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This is an interesting video; engineers at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios talk about the recording and post production process they use for Peter's concerts.

Gabriel's Real World has undergone many changes in its lifetime. I remember the first time I saw and read about the studio; it was in a Mix Magazine article, back around '88 or so. It is located near Bath, and is housed in an old mill; one of Gabriel's wishes was that the studio be located within site of water. His wish was granted with the location near Bath, and during construction they built the main control room in a space that looks out over a beautiful mill pond.

Real World is actually several different studios - "The Big Room", a large open-spaced area (the one that looks out over the pond), and The Writing Room, ( also nicknamed "The Garden Shed") is housed in a separate building located near the mill building. This space was developed for Peter so that he could record without having to interrupt sessions in The Big Room.

The Writing Room is always ready for Gabriel to record. Mics are hot, synths and drum machines are active; everything is ready for him at a moment's notice. From SOS: "Whenever he walks in, his mic and his keyboards are always live so he can just sit down and immediately begin to play and work."

At the time of that original Mix article in '88, the heart of the big room was an SSL G Series (modified, if I recall correctly). This was eventually replaced by a 72 input 9000 XL Series; and then in '97, they added a Sony Oxford DMX Console to The Writing Room, and, as of this video - 2014 - The SSL 9000 and Sony Oxford consoles both continue to be the mainframes for the studios; although external racks house many different modules; pre's, compressors and EQ's from Neve, Trident, Cranesong, Pultec, dbx, Drawmer, Urei, Teletronix, and everything else you'd expect an uber-pro studio to have. Avid is the recording platform.

In this video, engineers Ben Findlay and Dickie Chappel discuss the various tools they use to record and mix Gabriel's live performances; as well as what they use for post production, including various processors from Sonnox Oxford.

Findlay is primarily a live recording engineer for Gabriel; Chappel handles most of the in-house work, but both of them work in both areas, respectively.

Enjoy. :)

sources ( other than the video): http://www.soundons…

http://realworldstu…

Comments

kmetal Tue, 10/06/2015 - 17:01

It was probably the camera sound and eww tube, but some of the things the mixer did sounded worse lol. Love the philosophy of everything on 'go' in the studio. I've learned to keep tapping, humming, or playing that riff while the computer boots up, by forgetting many riffs going to plug something in.

With iPad control of virtually any software you don't even have to run over to the desk when inspiration strikes. I think we are breaking some new ground and getting past the reinvention of of the tape machine, into an entirely new set of methods for songwriting and music performance. Love keeping the setup out of they way, it doesn't have to 'kill it' but it's not usually creatively satisfying so it's at least an interruption.