London May / June 2002

Mark, Chuck and myself continue the recording process here in London. This page will show in greater detail what exactly it is we’re doing here!

Basically we will be taking the project into it’s next phase, that being the overdub/comping/fixing stage. Additional overdubs ie. Lead guitars and Keyboards are currently taking place. But of course before we do that, we have to compile the vocals and everything that was recorded in the sessions in Nashville….and that means comping.

Comping (or compiling) is the process of choosing the best performances from multiple takes to assemble one ultimate track. Once we’ve comped, we then look at any additional overdubs.

MK goes Mexican.

Nice little story here……A sneaky little shot of Mark playing a brand new Mexican Fender strat.

I bought this as a gift for a friend and thought I’d get Mark to give his appraisal. The guitar recieved the thumbs up from MK!

One interesting aspect of the recordings is the fact that we are not in a professional recording studio at the moment, there’s no need….we’re in Mark’s house!!

Here’s the back bedroom showing the ‘amp-cave’. 5 sheets of 12 inch thick foam completely surrounding the amplifier. Partly to reduce the inconvenience to the neighbour’s, and partly to reduce the sound getting into the control room (Mark’s lounge) Don’t forget a 59 Les Paul through a Soldano amplifier and a Marshall 4×12 cabinet is LOUD!

By the way, that microphone is the vintage Telefunken 251 which Mark has been using on his vocal, it’s NOT used on the guitar amps.

This room has proved to be a little gem over the years. It all started with the Hillbilly record which was recorded ENTIRELY in this room. The key I suppose is the wooden floor and the careful placement of the baffles. Acoustic guitars sound fabulous in here.

Other projects which have been undertaken here are Last Exit to Brooklyn, Golden Heart, On the night (mixing) Metroland, Robbie the Reindeer and of course Sailing to Philadelphia.

Mark tries to get even more out of a Marshall JCM45 head.

We preferred this amp for what we did today. After spending a while with the Bassman, then the Soldano, Mark eventually went with the 59 Les Paul through the TFPro into the Marshall head through a Marshall 4×12 surrounded by foam of course.