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FM return to the studio
After about 13 years, we’re
not entirely sure to be truthful but who’s
counting, we went back into a recording studio
together to start our new album. And what a
studio, Metropolis in Chiswick, West London.
When you are talking about top recording
facilities Metropolis is spoken about in the
same breath as Abbey Road, enough said.
In the preceding weeks before
we went in their client list included The Black
Eyed Peas, Beyonce and some bloke called Michael
Bolton. We were met by the lovely Katy who is
the studio manager who in turn introduced us to
Matt Lawrence, engineer extraordinaire and just
about the nicest guy you could ever wish to
meet. We were taken down to studio 1 and entered
the control room, which incidentally is just the
biggest control room, housing the biggest mixing
desk any of us had ever seen. Matt introduced us
to Zav, another fine chap, who was assisting
Matt on the session. Zav took us through to the
live area where our equipment would go, now this
room is big enough for orchestral recording so
the four of us were dwarfed, but the vibe was
fantastic and we couldn’t wait to get going. We
were going to record two songs to start with
“Days gone by” and “Who’ll stop the rain”. Our
gear was set, miked up and we were ready to go
for some takes within an hour or so.
The tracks went down really
smoothly and are sounding absolutely fantastic.
Steve did some guitar overdubs and then Jem was
let loose on the studio grand piano. Now this
isn’t just any old piano, it’s been used by the
late great Freddie Mercury on various Queen
recordings and now it was Jem's turn to leave
his mark. So with the backing tracks done we
moved over to a smaller, but equally well
equipped, studio complex in FX Rentals Acton
again in West London to continue with
overdubbing and vocals. Here engineering duties
were handled by the very able James Ridley
another splendid fellow and fine young engineer.
So there we are folks proof we have started the
next FM studio album and it’s sounding the
business.
For those of you who wish to see the Queen video
that was filmed at Metropolis the song is
“Headlong” and you can see it on youtube.
Click on thumbnails below to view full size
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