hanging out with audiophiles

My name is Jamie Lidell and I'm gonna delve into the heady magic of creating music in a modern studio, probe the depths of production, get tech crazy with mixing tricks, studio skills and equipment. I'll be joined by fellow musicians, engineers and all-round audiophiles who kindly share their tips, stories and ingenious insight from the bizarre world of music production. I shall answer questions and seek knowledge from other music makers on a quest to discover how to make things sound RIGHT. I will also share some studio trickery on each episode as I explore some of my favourite innovations in music tech and my creations... outpourings from the weirdo brain! Welcome to a place for musicians, producers and listeners alike as we "cheers" our love of everything audio.

HOWA EP 128 - HAUSCHKA 09/04/2024

HOWA EP 127 - KAZIM RASHID 08/21/2024

HOWA EP 126 - ANDY FALCONER 07/23/2024

HOWA EP 126 - ANDY FALCONER Im going to read from the press release this time coz its a good’n The simpatico sophomore album by the unstoppably prolific Alex Paterson and fellow Orb original Andy Falconer is an epic sail through the sky at night. Helmed by gentle spirits with warmth in their hearts, ‘SETI’ feels cold and dark, yet also glowing and welcoming. Aboard a cosy candlelit spacecraft, the duo experience the cosmos as somewhere overwhelmingly infinite, yet reassuring and friendly. A sort of ‘ambient unplugged’, it’s full of acoustic instruments and nostalgic samples, folding space between the old world, and places where no man has gone before. Dr Paterson speaks “The first LP had a great reception and sold so well I couldn’t even get a copy myself. Andy is brilliant at making ambient music, and working with him is always rewarding. We understand each other’s brains – it’s easy and organic - so doing another made total sense.” He adds, “SETI stands for Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence, but it’s also something you sit on, to chill out, which is why the album contains a Three Piece Suite. This record is musical ambience, which is what we like to make, rather than drone ambience, which there’s a lot of these days.” That last point struck me as it describes the sensations I associate with the music of the Orb which is a sort of maximal ambient rush. It’s a sound that whizzes me right back to my dreamy youth tbh when these guys were so responsible for making the soundtrack that accompanied me through my last years at school. It was a time when I needed music to blow my mind. When I was told I could speak to an original member of the orb I was so curious to ask Andy how it was all made back in those days. We get into that right at the end of this chat as well as a walk down memory lane and up the present. It was great to catch up with Andy in Portugal. He’s had quite the life! Let’s get into it /episode/index/show/hangingoutwithaudiophiles/id/32259047

HOWA EP 125 - MATTHEW HERBERT 06/27/2024

HOWA EP 125 - MATTHEW HERBERT Bones.... Wind.... Caves.... A simpler time When we apes first tooted.. the fluuuute Yes it’s wild how far we’ve come and Matthew Herbert and I go back a bit too .. I mean not to the flute tooting era but we go back. He speaks during this chat of his achievements as an evolved ape and many had me gasping ! He tells of multiple slippers that he can slide into to tap different sonic personas. The making of 1000 pieces of music a year! The upkeep of his musical organ filled with pigs blood. Yes The stories are wild in this one so Strap in! Did I mention we go way back? Yes ! I was lucky enough to collaborate with him on a few notable pieces of music. 1) He played on the second super_collider LP raw digits on a track called gravity rearranging 2) I was a singer on his album Goodbye Swingtime and joined him and the bigband at the Hollywood Bowl opening for Bjork in 2003 alongside Bonnie Prince Billy. Hollywood bowl bigband? I mean come on!! 3) He joined me alongside Arto Lindsay, performing the most monumental show of my career at Sonar 2003. That show was the real unveiling of all my efforts in the lab to make an impov looping performance with max/msp. Something I’d dreamt of for years and finally made real. It was so fitting to have him and Arto come on for the final number and make a total racket with me. We just all clattered it to the ground. A moment I’ll never forget and it was all down to Matthew really as it was watching him show using multiple boss echos in short looping mode that got me started on that road. A brilliant and restless musical mind that has always moved in his own lane. It’s a treat to welcome onto the show Matthew Herbert ____ It’s been a while but I’ve some music to play from an artist and pod listener This time it’s from an LP called TRIPLE TRANSIT The artist is Braile and he makes some really solid Modular YouTube pieces too His new record is out August 8th on Hotflush recordings. Link! https://braillesounds.bandcamp.com/album/triple-transit /episode/index/show/hangingoutwithaudiophiles/id/31913812

HOWA EP 124 - JASON LIM of INSTRUO 05/09/2024

HOWA EP 123 - MATTHEW OF ALM BUSY CIRCUITS 04/26/2024

HOWA EP 122 - ROBERT HENKE 04/18/2024

HOWA EP 121 - JESSE HARRIS 03/28/2024

HOWA EP 120 - JIM KELLER 03/08/2024

HOWA EP 119 - MEDASIN 02/20/2024

HOWA EP 118 - KID KOALA 02/07/2024

HOWA EP 117 - DJ SHADOW 12/25/2023

HOWA EP 117 - DJ SHADOW Merriment abound ! It's that time again when sonic stockings are stuffed. This time with a fireside ramble twixt myself and the legend that is as we celebrate his new LP "Action Adventure" Welcome. I hope this finds you in good health and merry mood as the season sheds it's joy upon you. If joy is in short supply and the period feels claustrophobic and the family is doing your head in then I trust yule be able to duck out for a spell and use this as an escape pod. Who am I rambling with on the sonic sleigh? Dj Shadow really needs no Endroducing but in case you’re not hip to his MPC60 masterpiece from 1996 you MUST inhale that now. What a record. I recall having both of my Christmas stockings blown off by this LP and it’s humbling to be sat on a zoom with the chap now. Such is the mystery of the digital time ghosts. Twas a mighty pleasure to chew the cud with such a master of the chops. I hope this offers you some sonic solace this holiday ______ I wish to alert you to a new way to give to this show, should you find it appealing :) It's the new $1.50 tier on Patreon, a wonderful idea that came from Hainbach. A way to chip in and directly support the show as a kind of digital high five :) I really do pour my heart Into the HOWA podcast. As you can imagine, it all takes loads of effort. From finding the guests and organizing the chats, to trying to find new areas of sonic joy to explore and share in the episodes. Then there's all the time editing, uploading, promoting and all that. If you enjoy the show and feel you can spare a little over a dollar a month to help me carry on, that would be rather ace! thanks!! _____ Sponsorship comes from Distrokid Did you know that there's a new iOS and android app that lets you - Upload - Find out when money hits your bank - Check streaming stats and loads more Take advantage of the savings HOWA offers ya! Use this 30% off code /episode/index/show/hangingoutwithaudiophiles/id/29222603

HOWA EP 116 - CLARK 12/12/2023

HOWA EP 115 - JIMMY DOUGLASS 11/20/2023

HOWA EP 114 - ANIMAL COLLECTIVE 11/06/2023

HOWA 113 - JAMES FORD 10/12/2023

HOWA 113 - JAMES FORD My guest on the show is James Ford who is really one of the most badass producers in the business. Im talking about the kind of low key English badassness and not the Tarantino variety if you know what I mean. James is involved in so many things and yet he does it without needing a big spotlight on himself. Humble badass. That’s the one. He’s been active for many years. I mean we used to see each other in that classic ships in the night stylee when I was touring with Cristian Vogel back in the late nineties. We are talking about a man with Multiple decades of energy dedication and knowledge a go go! He’s got the quadfecta mad skills as composer, multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter which is probably one of the reasons he’s been able to be so nimble and effective working with a huge range of incredible artists from Arctic Monkeys to Depeche Mode via Foals, Gorillaz and Kylie Minogue. You may know him as one half of Simian Mobile Disco, alongside longtime creative partner Jas Shaw or perhaps as a touring member of The Last Shadow Puppets. The hat cupboard in the house is ample! I was lucky enough to feature on a track with SMD a while back and got to see the studio when it was at the Premises in Hackney. Now he’s got a supreme attic room that is beyond decked out. We have a little tour of that for anyone who is curious about his gear choices after all this time. Then we get deep into the world of making, art, the hurdles, the path. The good stuff of rambling! Welcome to the mind of a sonic chef. His first solo album “The Hum” is out now on warp records and it’s a corker! https://www.jamesellisford.com ________________ If you want to directly help support me in the pod work please consider joining my Patreon All sounds from this episode will go to those on the upper tier ! ________________ Id like to thank show sponsors SOUNDTOYS https://www.soundtoys.com KORG https://www.korg.com STAGER MICS http://stagermicrophones.com _________________ NITTY!!! /episode/index/show/hangingoutwithaudiophiles/id/28297349

HOWA EP112 - JON HOPKINS 08/28/2023

HOWA EP112 - JON HOPKINS Jon Hopkins pays attention. He has a ear for the smallest details and a deft touch both as a pianist and a producer. I feel this interview is very timely as the rise of psychedelic therapy has caught the imagination of so many. Jon has made music that is so perfect for those wishing to go deeper with their experiences in that hugely rewarding domain. His is the mindset that wants to expand and to meditate instead of flex and win the popularity contests in the game of music. Very refreshing. We get into his beginnings in the classical world, his lack of patience with distracting factors and on to his success story and on to his musings on the current state of being a musician releasing music in this arguably confusing time. ____________ The nitty returns ! I was fortunate enough to get an early copy of Andrew Huang’s first plugin :) It's a collaboration with Baby Audio called “Transit” It really inspired me to get my hands dirty and to explore it’s outer ways. I stacked up about 30 or so instances to pull off a tonal transition that is rather epic ! I learned from an older me on this one. In EP 58 I explored a related idea in Melodyne. that show ****** **** ** * SPECIAL DEAL !! I’m happy to be able to offer listeners to the show a 10 % discount on TRANSIT when using the code BABYHOWA at check out Here’s the plugin!! Check it :) Also.. the Ableton session called “The Bends” that I made to demo this (sadly I forgot it’s the 11.3.10b5 Beta version of Ableton you’ll need to run this .. oops!) _____________ Big ups to Catechism and REZN for their music on this show. It’s from an album called “Infected Ambient Works” Here’s the link to it _____________ A massive shout to show sponsor Soundtoys! At the start of this episode I add the New SUPER PLATE and the classic PHASE MISTRESS plugins to a tape jam that’s fresh from my new studio and it just enters into a whole Different dimension. These are Shockingly good plugins! Some of the very best you can find. That’s why I’m so chuffed to work with these legends ! Check their masterful work here ____________ If you want to directly help support me in the pod work please consider joining my Patreon All sounds from this episode will go to those on the upper tier ! /episode/index/show/hangingoutwithaudiophiles/id/27866859

HOWA EP 111 - BENN JORDAN 08/17/2023

HOWA EP 111 - BENN JORDAN DESCRIPTION After a hefty and well needed break I’m back The pod returns :) I trust y'all are hanging in. I hope in fact you’re more than just hanging in. I hope you are diving in and thriving and embracing the endless realm of possibility that presents itself to you. Don’t worry, I’ll not linger on the guru talk. Just stating the obvious ! As you can see from the show title I got to finally chat with the brilliant Benn Jordan. We met at NAMM a couple of years back (I’ve had some great hangs at NAMM I must say) He’s a smart, witty man with endless curiosity and it’s really fun to explore all manner of mind realms with him. We can TALK! Oh how we can talk. This conversation was at least 3 hours long and it’s been cut down a fair bit but there’s no end of tangents and insights into The mighty Benn. I think those of you who are familiar with his excellent YouTube material will enjoy hearing an extended ramble portal into his many ways. It’s great to be back This show has 2 excellent sponsors 1st off I’m super happy to get to work with my pals at Soundtoys for a few shows. They agreed to come on board and I couldn’t be happier. Just love them and their excellent plugins. Top shelf stuff! In this episode I show off 2 of my faves, decapitator and devil lok. They are both such wonderful tools. Potent and endlessly useful in equal measure. Like Salt in cooking, they amp up the tasty. Head over to if you know what’s good for you! I’d also like to thank “a tasty pixel” for sponsoring the show. They are makers of the unbelievably good LOOPY PRO. Absolutely stunning software for anyone who really wants the last looper. It is the most fully featured pure looper Ive ever used. Beardyman uses it. If you were wondering if it were capable I think that’s all you need to know! Interested in looping? Let me save you some time. All you need is LOOPY PRO Click for more info! /episode/index/show/hangingoutwithaudiophiles/id/27780633

HOWA EP 110 - TYCHO 04/23/2023

HOWA EP 110 - TYCHO Tycho is Scott Hansen and Scott is a deeply friendly and humble chap. I didnt know too much about his background or what made him tick but I tried to get to “know” him and makes some guesses about that by tuning into his music. It’s clearly so well crafted and put together with meticulous attention to detail that this man had to be fastidious but how would that quality manifest? He manages to ride us on a carpet of textures which guide the process of musical flight, once a mood is found, it’s held with patience so the listen can dwell in a land. It’s a style that has been really honed and has found a large following for good reason! It was a real treat to get on the ramble road with him. I left the interview unedited for maximum deviation potential (you’re welcome) _____ This episode is sponsored by A tasty pixel and their excellent As many of you are aware, I’ve spent years of my life with loopers of all kinds from the crudest guitar pedals to my own Max/MSP effort in 2000 to Tim Exile’s wonderful “flow machine” Making a looper setup that fits your style is everything and to do that, a tool that is very flexible and open to configuration is needed. I’m happy to report that this is perfected inside loopy pro. I’m also happy to say that It’s one of the best loopers I’ve ever used and has become the heart of beardymans new setup so you know it’s capable. Needless to say Im really happy to be working with A tasty pixel. _______ I made a new video to highlight a specific use of Loopy Pro that came to me one evening. There’s plenty of excellent tutorial videos to get started online so I wanted to show something a little unique. I took 4 instances of the Chamberlin M1 samplepack I made (which is now available at !) fed each to an array of 4 speakers around a Neumann head for some quadra funky tape loopidelic delightfulness. Yes, it’s A little nitty basically :) Watch /episode/index/show/hangingoutwithaudiophiles/id/26626590

HOWA EP 109 - HAINBACH 03/31/2023

HOWA EP 108 - CARL CRAIG 03/07/2023

HOWA EP 107 - ANGELO PALAZZO 02/14/2023

HOWA EP 106 - DAVID HASKELL 01/19/2023

HOWA EP 106 - DAVID HASKELL David Haskell is a professor of biology and environmental studies at the University of the South and a Guggenheim Fellow. His 2017 book The Songs of Trees won the John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing. His 2012 book The Forest Unseen was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, and won the 2013 Best Book Award from the National Academies, the National Outdoor Book Award, and the Reed Environmental Writing Award. His new book, Sounds Wild and Broken is out now and I was thrilled to have a chance to sit down in person with him in my studio here Nashville to discuss it briefly. Here’s a quick summary of the book from the official press release: Starting with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth history, Haskell illuminates and celebrates the emergence of the varied sounds of our world. In mammoth ivory flutes from Paleolithic caves, violins in modern concert halls, and electronic music in earbuds, we learn that human music and language belong within this story of ecology and evolution. Yet we are also destroyers, now silencing or smothering many of the sounds of the living Earth. Haskell takes us to threatened forests, noise-filled oceans, and loud city streets, and shows that sonic crises are not mere losses of sensory ornament. Sound is a generative force, and so the erasure of sonic diversity makes the world less creative, just, and beautiful. The appreciation of the beauty and brokenness of sound is therefore an important guide in today’s convulsions and crises of change and inequity. a link to the book in all it’s various formats (the link is slow but it works) I can highly recommend you give it a read. It's just a wonderful read and full of insights that will stay with you. There’s a Soundcloud link with sounds pertinent to the chapters which you can check out ______________ I also wanted to give a shout out to pod listener Simon Taylor and his book AUDIO MASTERING IN A PROJECT STUDIO: A PRACTICAL APPROACH FOR A PROFESSIONAL SOUND Some great ideas and knowledge that’s not too overwhelming check these whee links: Or ______________ As always send music and stuff to :) /episode/index/show/hangingoutwithaudiophiles/id/25659573

HOWA EP 105 - BIBIO 12/24/2022

HOWA EP 104 - RED MEANS RECORDING 12/13/2022

HOWA EP 103 - FRED AGAIN 11/09/2022

HOWA EP 102 - MAX TUNDRA 10/25/2022

HOWA EP 102 - MAX TUNDRA Max Tundra is Ben Jacobs A man that was a child that grew up in London. As pointed out on his bandcamp, he went to the same school as Jude Law and a Chemical Brother, but didn’t know them. In this disposable content age, there’s an undeniable urge to go for quantity over quality is there not? The music Ben makes as Max Tundra comes as rarely as a celestial event. We forget the rising and falling of the sun each day but we don’t forget a total eclipse now do we? This is how it felt when Mocky and I came across the LP “Mastered by guy at the exchange”. We were without sun for a while. In an unknown land that felt Most welcoming and yet most peculiar. It was genuinely new music. Something so rare that still feels fresh all these years later. Here’s what hyper pop bloke A. G. Cook said of Max Tundra’s legacy: “‘Mastered by Guy at the Exchange’ is a true cult album - a playful monolith that sounds both nothing and everything like the 2000s. Stumbling across it as a teenager, it reinforced a hunch I had: that music is a place where anything could happen, and total chaos could be held together by the lightest of pop hooks. There’s an oddly British quality to Max Tundra’s work, a soft and polite maximalism - pioneering, eccentric and infinitely remixable.” Ben Jacobs invented hyper pop As they say in the UK FACTS It’s a good time to be a Max Tundra fan as domino has reissued his first three studio albums to be found 2000s Some Best Friend You Turned Out to Be, 2002’s Mastered by Guy at the Exchange, and the 2008 masterwork Parallax Error Beheads You. We get into a lot of his formative years and thankfully he kept so much of his sonic ramblings from that time and they can be found on his band camp page It’s a real treasure trove. it is What a legend. If you’ve never heard of him before, I’m so glad I get to make the intro. He’s a true original and a very nice man Please welcome on the show Max Tundra /episode/index/show/hangingoutwithaudiophiles/id/24794244

HOWA EP 100 - NIGEL GODRICH 10/09/2022

HOWA EP 100 - NIGEL GODRICH Nigel is my kind of producer He has a strong sense of quality, a strong sense of who he is and what potentials artists have to be cultivated and captured. He’s my kind of producer because he gets his hands dirty and doesn’t just act as a fan of the band and take on that guru role but he’s in the trenches, setting up the mics for perfect phase alignment, getting all the sonic chains correct but without a limiting rule book. There’s so much inventiveness in the productions alongside the incredible, undeniable tone. Of course there’s that ego and strong sense of self and I ran into his resolute perspective a couple of times by asking questions he deemed sub par or misguided. Let’s put it this way, you know where you stand with Nigel and of course he has a strong perspective. Imagine the courage and strength of conviction it would take to tell Thom Yorke or Paul McCartney that they could better a take or that a lyric felt cheesy or what have you. We might all think we want to be told yes all the time but Nigel, it feels, understands when to say no and let his point be known and I love that about him. I have immense respect for him. He's made some of my favorite records and I think it's fair to say that he's my favorite living producer. So needless to say it's an absolute thrill to have him on the show. It’s even more special to me that he agreed to do episode 100. NIGEL!!!!! Nitty 100 is a BIG one I get my hands on a rare Chamberlin M1 from the excellent Rob Burger and sample it in a most painstaking manner yielding a set of 8 instrument captures that showcase the sounds on the tapes in a way that’s never been heard before. I sent the finished pack to some amazing musicians and they all came back with beautiful music to demo the sounds. You’ll hear tracks from Dave Sitek Hainbach Dana Wachs Andrew Huang RJD2 Money Mark and I also made one that sneaks in at the end of the show 🙂 EP 100 Baby! bringing the heat!!! I only managed to make all this with the expert kontakt and decent sampler scripting help of Owen Bolig and GUI design from Tobias James. In the sample instruments you can blend 3 different layers. The DRY is a direct output from the instrument running into a Telefunken V72 preamp The DIRT is the signal processed though a silvertone amp head into a Roland RE-201 space echo in spring reverb mode 3+4) The DUAL MONO ADT NAGRA recordings are the star of the show and the motivation behind the instrument. The output of the Chamberlin was sent to 2 nagras at the same level. I played with the varispeed of one nagra tape machine and not the other so when the NAGRA channel on the kontakt or decent sampler is set to mono you hear unique ADT style phasing that’s varied per key press using scripting magic (Kontakt only). So there’s 3168 samples that make up the 8 instruments with a total of 4.62Gb of audio. Get ready! The Chamberlin ADT is available to Patreon members on the soul science level! Music for EP100 comes from Lok44 who’s LP 44problems is to found on TRUST. I was bugging out to this. I think he triggered something from my youth and I very much enjoyed the flashback! Thanks to sonible for their kind sponsorship Their plugins are well worth checking out. smart, clear and good sounding. Triple wammy! check them out 🙂 Thanks also to access analog for THEIR kind sponsorship Good news! They have given me a code to share with you all at check out so you can try this wild service for yourself and remotely control a pye compressor from the comfort of your studio or roaming about with a laptop with wifi. True 2022 business. The code you need at check out is....... trial-howa enjoy! Drums from this ad spot are from the That Sound “Hanger” library here shouts to my studio building crew! Jim Keller at Sondhus and Matthew Marinelli at coral sound thanks to Diana Walsh for cleaning up the audio as ever Last my most certainly not least, thank you to my lovely wife! Without her this show never would have been. Just would not have ever reached episode 1! Im so proud of her. She’s having her first solo art show as a painter here in Nashville at the brand new ZieherSmith Gallery. The show is called STIM and it’s going to be up from the 24th September. Check this link here for info! BYE x /episode/index/show/hangingoutwithaudiophiles/id/24384402

HOWA EP 101 - TOTALLY ENORMOUS EXTINCT DINOSAURS 09/23/2022

HOWA EP 99 - DAVE OKUMU 08/20/2022

HOWA EP 99 - DAVE OKUMU You may know him for his soaring solo musical adventures or maybe you’re old school and you were always down with his band The Invisible. Perhaps you’ve seen him playing with Amy WInehouse or Grace Jones. Perhaps you’ve heard his collaborations with Adele, Yoko Ono or Tony Allen? Perhaps you’ve not come across him yet, in which case I’m very happy to make the connection. I know him as a genuine, fascinating, generous and ultra simpatico friend that I see far too infrequently. There are few people I know that enjoy talking as much as Dave. He leads you into wild and wonderful places in his delightful and engaging explorations and I’m always keen to see where we might end up. In his presence, time seems to slow down and I find that deeply relaxing and very welcome. I often feel a tad in my head, or even headless but Dave brings a groundedness that is very settling. Those who know him have experienced his radiant smile and his tremendous, heart felt hugs. I feel very lucky to be friends with Dave. He’s a real one of a kind and an absolute beast of a musician.I had the chance to get a sneak peak of his new LP and it’s really mind blowing stuff. Just wait ! Ah yes. At long last, I’m so happy to welcome my friend on the show. Please welcome Dave Okumu Nitty 99 is an exploration of the Eventide H8000 and its excellent 4 part MIDI pitch shifter which appears to be the sound we know so well on the Bon Iver track 715 Creeks. I run all sorts of stuff into it and it's a delight! Can't believe this is my first time using it. Music for EP 99 comes from the rather excellent Botany! Superb. Still available for download is This EP performed by Rob Burger and sonically crafted by me all proceeds to the Ukrainian Redcross. Please consider a small donation :) I’d like to thanks Diana Walsh for her help prepping the interview audio @dmwalshmusic on the gram 🙂 PLEASE keep the music coming ! send submissions to side orders: Dave mentions Elizabeth Fritsch pots and how he'd like to live in one. When you see them you'll understand why. She's an absolute master and channels such beauty in her work. link /episode/index/show/hangingoutwithaudiophiles/id/24118668

hanging out with audiophiles

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