Today sees the release of an expansive box set from Abbey Road Studios Chief Creative Advisor Nile Rodgers entitled The CHIC Organization 1977 – 1979. The box comprises Abbey Road half-speed mastered copies of the original three CHIC albums, Sister Sledge’s We Are Family, a bonus remix album and a bonus 12” promo single of the first ever CHIC release.
Abbey Road mastering engineer Miles Showell, who also mastered the new Nile Rodgers and CHIC album It’s About Time, tells us about working on the project.

Working at Abbey Road Studios is a fabulous luxury and every now and again I have to pinch myself to check I am not in a dream and I really can just walk in the front door. One of the greatest pleasures is being paid to listen to and work on music I love and would gladly play voluntarily. I was doing a lot more than pinching when I was asked if I would like to get involved with the new CHIC Organization 1977-1979 box set, to take the dream cliché even further this was a dream come true. The music that Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards wrote, arranged and produced in that period is for me some of the greatest recorded in popular music. Such utter joy, outlandishness, clever arrangements and peerless musicianship and vocals. It all added up to something far greater than the sum of the parts. I could not say ‘yes’ fast enough.

Mastering from the ultra-high-resolution transfers made from the original ¼” master tapes by the Warner Music archiving project, I was given a free hand to just do my thing on a few songs after which Nile would come in to give his opinion. These songs included two of the biggest bangers from the first album (simply called CHIC). I set to work on Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah) and Everybody Dance as well as Sao Paulo. The first of these tracks was particularly important for Nile, not only because it was Chic’s breakthrough song, but also because he was never really happy with the sound of it on Atlantic. It had been released originally by Buddah Records and Nile and Bernard always felt that the bass end was not as strong on Atlantic’s release. (Atlantic signied up Chic very quickly after Buddah had closed down.) I can only speculate, but this was probably because Atlantic were working from a copy tape and not the original master (which was trapped in the legal situation surrounding Buddah) and could also be because Atlantic wanted to ensure they had the best chance of making it a pop hit; they could well have equalised the sound to work well on the radio. Top 40 AM was still going strong then (WABC New York, WLS Chicago and BBC Radio 1 to name just three examples). Big bass obviously sounds amazing in a nightclub, but it does not work well on the radio and is especially bad on AM. Therefore, the sound of the song could have been altered by Atlantic to work best on the radio. Fortunately, the Buddah tape is now in the possession of Warner Music which meant I had access to the best source.

A few days after I had worked on the test tracks, Nile and his life enhancing smile came into the studio. I played him Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah) and within a few notes of Bernard Edwards’ opening bass part and Tony Thompson’s drums, Nile was saying “Oh wow! Oh wow!” He shook my hand and told me he was hearing it like he had always wanted to, which was excellent news as I had got myself the gig.

Over the course of the next few days I worked on all the albums in this box. It is hard to pick out a highlight as pretty much everything in here is a highlight. However, if you push me I guess Kathy Sledge’s vocal at the end of Somebody Loves Me (which is so astounding I am getting shivers down my spine just thinking about it as I type this) and the almost certainly unique tap dancing solo in My Feet Keep Dancing - I am pretty sure that no other band has done that regardless of genre.

These days, Nile has the most incredibly punishing schedule and is rarely in one place for more than two or three days. However, he came into the studio whenever he was at Abbey Road and went through everything you hear here with a very fine toothcomb. My work on all the songs on all the albums in this set have been approved by Nile, either with me in the studio or at his own studio listening with his engineer Russell Graham. Once everything was approved, the next stage was to cut the masters for the vinyl records. The lacquer master discs for the vinyl version were half-speed mastered on my very own (and much modified to my specification) Neumann VMS 80 disc cutting lathe. Half-speed mastering is an elaborate process whereby the source is played back at half its normal speed and the turntable on the disc cutting lathe is running at 16 2/3 R.P.M. Because both the source and the cut were running at half their ‘normal’ speeds, everything plays back at the right speed when the record is listened to at home. I do this because the vinyl L.P. is an analogue sound carrier. Therefore, the size and shape of the groove carrying the music is directly related to whatever the music is doing at any particular point. By reducing the speed by a factor of two the recording stylus has twice as long to carve the intricate groove into the master lacquer. Also, any difficult to cut high-frequency information becomes easier to cut mid-range at half speed. The result is a vinyl record that is capable of extremely clean and unforced high-frequency response as well as a detailed and solid stereo image.

Once the vinyl masters had been cut and the test pressings approved (which happened in the Summer) my work was done. The hard part was not being able to tell anyone about this box as it was subject to an embargo. To have been asked to re-master albums I have owned since their original release and have listened to regularly since then is, without doubt, a career highlight for me. On Till The World Falls – a recent Nile Rodgers and CHIC single - you will hear the words ‘You are now listening to CHIC’ spoken by Abbey Road Studios runner Alice Bennett. In truth, I was always listening to CHIC and I probably always will.

Purchase the half-speed mastered CHIC Vinyl Box Set now.