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Introducing Adam Miller, over a decade spent in-house at AIR studios, Adam has perfected his craft on feature films and classical records, games, and major stadium shows, working with the best and most innovative in the industry.

Adam co-engineered the soundtrack for Hans Zimmer and Jacob Shea’s BBC Planet Earth: A Celebration, recorded Bobby Krlic’s transfixing score for Midsommar, mixed music for large arena shows and has been involved in countless other exciting projects.

What initially drew you to work on music for film?

Originally – like a lot of people – I wanted to work with cool bands and artists, and I really only had vague notions of how film music worked. But I somehow managed to land a job at AIR Studios where film and tv work with orchestras is the bread and butter, and the first time I heard an orchestra of top players run down the first take of the first cue of the day was something special. From that moment I started to think that perhaps working in this field might be for me. It’s something about the energy of teams of hugely talented people all working together to produce something extraordinary in the service of an artistic vision. 

What are you working on at the moment?

I’ve been remixing the George Michael album Patience into Dolby Atmos. It’s certainly been an interesting challenge – there’s the newness of working in spatial audio, combined with the intricacies of respecting an artist’s original vision, making the most of the environment whilst retaining the punch and immediacy of a pop record. George was all over every aspect of the record-making process, and everything he did was deliberate and considered – so it’s got to be true to the original, whilst showing off the capabilities of the format.

What’s the most challenging aspect of your job?

Probably time. There’s rarely enough of it because music is normally one of the last things to be completed in the production process. It forces you to work efficiently and make decisions quickly though – that’s tough when you’re starting out, but hugely powerful once you’re used to it. 

What bit of studio kit can you not live without?

Protools. It’s not a very exciting answer, but it’s truly the only essential item. If AVID ever goes under I’ll have to retrain as a shepherd or a sommelier or something. 

In terms of recording and production, what’s the album you turn to as your as a rock solid reference?

It’s perhaps only obliquely relevant to the kind of stuff I’m normally working on, but Mezzanine by Massive Attack is the pinnacle of human sonic achievement. There’s no hope I’ll ever be able to make something sound as good, but I’ll keep trying. 

Can you highlight a few projects that have been your favourite to work on?

I recorded and co-produced an album for Peter Gregson called Patina (we mixed it @Ten87) that was a pretty special experience. We started it off in lockdown part 1, so for once there was the luxury of time – actually being able to try things, digest, revise and perfect them was refreshing. 

I mixed a short called Stuffed a couple of years ago, with music by a fantastic composer called Joss Holden-Rea. It was one of those unusual enquiries that lands in the inbox – a musical about human taxidermy? Turns out it’s absurd genius, a real labour of love, and a privilege to be involved with. It was nominated for a BAFTA this year, you can and should find it on VIMEO. 

Many years ago I was fortunate enough to spend 3 days in the studio with Stevie Wonder, assisting the late great Steve Price on the faders. It was pretty much everything you’d hope for. That was almost a decade ago and the project still hasn’t come out, so I’m not holding out much hope… You’ll just have to take my word for it that it happened, and it was cool.

What’s been the most challenging project you’ve worked on to date?

Good question… I guess things are challenging for different reasons, but one that sticks out is recording and mixing the music for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2017 Asian Indoor & Martial Arts Games (it’s an Olympic event apparently). It was taking place in Turkmenistan, which is a bit like North Korea but with more shiny buildings. We were recording with local musicians, and had to ship absolutely everything we might need in from London. We’d record in the day and then mix in the evening on headphones backstage under the stadium… I think we recorded and mixed about 4 hours of finished material in the end.

On day 1 of our tightly scheduled recording plan we discovered that it was ‘Melon Day’, which was of course a national holiday and therefore no-one was allowed to record a single note. On day 2 I discovered that any software that relied on cloud authorisation wouldn’t work because of the countrywide firewall implemented to block dissident Adobe Photoshop subscriptions. To compound our problems, on day 3 of our stay the President enacted a nationwide alcohol ban for the entire period of the Games.

How have you found being a part of the Ten87 Community?

It’s such a great place to be – just the rooms and the vibe of the place is spot on, and it’s run by some of the nicest people around!

We feel very lucky to have Adam in our musical community. It was a real pleasure learning more about his process and his fascinating career journey, and we really look forward to catching him around the studios. To find out more about Adam Miller’s work you can delve deeper through visiting his Website.

At Ten87 Studios we offer long term studio hire and day hire music studios. Each recording studio is acoustically treated and sound proofed to optimise any type of audio recording and music production. We are home to a large community of musicians, producers, engineers and audio professionals working in the music industry. Our main day hire studio is a world class tracking facility equipped with the best in recording studio gear, instruments, outboard and backline. We’re based in Seven Sisters, Tottenham with easy transport links to the city centre – ideal for anyone looking for a London recording studio.

Introducing Taishi Fukuyama, artist, producer and serial entrepreneur in the music/tech world. Taishi’s musical journey through many interesting projects led to him to co-found Qrates, an online platform based in Tokyo supporting independent artists to release physical vinyl copies of their music. Through the seamless online interface that Qrates provides, artist’s have full control over their release, but with the support from a team of music lovers.

How did your career in music first start?

I played in a bunch of bands while I was in high school and university, one of which became the first Red Bull Soundclash champion in Japan (now disbanded). My aspiration to become a full time recording artist unfortunately didn’t get me far enough, but I never had any other talent or interest outside of music, and ended up buying my first mac with the money I saved up waiting tables and started making beats and producing artists. I was very lucky to have been able to quickly get connected with some of the larger names in the Japanese major labels at the time. That was my early twenties.     

As an artist / producer, what have been your favourite projects you’ve worked on?

I really cherish all of the records I’ve been able to work on; ranging from working in the most expensive studios in Tokyo with all of the outboard gear and vintage mics to geek out over for days and also working and recording with independent artists in my very small Tokyo apartment bedroom. One record that comes to mind is the song I co-wrote with the Korean artist BoA. She wrote the lyrics in Japanese, a message to her parents and I recall some of the candid conversations in the studio to this day.

Through the various musical paths you’ve explored throughout your career, what brought you to creating your platform Qrates?

First of all, I certainly don’t take all the credit for starting Qrates. Throughout the start and ongoing journey, Qrates is a team like no other. But personally speaking, what keeps me going is seeing and feeling how music on vinyl can be the world for so many who genuinely love music. It’s like magic how music can consume and become your identity. There’s no doubt that physical sales are often less visible compared to digital, but there’s something about a vinyl record that can help get you to that magical place. It makes a huge difference both to artists and fans on many planes. I personally don’t really relate to the hardcore hi-fi audiophile world which vinyl is sometimes associated with; what music on physical means to someone can and should be different and I’m all for that.

What are the benefits of artist’s releasing physical copies of their music with you over other distribution channels? 

I would say 2 things. First, it’s truly a one-stop shop. From making the record, selling it, storing inventory, shipping globally, getting into retail stores, and all the artist and customer support along the way, we have an experienced team looking after your music. Second, we can also work with your distributor by supplying the records if you already have one. By selling direct-to-fan on Qrates in conjunction with selling wholesale through a distributor with Qrates, you get the benefits of economy of scale with your manufacturing. 

What are the main differences you can see in how vinyl is distributed now compared to when you first started in the business?

Going further back in time, the general trend I believe was that there used to be a limited number of record titles released but they sold many. Think all of the big name reissues. Now, there are many more titles being made, but the quantity per title is fewer. We certainly contribute to this trend for sure. Since starting in 2015, every year, we have more and more artists using Qrates for vinyl and hopefully we’re looking less crazy for starting such service. In regards to some of the recent topics around big titles that “clog up” the global vinyl manufacturing capacities and independents being muscled out of access to vinyl manufacturing, I wish those independent artists and labels would come to Qrates to see what we can offer. Hopefully the physical world is not as dark and bleak as it may seem.

Crowdfunding is becoming a useful tool for artists to facilitate releases these days, how is this integrated into Qrates process?

Crowdfunding via Qrates is one way to finance production costs. You can also simply pay for costs up front and take orders while your record is in production too. The beauty of the crowdfunding option is not only in the fact that the artist has zero upfront financial risk, but also 2 more things. Firstly, your record is pressed to order; meaning there is no over or under ordering. Every fan that ordered your record can get a copy without you having to “best guess” the number of records to press only to have boxes of inventory lying around. Secondly, crowdfunding projects have a set duration. This creates an event. Fans can participate in this event and take home a beautiful product at the end. It’s a great way to create engagement around a release and also super limited editions of a physical product. 

What are your future aspirations for Qrates?

There are many, but ultimately, we want to keep innovating in the space for music on physical, both for the independent artist and label. One recent update is, we’re now offering cassettes on Qrates. Can’t wait to see another world of artists on Qrates for sure. 

Thanks so much to Taishi for chatting with us about his endeavours in music as well as his involvement with Qrates. It’s so exciting to see the direction that Qrates is taking with the primary focus being physical vinyl release, especially in the current musical climate for independent artists.

If you are looking to do a physical release soon, Qrates are currently offering 10% off of vinyl and cassette manufacturing costs until November 10th with the code MAKEA10

We really look forward to catching up again soon.

At Ten87 Studios we offer long term studio hire and day hire music studios. Each recording studio is acoustically treated and sound proofed to optimise any type of audio recording and music production. We are home to a large community of musicians, producers, engineers and audio professionals working in the music industry. Our main day hire studio is a world class tracking facility equipped with the best in recording studio gear, instruments, outboard and backline. We’re based in Seven Sisters, Tottenham with easy transport links to the city centre – ideal for anyone looking for a London recording studio.

No matter whether you’re already an established producer, or just entering into the vast world of digital music production, every musician needs new toys and new bits of software to play around with. Plugins are an incredible way to create unique sounds, spark inspiration, and even stumble upon happy mistakes while learning to use them.

We reached out to some of our community members to ask them about their favourite plugins of the moment, their best features and how they come into play in their music making.

Tusks

Singer and electronic musician from London. 

New Sonic Arts – Granite has been one of my favourite go to plugins over the last year – it’s a granular synthesiser that allows you to drag in your own samples and turns them into these beautiful glitchy ambient textures. I love how creative it can be if I’m stuck on a production or need some inspiration when writing something new. I never know what it’s going to sound like so the element of surprise and I guess collaboration with the plug in is something I find really captivating.

You can learn more about Tusks at www.tusksofficial.com / Instagram

Island Fox

UK-based songwriter, producer, and audio engineer.

I generally tend to think of my plugins in terms of sound makers and sound shapers and it’s hard to choose one favourite. Some of my recent favourite sound making VSTs are made by the uniqueFelt Instruments. I admire their commitment to bringing totally unique sounds into the DAW and I am currently loving creating haunting halloween-esque atmospheres with the Jasno.

Felt have a similar ethos to Spitfire in their plugin user interface, but with the added bonus of bringing unusual and undervalued historical and hidden instruments to the world deserving to have a light shone on them. I’m really intrigued to see where they go next to be honest. I’ve also been recently integrating some hardware into my set-up and so the Universal Audio plugins have become a new staple in the Ableton chain, both on vocals and on the UDO Super 6 etc as well.

You can learn more about Island Fox at www.islandfoxofficial.com / Instagram

Charlie Deakin Davies

Pop/indie record songwriter/producer multi-instrumentalist and artist based out of London.

I think to start, the first plugin I’m going to talk about is pretty simple and it’s the fab filter Q3, any producer will know why this is such an important plugin. I mean any graphic equaliser really does the job but I love the dynamic compression setting that it has, and honestly their MB by FabFilter is also pretty solid, you never really stop messing around with these sort of things, especially when you understand how incredible they are and how much it can elevate so quickly!

The second plugin I’m going to talk about is the Devil-Loc by Soundtoys specifically the Devil-Loc Deluxe, honestly put it on any vocal take for an alt pop track that’s got a bit of edge and instantly got an in your face compressed sound that you’ll hear on so many records!

You can learn more about Charlie at www.charliedeakindavies.com / Instagram

Sanj Shajan

Engineer / Producer

Over the last year, my go to for my distortion and saturation needs has been the Decapitator by Soundtoys. It can add a rich analog character to any track it’s on and by using the tone control, I can quickly shape the sound of an instrument often without having to go for another eq. It has five different styles (modelled around different analog tape and tube hardware) and it’s super interesting how they change the sound and feel of an instrument. My favourite button is the punish button and it’s irresistible to not use it on at least one or two tracks in a mix. The ‘Punish’ button adds a tone more gain creating interesting harmonics all over the place. I often put the decapitator on synths, guitar layers or drums to give it a little bit of the edge that it was lacking.

Beat Repeat is a great tool on Ableton that allows me to quickly randomise and create some cool variations on an instrument. Beat Repeat creates interesting timing and pitch variations on any track so by putting this on a synth or a sample and messing around with the chance and variation knobs- my 4 bar synth loop idea can suddenly turn into a 3 minute long piece where every few bars the synth or the sample I’m using is doing something different.

Catch Sanj around the studios or follow him on Instagram !

A huge thank you to Tusks, Island Fox, Charlie and Sanj for their contributions. Always great to learn about the features and capabilities of new plugins and get first hand insight into their creative process! Be sure to check out the plugins mentioned and share this with anyone looking for new audio toys!

At Ten87 Studios we offer long term studio hire and day hire music studios. Each recording studio is acoustically treated and sound proofed to optimise any type of audio recording and music production. We are home to a large community of musicians, producers, engineers and audio professionals working in the music industry. Our main day hire studio is a world class tracking facility equipped with the best in recording studio gear, instruments, outboard and backline. We’re based in Seven Sisters, Tottenham with easy transport links to the city centre – ideal for anyone looking for a London recording studio.

Our home for 7 years and possibly the centre of the universe – Tottenham – or more specifically, Seven Sisters is in our opinion, banging.

We keep finding new places to eat, drink and walk and Tottenham’s been our best friend in lockdown 1, 2 and 3. Lets start by talking through a couple of spots we can’t go without that we’re fortunate to have on our doorstep.

If we haven’t already sold N15 to you, be sure to drop by if you’re in the area.

If you’d like to know more about becoming a member of Ten87 and being involved in the community in Tottenham be sure to fire over a message here.

In this month’s In-depth blog, we look at 3 tools to maximise working remotely.

The music industry has gone through a pivotal shift in the past year due to the effects of the pandemic. Music makers have needed to respond to the imposed restrictions, working remotely and online. For musicians and producers, this change has come as a challenge in workflow. Luckily, new tools have been birthed from these new conditions – here are 3 we think are worth checking out. 

Depending on your style of collaboration, Splice Studio, Satellite and LISTENTO offer different approaches to your workflow. Since they’re all [mostly] free, try each one and see which one works best for your setup. Ten87 members enjoy 30% off a yearly Audiomovers subscription. Interested in becoming a Ten87 community member? Click HERE to find out more.