Magnum in the studio

Fresh from their tour Magnum have begun work on their new album. Tony has been writing prodigiously at home, and over the next few months we will be turning his demos into another full Magnum opus. Meanwhile Sheena has taken a break from the studio to visit the countryside – Download festival that is! The end of June also brought us a new band, the E gos – an indie outfit well worth a listen on their myspace site.

Sheena left on holiday in July, leaving Mark to continue the development on Magnum's album. Mark has also been away over the summer, not on holiday though! Magnum had a few trips to various festivals in Germany and Wales and Mark has been fulfilling the role of FOH engineer and tour manager once again. July also saw a further stint of work on Jim Lea's album which is sounding better all the time.

The JLO on location at St Christopher's RC Church...

Mark went away in May doing a short UK and then European tour with Magnum, as is his want. In his absence Sheena has been very busy with Jim Lea. Jim is nearing completion of his “String Theory” album which has taken a few twist and turns in its evolution. Originally with great virtual instruments available we planned to achieve his string arrangements with keyboards and an occasional real violin on top (those of you old enough will remember Jim not only played bass and wrote songs for Slade but also played violin). But during May after a number of experiments with some printed scores and multi-tracked violins we decided to re-record most of the string parts for real, Jim playing them all, and create his own 'orchestra' (aka the JLO).

Armed with his 2 new violins, one inherited from his grandfather, 2 violas, a cello and a multitude of others borrowed from Turner Violins in Birmingham, Jim has been recording his orchestra one person at a time (with an occasional oboe part from Sheena). It may sound long winded but the results are sounding very impressive. To enhance the realism of the whole affair we have also done some location recording at the CBSO Centre, and the local RC Church in Codsall. Upon Mark's return we also enjoyed a visit from the friendly guys of cool black and white mustelid roadsters – The Icelandic Traffic Badgers back in again to do some more tracks.

Is it really Christmas since we updated our news page? We can’t believe how quickly time flies. So here with the news from the winter solstice to the spring solstice and the very early Easter we have had this year.

The New Year stated with the continuation of album 2 mixes for the CJM guys, who have enjoyed a very positive response to their first album of modernised hymns. They also appeared recently on Songs of Praise.

We also had the pleasure of another visit from one of our favourite covers band Tranzam introducing their new singer to us, and pushing themselves ever further with no less than a Rush cover on this visit (amongst others).

January also brought a band new to Mad Hat who we think will do something special in the near future - Voodoo Johnson. They recorded a handful of songs for their new EP and one thing is for sure - they have a great singer who is worth a listen. Formed by guitarist brothers Carl and Paul Gethin they had been around for a few years before discovering Kev Bayliss a vocal talent many rock bands would give their right arms for. We wish them success and look forward to doing some more recording with them in the summer.

Next in was Tony Mills, he ex of Shy and now the front man of TNT (one of Norway’s finest) had, in between his other projects, teamed up with guitarist Neil Hibbs and wrote a new solo album. This he recorded by sending demos to keyboard players and bass players in Norway, and USA and recording the drums with Shy’s drummer Bob. We then gathered all the files together from effectively 7 different studios, stuck it all together and mixed it. The material, very progressive in style, is on sale very soon.

February was interspersed with other sessions; with Redline back to do some stuff for a new album, Vaseline Rats, putting finishing touches to their debut album, which incidentally is sounding great. Another band with a bit of X factor Telegramme ‘the band with no money’ but a great singer in Faye came in to do a few more tracks. Faye has a great voice and it is delivered with great passion. Watch out for them this year.

Magnum have been in to start demoing stuff for a new album due to be recorded here in the summer in between the odd festival booking and post tour which starts in early May.

Well that’s about that, Mark is off with Magnum in May, Sheena’s around to look after the place then, well she’s around nearly all of the time anyway.

Have a good spring!

Well what a busy autumn we have had! We welcomed the return of one of our rodent bands The Vaseline Rats who have now finished the final tracks of a self-financed album and are now looking for a place to release it as well as getting some more gigs to help promote it. We feel it is a great album and will be well worth a listen. We also welcomed the return of one of our favourite bands of the last few years – Ripchord. The guys came in to demo some new tracks. They have been working with Ian Broudie from the Lightning Seeds on a soon to be released debut album which will feature tracks recorded here as well. They have been doing great things live as well supporting the Kaiser Chiefs amongst others. I would like to think that we helped them on their way a bit. Also returning were the interestingly named “Icelandic Traffic Badgers” laying down some more catchy tunes. Returning too were Angel House, a great rocking three piece rock band who (I am sure they won’t mind me saying) have been around some time as Mark recorded with them many many years ago. New through the doors we had a band called The Counago’s recording some good songs too!

Also, much to Mark’s delight, one of his favourite ever bands, The Adventure Babies made a brief return to put the finishing touches to new material possibly for a new mini album, these guys write great songs with a rather off the wall approach to recording and arrangements.

Since our last news update we have continued with more work on Jim Lea’s Magnum Opus and talking of Magnum, Mark has just done a short tour with these rockers and recorded all the shows for a forthcoming double CD release of their classic Wings of Heaven album live. Touring, compiling the recordings and mixing took up most of November and December and now we are ready for our turkey (if there is any left!) and Christmas pudding in a well-earned break.

Mark & Sheena wish all of our clients past present and future a great merry making Christmas and hopefully a successful and prosperous New Year.

Whild Dogs and Cowards

It is difficult to believe that another month has gone by since the last news update that’s because we are always busy! The first of the two CJM projects has finished and is released this week and plans are afoot to continue in the new year with project 2.  Paul May has finished his project and we have been continuing a large project with ex Slade supreme Jim Lea who is currently writing and recording songs for an “unplugged” album. Jim, who is responsible for huge hits such as  “C’mon feel the Noize”, “Gud’bye t Jane” and “Merry Christmas” amongst others, is a regular customer and has some fantastic stories to tell of the days of Slade and beyond – We are trying to convince him to write a book, but of course that treads on his recording time – maybe one day!

In the last month we have also had visits from Frontline, a great guitar driven pop band with superb vocal harmonies, Chris Wallbank and The Cowards in again to record some great quirky stuff and Façade in to record some new songs with their new singer Kirsty.  Tyla, from the Dogs D’amour has also been in to start work on his next album.

Razorhead Album Artwork

Well what a busy time we are having, it has been so busy we haven’t even had the time, or indeed the energy to bring you up to date, but we thought it was high time to remedy that.

Since February we have been busy with the Marshall Law album, "Razorhead" which has finally been mixed and in our humble opinion is sounding awesome.  A lot of hard work has gone in to it from all concerned and the guys are now in the process of getting a release sorted out.  Buy it if you like metal – it is very good!

We have continued on our religious theme from last time, this time with another project from rocker Paul May who has been recording some new spiritual material.  In addition we have continued sessions with our other religious clients, the guys from CJM, who keep gracing us with fantastic session musicians of all types from brass quintets, flautists, singers, to jazz guitarists.  They also sent some rough mixes to an orchestra in Prague for them to record the string arrangements and we have just received them back and they sound great.  This is a relatively inexpensive way to get real a string orchestra playing on a record, and the turnaround is extremely quick.  Technology for sharing recordings over continents is a wonderful thing.

Mark has been away during most of May with Magnum doing their Princess Alice Tour.  Mark is their Tour manager and Front of House engineer and is therefore responsible for making sure everything goes according to plan and that the band sound good!  The tour around Europe and the UK was very well received and plans are afoot for another one in the late autumn.  The UK support for this tour was another of our clients, UXL, who were received very favourably by the Magnum fans and took the opportunity to release their album (recorded here of course) at the same time.

Meanwhile back at the ranch Sheena has been finishing off a rock session with Redline, a great biker rock band from Birmingham, they have a track called “King of the Mountain”, which has been used as promo music for the Isle of Man TT Races. She has also been looking after one of our regulars, Jim Lea, who is recording more material for some more releases later on in the year.

We have also had sessions with a great girl punk band called Drag, the Icelandic Traffic Badgers have driven in and badgered us, as have Tukazon, This is Sprit, Renfield, Pris and a little session with Tobias Sammet from Edguy getting some guest vocals recorded by Bob Catley from Magnum.

The summer continues to look busy and because of that we have just invested in a new Mac Pro to make our sessions go smoother and swifter. We still have time available so don’t hesitate to give us a call and become part of our news items!!

Over the course of February we have mostly been occupied with heavy metallers Marshall Law, and continued work on the CJM recordings of hymns and religious songs brought up to date.  In addition to our normal pursuits, during the very brief spell of snow we had a few weeks ago, we arrived at the studio to be greeted by three black Indian runner ducks, a mallard and a little white duck, and they have stayed. They greet us most days with a chorus of quacks and are most entertaining - we suspect we may have a few little ones later on!  March is to be another busy month with more Law, hymns, folk and rock.  We do have a few days available in April, but May and June are looking busy, so if you are thinking of coming here to record best get in quick!!

Magnumamous

Webtastic

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Princess Alice Breaks Through

The MagMix

The end is in sight

Poncing Around

The Test Pilots in action

Foxy Business