doesn't necessarily need beautiful paints or what have you.
Matthew Herbert:
And the best paper, and the best paint brush, and things like that. So I really swing between those two things, which is on one hand, you don't need anything. And on the other hand, well if you're going to do it, it would be really nice to have a Bricasti Reverb. If you're going to have reverb, well you might as well have the best one, yeah. So I really sort of go backwards and forwards, go backwards and forwards. The difficulty is, is once you've heard the difference, it's hard to go back. So once you spotted the difference, particular on things like converters, once you've heard a cheap converter compared to an expensive converter, it's really, really difficult to just accept the sort of crappier one.
Will Betts:
Just going to circle back to, do you want to get some speakers for your studio?
Matthew Herbert:
So I've got a converter, I've got a mic, I've got a sampler.
Chris Barker:
You got two more items left basically, so you can have some speakers, hopefully.
Matthew Herbert:
You really want me to have some speakers.
Chris Barker:
It's freaking me out. It's freaking me out.
Matthew Herbert:
What's wrong with headphones? It's like you're in a-
Will Betts:
Well, you still need to get some headphones though. You don't get that for free.
Chris Barker:
You don't get that for free. Well, you can have AirPod headphones, if you're happy with those once-
Matthew Herbert:
Okay. All right then, I'll have a pair of Sennheiser HD 25s. And just sort of really great, proper headphones, sturdy, can replace them. I've tried countless other headphones, but I just always come back to them. I think also because I DJ, so having a sort of DJ headphones, that you can also use-
Chris Barker:
Reversible housing and all of that kind of stuff, and yeah.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, exactly. I just think the base is best in them. It's not particularly accurate, but it's just pleasurable. It's just, it's nice to listen to them. So what have I got? Some headphones, a USB keyboard, a mic, and a sampler, so that's four.
Chris Barker:
Are you getting rid of the desk?
Matthew Herbert:
Possibly. I tried to sell my desk last year, briefly because I was like, I was doing so much film and TV music and on average, I was mixing and preparing tracks for mixes, probably mixing sort of 30 or 40 tracks a day for a period of about sort of seven or eight months. And there's just no way you can have an analogue component in the... Just the time it takes to literally run in real time, even if I want to go put in some sort of something EQ or some nice sort of fire box or what have you, as an in/out, plugin thing like that.
Matthew Herbert:
There just isn't the time for it. And I just wasn't using it. So I didn't use it for sort of 14 months and then during lockdown I fired it up again. I was like, "Oh my God, this thing is gorgeous." But then it's really a can of worms, and if you're only saying I can have six, then what's a desk if you've not got a Bricasti Reverb, or a nice delay unit, or three pairs of monitors, big pair, small pair, medium pair, that kind of thing. So I'm just sort of wondering instead, whether actually there's something zen about having a laptop, USB keyboard, a sampler.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, let's do because we're getting towards the end now anyway. So let's do the rundown, Matthew. Have a listen to Will do the rundown of what you've got and we'll include the desk for now, and then when you listen back to it, if you feel like something's missing, we can do that, and we can fill in the rest and then talk about your luxury item at the end, okay? Take us through it, Will.
Will Betts:
Okay, you're in a Kyoto, in a Buddhist temple with monks and nuns maintaining the grounds and you're gear and some studio rodents to keep you grounded. You have a fully spec'd MacBook Pro laptop, your audio interface is a Burl Mothership B80, you're DAW is Logic Pro X. For your six items, although you've only chosen five so far, you have a Chandler REDD Microphone, an Akai 612 Sampler, you have an Akai MPK261 controller keyboard, that's the biggest one with all the pads on it. For listening, you have the Sennheiser HD 25 headphones, and you have the space for it in the temple, a Rupert Neve Designs 5088 console.
Matthew Herbert:
I think I'll get rid of the Neve.
Will Betts:
Okay.
Chris Barker:
Okay, which leaves you two more items.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, and I'll get the Chandler, I'll get the little Chandler Mini Mixer instead.
Will Betts:
What's that one?
Matthew Herbert:
It's a 16 channel something mixer, but it's got transformers on every channel.
Will Betts:
Okay, yeah. The rack one?
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, the rack one. Yeah, exactly. So I'll have one of those. So now I can get sound out if I want to because there's no point of having the Neve with six auxes if you've got nothing to put on the aux.
Will Betts:
Unless you have something on the aux. You have one item left.
Matthew Herbert:
Well, I'm now feeling so much pressure to have speakers.
Chris Barker:
Good. The relief just washed over me. Ah, I felt like Patrick Bateman getting a good reservation.
Matthew Herbert:
No, I'm going to get rid of the Chandler. I'm going to get rid of the Chandler, no speakers, that's it. I'm going with four items. I have a mic, a sampler, a USB keyboard, and a Mac on the-
Chris Barker:
Okay, and a Burl interface.
Matthew Herbert:
And a Burl interface. Mind you, the Burl interface doesn't have any... Can I trade the Burl interface for something else? Because that doesn't have any headphone now, don't have a headphone now.
Chris Barker:
Your rebellious side had got you into a right pickle here, I like it.
Matthew Herbert:
I don't need it. I don't need it, do I? I don't need it.
Chris Barker:
What were you going to get instead of the Burl then? Focusrite, Scarlett, Solo, that's what I'm offering.
Matthew Herbert:
Can I get a really nice teapot?
Chris Barker:
What? That could be your luxury item if you want.
Matthew Herbert:
No. Well, I want something else for my luxury item, I want to get a really nice teapot and cups, I don't know if that's a bundle.
Chris Barker:
Short and stout? Or...
Matthew Herbert:
I'll show you. I'll show you, hang on.
Will Betts:
Matthew is going to get a-
Chris Barker:
A teapot to show us, yeah.
Will Betts:
... teapot.
Chris Barker:
I thought he was going to stand up and do a teapot impression.
Will Betts:
Yeah, me too. And just to be clear, this is replacing-
Chris Barker:
The Burl Mothership.
Will Betts:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, okay. Reveal the teapot.
Matthew Herbert:
So like a nice handmade sort of, this Tenmoku Japanese. I'm quite into my Japanese pottery. So this is a Tenmoku glaze. It's actually made, it's a British, Adam Ross, a ceramicist over here. So maybe like a nice teapot.
Chris Barker:
It does look nice. It's kind of got a Darth Vader shiny vibe about it as well, which is cool.
Matthew Herbert:
Yes. Yeah. I'm very, very analogue and I think that's what's been helpful, for me, about this process, is that I'm very, very pro analogue. I love my gear and I spent a lot of money, and time, and effort over the years refining it and finding the best stuff for what I want to achieve. But actually, it's like a millstone. It's a drag on the creative process. And the number of times it gets in the way, like this pot's crackly, or I can't quite get the sound, or anything like that. I don't think it's necessarily the right approach. But as I've got older, I happened to work faster and fast. I'm now having to do more and more in less and less time. So a few years ago, I did a film called Fantastic Women and it went on to win a Best Foreign Film Oscar.
Matthew Herbert:
I met the director and three and a half weeks later I had to deliver the finished score. So from meeting the director to delivering an orchestral score with three and a half weeks. And that was a few years ago, and now that's become the standard now. So I did a film this winter where I had to do 42 queues in two and a half weeks, over Christmas, including recording it and mixing it, and things like that. The turnover is so fast now, everybody expects it. And so I've got into that kind of rhythm and I guess maybe being in a Buddhist temple or what have you, would change that perspective. But everyone talks a lot about this hybrid approach. But for me, I just feel like it ends up just being one or the other. It's like I'm either in the box and I'm working really quickly, and I've got instant recall all the time or I'm taking my time and the analogue thing becomes really zen-
Chris Barker:
So an all or nothing approach basically. You have to go all in with it.
Matthew Herbert:
If you're going to go analogue, it's sort of a process of surrender. You have to surrender to all its insecurities, its mess, its thing and all the rest of it. Yeah, I don't think that's for everybody, but that's where I've got to.
Chris Barker:
Okay. So run us down. We've got rid of the Burl for a teapot. What's the final setup now then, Will? You're locking that in as your final setup?
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah. Yeah, that's fine.
Will Betts:
Is that the luxury item, the teapot, are we saying?
Chris Barker:
No, no, we've still got a luxury item to go. That was to replace the Burl, which is kind of a-
Matthew Herbert:
Mind you, the only thing is, I've still got to get the mic signal into the computer.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, it's got preamp, but you're going to-
Matthew Herbert:
Going to need something. All right, well-
Chris Barker:
Maybe one of those little adapters from Maplin.
Matthew Herbert:
Okay, all right. Well, I'll take the Burl, just to get the mic signal into the computer.
Chris Barker:
Okay. So how many items is that? We've got four. You've still got a pretty slender approach here, that's still four items, right?
Matthew Herbert:
All right. Okay, I'll take another mic, so I can do stereo recording if I want to.
Chris Barker:
Oh, two mics. The same one?
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Matched pair?
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah.
Chris Barker:
Nice, lovely.
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Then I'm done.
Chris Barker:
Okay then, so do the rundown, Will. Just do the rundown quickly again, and then we're nearly done.
Will Betts:
We're in Kyoto, in the Buddhist temple. You have a fully spec'd MacBook Pro laptop, Burl Mothership B80 for the interface, Logic Pro X, a stereo pair of Chandler REDD Microphones, the Akai S612 Sampler, your controller keyboard, the Akai, and your Sennheiser HD 25s.
Chris Barker:
Okay, sound good? You happy?
Matthew Herbert:
Yeah, yeah. That's all right. That will do. Thank you.
Will Betts:
You're welcome.
Chris Barker:
Cool, so all we have now is the luxury item, which is a non bit of gear. So what would that be? Full Japanese tea shop?
Matthew Herbert:
No, I think I'd probably like a pair of nail clippers.
Chris Barker:
Just so you don't have proper-
Matthew Herbert:
Well, there's nothing worse when you touch the keyboards and you get like the clicking sound of fingernails on keys. It's the worst thing. And also, I just think that nail clippers are the thing that's really hard to, I think they're so great for job. And it you do it with scissors it can be really... You're laughing, but I'm actually serious.
Chris Barker:
Yeah, no, it is dangerous, the scissors. I know, you just can't really get in there.
Matthew Herbert:
No, and once you've noticed your... Why are you laughing? Once you notice your fingernails are too long, I think it drives you nuts.
Chris Barker:
And because it's a luxury item, should we have solid gold nail clippers, or you're not bothered about that? Do you want them signed by somebody that you admire? A famous nail clipper?
Matthew Herbert:
Maybe. I mean, he's died, bless him, but Rupert Neve, if I could Rupert Neve's signature on the nail clippers, yeah.
Chris Barker:
That would be nice. Some gold plated Rupert Neve nail clippers. Yeah, that's good. Neve should make some of those in commemoration. A Matthew Herbert edition, that would be good.
Will Betts:
What a wonderful and bizarre podcast that was. I loved it. Thank you so much, man. It was really a real, real privilege. We had a real laugh.
Matthew Herbert:
No worries.
Will Betts:
So yeah. What's coming up for you post lockdown? You roll TV soundtracks?
Matthew Herbert:
Yes, I was lucky, which is like the sort of TV and film work sort of kicked off at the same time that the gigs stopped. So I've done a series called The Beast Must Die, which is on Britbox, with Jared Harris and Cush Jumbo. I've done season two of Temple for Sky. I've done a new Herbert album, which I did in three or four days, just during lockdown. Just one day I was like, "Oh, I'm just going to make a record." So, that's the one I did with nine singers. The first single is out soon for that.
Chris Barker:
And you excited about touring and getting out there again, or has it been quite nice? Have you missed it? How has that felt?
Matthew Herbert:
I've definitely missed it, but it's been really nice to be with the family. Yeah, having kids and missing that, particularly weekends when they're back from school and being abroad. So, that has been really brilliant to spend some time with them. I've actually missed the DJing thing. I really miss the kind of physical, like loud... Wow, God, I'm not very coherent now. But the sort of loudness, kind of the overwhelming sort of your body being pummelling by sound. I really miss that actually. So I'm excited about that. I'm starting a new religion about listening over the summer. I finished my PhD in lockdown, so I'm now doctor.
Chris Barker:
Dr. Herbert, you should have told us that in the beginning, then I could have said it the whole time. Get you used to it, Dr. Herbert.
Matthew Herbert:
No, I don't want to [inaudible 01:05:39]. I'm not sure I want to use it very often. But that felt nice to sort of put all your music together, because it was a music by publication, so you could put your previous music together and sort of do that. And then maybe I've got a massive studio fire sale as well, in a couple of months.
Chris Barker:
Sounds like it, yeah. Sounds like that's coming up, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, everybody watch out on eBay, or Reverb, or wherever it's going to be for yeah, the studio fire sale. Well, that brings us to the end of the podcast. Thank you so much, Dr. Matthew Herbert.
Matthew Herbert:
Thanks for having me.
Chris Barker:
And yeah, we'll hopefully speak to you again soon. Thank you so much.
Matthew Herbert:
No worries. Thanks a lot.
Will Betts:
Well, a rule breaking rebel until the very end. Brilliant stuff from Matthew Herbert there. A fantastic guest. He just didn't want to have his dreams upsold, did he, Chris?
Chris Barker:
No. Yeah, he didn't. Yeah, we tried our best. But anyway, as is our duty to remind if you are loving the My Forever Studio Podcast, make sure you subscribe using your favourite podcasting app. And do give it a five star rating, please.
Will Betts:
We do read all of the reviews and we love hearing your guest suggestions. So if you want to get in contact, please do email us at editors@musictech.net.
Chris Barker:
Yes please and next week on our journey in Studio Foreverdom, we have the legendary British superstar, DJ, and music tech early adopter, Sasha.
Will Betts:
Yeah, he has loads of stories from his amazing career. And he also flips the format of his six items. Only things he's lost, sold, or had nicked.
Chris Barker:
Yes, excellent stuff. I can't wait. Goodbye, see you next week.
Will Betts:
See you next week. Bye-bye.