John Leckie on Record Production

John Leckie talks to George Shilling, who has worked with him, in Shilling's home studio. Young musicians, he says, arrive knowing the desk, the publishing and their cut from iTunes, when what music lacks is virtuosity, because nobody stays on one thing long enough. He came into the job because driving a big desk was the nearest he would get to flying a spaceship, and he has never wanted a studio of his own. He prides himself on walking into any room in the world and starting work within 15 minutes.

He grew up on blues from the record library. At college he wrote a thesis on electronic music by hand, copying information off the backs of Stockhausen records in shops and putting Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd in it too, and he showed it to Ken Townsend at Abbey Road. He had never stood next to a musician until he worked there. Acoustic treatment he distrusts. Dark Side of the Moon was mixed in Studio Two on speakers with no bass unless you put your head against the wall in a corner, and Alan Parsons simply knew the room.

A D19 over a kit will not make anyone sound like Ringo Starr, because the drummer will not play like Ringo. He got the My Morning Jacket job when Jim James said computers never liked his voice, and Leckie promised him tape. The whole record went down on 16-track, with no computer until mastering.