Earlier this month, London’s Tobacco Dock played host to BBC Music Introducing Live - three days of demos, artist panels, live performances and workshops.
The event gave thousands of aspiring musicians and anyone considering a career in music the opportunity to get expert advice direct from the best in the industry. From how to build a fanbase and navigate labels, publishing and sync, to careers in touring, promotions, radio, TV and management, the event covered every aspect of the industry – as well as a packed programme of live performances from established names to the best new acts discovered through BBC Music Introducing.
Abbey Road’s role was within the Studio Excellence room with two daily workshops covering recording and mastering.
Abbey Road recordist Paul Pritchard presented a session entitled Studio Essentials: Capturing Your Sound where he shared insights based on his experience of recording artists, bands and orchestras, as well as advice on how to get the best sound from a home studio set-up.
Paul said: 'I really enjoyed meeting new people and sharing my experiences of recording at Abbey Road. It was great to see how interested people were in this and hopefully most of them learned something that they can introduce to their own music making.'
Mastering engineers Christian Wright, Alex Gordon and Simon Gibson held daily sessions about the ‘dark art’ of mastering, and the steps it takes to create world-class sound.
Simon Gibson tells us more: “Mastering and Why You Need It’ was the title of our talk at BBC Introducing. Together with Christian and Alex, I spoke about what goes into mastering a recording and how I achieve the best result I can. For me, the main issue boils down to listening and the way I listen to a recording – something that has changed over the years I have been at Abbey Road. I have trained my ears to listen to the specific frequency areas in the music – for example the low end, the mids, the higher frequencies. Being able to home in on these areas helps me focus on the often, small adjustments needed to tweak a song to give it that final polish. So, my top tip to the people who came to hear us was to try and train their ears to listen in the same way to their recordings and mixes.
We got some really positive feedback from people directly after each session and there were plenty of interesting questions following up the talks. It was great to be able to dispel some of the myths around mastering and hopefully to open up a bit of a debate among those who were there.”
Lost in the Sound blog popped by our Saturday morning mastering session and wrote the following: “We stopped by a great session on Mastering and Why You Need It—delivered by Christian Wright, Simon Gibson and Alex Gordon from the legendary Abbey Road Studios. The guys spoke about the importance of mastering and the overall effect it has on the sound of an album. We were also taught how your ears are the most important tool for the task, as well as a good room and speakers, to ensure your music translates to its best quality when played in many different forms.”
Christian Wright spoke to us about the three days: “BBC Introducing has long been a blessing that no other territory worldwide provides for free to new artists. To have the chance to talk at the BBC Introducing event and connect with new artists was amazing. To talk and present in a packed, standing room only, space for three consecutive days is testament to BBC Introducing and all they do to expertly organise, support and promote new music.”
