Report from the Downsmen's 2002 London Recording Session, Written by Keely Marsh

Wednesday 24^th July 2002 will go down in history – this had to be the best day EVER, (so far) for the Corps!  This day was on a par with BYBA Finals, and  Pontins …… well maybe not quite Pontins!

Why? – Because we actually spent the whole day in London, in a recording studio, recording our 2002 show music, Grease.  What a dream, what a day…

The chance came about due to our Corps Director’s brother-in-law (Steve) attending a sound engineering music course at the London Music School At the end of the course he needed a “project” to record, mix  and edit a CD for. They had done choirs and various brass bands in the past, but no marching band, so  this was our chance.  A 17 piece marching band from a little known town in East Sussex, getting the chance to record their show onto CD – this will make a good Christmas present!

We arrived in Wapping in good time, but had to pull in nearby, as we were not quite sure whereabouts the studio was. I looked around and saw a small wooden hut with “Dread FM” on the side – I hope it’s not that!! We found where the studio was just as Steve and his tutor arrived, so we waited for them to open up and get things sorted, then we all entered the studio - the anticipation growing.  I for one was not disappointed.  As it was a training college, later on in the day students turned up to work on their musical pieces with guitars and computers, all very high tech. The recording studio was big enough to hold us all, I had been sure we would have to play in small groups.

There was quite a bit of hanging around in the morning while they got all the mic’s set up and all the percussion and pit equipment in the right places, but it was good just to be there.  The kids amused themselves with the TV and a drinks machine (bless them, doesn’t take much does it!) and I wandered around looking at various pictures of past recording artists and anticipating the rest of the day.

After all the mic’s were sorted, we all had to go through individual sound checks.  There were 3 of us saxes round one mic and I warmed up with my sop – unfortunately it needs to be warmed up quite a bit and it kept squeaking – you had to be there but the timing of it had us all in stitches! Once sound checks were completed, we had a couple of run throughs so Steve could get the balance right, then we went off to lunch…

After lunch, it was all systems go and we played our first two tunes.  Again, and again, and again, and again…..oh and again.  We did have a few breaks in between to hear how it sounded, but you have to get these things right! We then did our last two tunes, again many times.

We had to hang around for a few extra high squeaky notes to be edited in (and not always reached on every take) so a few of us were around the mixing room to hear how it was all sounding.  A guy joined us on our last take showing a huge interest.  We later found out that he is (or used to be!) Victoria Beckham’s drummer!  

Finally about 6.30 pm we were on our way home, totally worn out but happy…

© Downsmen 2006