Love Hz Studios One of Sydney’s newest and most enigmatic recording studios is the love child of two local musicians with a common bond – their love of music. Mark O’Connor investigates the realisation of a dream. nside a corrugated iron shed on a small industrial lot in apparent that such is the collaborative nature of the creative Sydney’s Leichhardt I ponder the ’70s Mod Squad décor of my process here that the demarcation lines very quickly dissolve, Isurroundings, positioned as I am on a couch of such a bright and the various rooms are all interactive and versatile. red that its very proximity acts as an antidepressant. Further splashes of colour attract my attention – the brilliant, unlikely Two of Us orange of a Farfisa organ protruding from nearby shelving Mark O’Connor: Matt, can you start off by telling us how you stacked high with drums, guitar cases, various amplifiers, other and Michael teamed up? keyboards and… well, a lot of gear. And perhaps most eye- Matt Fell: I actually read a review of one of Michael’s records catching of all – the luminous, glowing emblematic red heart in Mojo magazine years ago. [As well as producing, Michael is (same shade as the couch), positioned above the door to one of a recording artist in his own right, having released five albums two control rooms, that announces Love Hz Studios. in the last five years]. I emailed him soon after and he subse- Love Hz is the realisation of the long-held dream of two quently played drums on three tracks on the first Butterfly 9 musical kindred spirits, producers and multi-instrumentalists record [Matt’s recording project with his wife Susie – they’ve Matt Fell and Michael Carpenter. Each has long wished to own recently released their second album]. When Michael and I first a professional studio, but neither has wanted their ‘dream space’ hooked up it was a real meeting of the minds – I felt like I’d to wind up becoming yet another cold, inhospitable commercial found a musical soul brother, in a sense. We were both into the recording environment. Ideally it would have the acoustic same sort of stuff, musically – we’re both intense Beatles fans, isolation of a professional studio but the feel and look of a funky and Beach Boys as well – we both play most instruments, we’re home, a musical paradise. Love Hz is that dream realised. both producers, and both of us had our own home studio. But in as much as the décor distinguishes it from most other Michael too acknowledges this simpatico, and observes that commercial studios, it’s the presence of the two individuals it has led increasingly to collaboration on projects, often in that sets Love Hz apart – indistinguishable as they are from preference to working separately. the studio itself as a recording apparatus. No one hires out this Michael Carpenter: When somebody brings a song in and particular kitchen without the chefs: bring your own ingredients plays it to us we hear the same sorts of things – we’ll look (songs) and whatever recipes you may have and these guys will at each other and go, “Okay, let’s try this snare sound, dry… help you whip up something that’s to your taste (Matt: “We try maybe this guitar through that amp…” and we’re generally to achieve what’s in their heads but then go beyond it”), usually thinking the same thing: there’s not a lot of explanation throwing in some pretty wild ingredients that maybe you hadn’t required. It doesn’t happen all the time of course; our produc- thought of before. tion styles are in many respects very different – I come from a background of recording bands, and Matt from recording mostly Soul Food Production solo artists. But I think I make better records with Matt, and Matt Fell appears from out of the Love Room (officially Matt’s I think he makes better records with me. We just seem to egg space) where he and Michael are co-producing a session and we each other on, not in terms of one-upmanship, we just get really adjourn to the Stagefright Room (officially Michael’s workspace) inspired. When we first started out here about a year and a half to chat. Although each has his own room, it soon becomes ago it was about 90% separate projects, 10% joint productions. But as time has passed we’ve found ourselves doing more and more projects together – I’d say around 70% of projects are now joint productions. Stage Fright MO’C: Michael, this room is ostensibly your control room, also serving as the main live room, yet there’s no console in here. Once you remove the mixing desk from the equation – the traditional iconic hub of the recording studio – does its absence switch you into a different headspace, make you more relaxed? MC: Definitely. When Matt and I started talking about this place there were a couple of things that we really wanted to make sure we achieved. As you can surmise from all the guitars on the wall, the main thing we wanted was for musicians to come in here and make records – we wanted the recording process to be transparent. Technology has now reached a point where we don’t need to have consoles any more, so the ‘control room’ aspect of this room fits modestly in the corner, and the rest of the space is dedicated to music making. People walk in and they go, “Hey, a piano with thumbtacks” or “what’s that cheesy organ in the corner, and that little dinky drum machine…what’s that? An Autoharp?” When people make records here, there are two drum kits and 10 snare drums to choose from, so they inevitably ask, “What does this one with the wooden hoops sound like?” Being surrounded by all these instruments, known and unknown, is inspiring and the psychological aspect of that is that one can imagine sounds here that weren’t thought about before; there’s a broader palette of colours to choose from. And whoever’s in here can sit down at or pick up any instrument and make music straight away and record it. There’s not a lot of time spent getting a sound, it’s literally a two-minute process between having the idea and hearing it, so you can afford to experiment. MF: And the thing about this studio is that, having both arrived at record production from a musical background – playing in bands, doing sessions and having our own home studios – we wanted to create a space here that kept that home studio vibe, but was on a professional level. It’s like the ultimate bedroom studio – but soundproofed and air- Michael Carpenter casts a loving eye over his compression ratio during a conditioned. I love big expensive studios and I love the idea tracking session. At Love Hz Studios there are possibly more guitars and of recording in them, but it can be a frustrating experience keyboards than there are patch leads. when you want to put a drum track down and it takes three hours to get a sound – just to do the simplest thing. And that wasted time kills creativity. Here we’ve got it down to Here, There & Everywhere the point where if someone wants to do a drum track then As we speak I sit on a couch next to a 1966 Ludwig ‘Ringo’ hopefully in half an hour at the most we’re making music. drumkit, permanently miked up and ready to roll. The drummer If you want to do a bass part it takes five seconds and in me (there’s a drummer in everyone) is very tempted to everything’s ready to go. That to me is how recording should sit down and play. There is certainly a ‘kid in a candy shop’ be – there’s no point sitting around for three hours when dynamic here for a musician. The wall behind me is festooned you want to be creating. Obviously we make adjustments with an eye-popping array of stringed instruments: guitars, according to the song but everything’s always plugged in and mandolins and banjos, while elsewhere the wall space accom- connected and we’ve got everything going into the patchbay modates two organs: one a Hammond and the other, according – there’s always a microphone on the Leslie cabinet, on the to Michael, “is cheesy but it gets used heaps ’cause it’s got really guitar amp, in the vocal booth, two mics permanently on the quirky sounds.” There are two pianos – one of which has recently piano. Clients will often come in here with their preconceived been converted into a tack piano by attaching thumbtacks to ideas but then they look around and see an electric sitar the hammers. The exotic looking instrument lying on top of on the wall and think “Hang on…let’s try that,” and all of a it is an Autoharp. Over in Matt’s Love Room the instrumental sudden the parameters have expanded. treasure trove continues with “a whole bunch of stuff that I 47|AT With a Little Help From Our Friends MO’C: You essentially have two control rooms – Matt in the Love Room and Michael in the Stagefright Room – though with a considerable degree of interchangeability, and a vocal booth joining the two at the bottom of what seems like a U-shape. How did you arrive at this design, and to what extent did you factor in the potential for collaboration? MF: We were so naïve.