Some weeks ago, I came across a track called “Stranger“. I thought it was pretty good and went hunting for the producer. So here we are with an interview of Hugh Worskett, a London-based music man whose work with independent and major label names alike is garnering him a good reputation. You can read about his background and how he produced Alfie Connor’s “Stranger” below.
– Hi there Hugh. Can you tell me about your start in the world of music?
Sure. I was mucking around in bands during my teens, recording demos with friends and gradually becoming more interested in the sound of records, which led to me doing a classical music degree at King’s College London. I used to play the oboe and I still draw on my classical background when I’m producing, particularly when it comes to musicianship and arrangement.
After finishing my degree, I got some lucky breaks and met some producers who offered me the chance to work with them. I also did some early recordings with Jamie N Commons who’s now doing stuff with the likes of Eminem and Jay Z.
– Did your first break come through working with Jamie N Commons?
Yes, it did. He was a friend of my sister and I convinced him to work with me. I went through his demos and chose the one I thought was the best, which was called “Caroline“. I badgered a bunch of my friends from university to play on it for free, worked out the arrangement and convinced someone I knew at Universal to put us into their demo studio, and the end result was good. Jamie went off and got his publishing and management, and it was enough for people to start getting in touch with me.
I didn’t know much about the industry at that point, so I was lucky that a few people approached me, but I think in general you have to be out there, chasing stuff down. It’s a cliche, but you’re judged on the last thing you produced, so you have to be out there meeting people, even if you did noteworthy things in the past.
– Do you still feel like you had to convince people to work with you?
I think you always need to let people know what you have to offer as a producer. I don’t think there’s a job description for it – it can involve being a musician, engineer, sound designer, arranger or a combination of all these. So you need to let people know what you can do and find the projects that suit you best. I let people know that I play a variety of instruments and that I’m big on arrangements.
– I only see a few instruments in your studio, like a guitar and some synths. Do you have any intentions to expand your setup?
Yes, the plan is to have a piano in here and gradually collect more instruments and gear. A lot of instruments cross-over in functionality and design, so if you know your way around a piano or guitar, you should be able to pick up most other things and get something out of them. The idea is to collect a variety of things so an artist can come in here and really explore musically. There’s a lot in the computer that I use if I haven’t got the real thing – I have the Arturia bundle, Native Instruments libraries, my own drum sample collections, etc.
I think it’s important to blur the boundaries a bit between physical sounds and synthesized ones. If you just make a record on the computer, that’s one thing – making a record using only acoustic instruments is another. I think contemporary production is about creating a hybrid of both.
– Take me through the things you have here. What’s that small amp over there?
That’s a little practice amp, which can be quite fun. It creates some interesting lo-fi sounds that you can play around with.
The Fender Deville is great for fuller guitar tones.
My ukulele gets used a bit too. I had a session a few months ago were the artist said he hated ukuleles. So I handed it to him and said, “Come up with something “, and he found a shuffling rhythm that completely changed the direction of the track. The fact he was playing something that his muscle memory wasn’t familiar with led to a part he wouldn’t have found on the guitar.
Drum machines are some of my favorite things to muck around on – the Teenage Engineering OP-12 is getting used on everything at the moment
Synth-wise, I have the Doepfer Dark Energy 2, a Juno 106, and a Prophet is on the way. It’s very easy to slip into the 80s with the Juno but I’ve had mine modded so I can patch external stuff through the chorus which is fun. I have some Casiotone keyboards too which are great for esoteric sounds.
My monitors are a pair of Acoustic Energy AE22s, which I love. They’re flat, detailed and not fatiguing at all.
– Do you mix in this studio?
Not yet, but it’s not to say I won’t. I’m currently working on a lot of projects where I get involved early with arrangement and writing before producing them. I think it’s good for a fresh pair of ears to mix and offer perspective at the end of that process.
– Let’s talk about “Stranger”. The arrangement for that track is sparse, yet it still manages to sound interesting. Was that deliberate?
Alfie and I wanted it to be sparse. We tried adding more things in, but it worked better stripped back. The guitar parts are interesting because they’re not just strummed chords, they have great melodies in them. The guitar was a Fender Strat through a Princeton amp. I think there’s a plate reverb on it too. Once you get to the chorus, the guitar is double-tracked to fill things out and we harmonized a few of the guitar licks in between the vocal gaps. The vocals are similarly treated: single-tracked in the verse, double-tracked for the chorus, along with harmonies which are also double-tracked. The background vocals are layered up multiple times at the end.
– Tell me about the process of recording vocals for “Stranger”.
We recorded through an SM7B. It seems to work on a lot of male vocals and has good presence. There wasn’t a lot of thought put into that. It was what we had at the time and Alfie sounded good on it. I tend to record my vocals without compression unless there’s dynamic problems. I’ll add in-the-box compression afterwards and vocal rides if I have to.
– Were the drums programmed?
They were completely programmed. We tried live drums but they didn’t have the weight. I wanted the drums to have an organic feel about them so we didn’t drift into remix territory. There’s a lot of velocity stuff going on with the kicks and rim-shots to try and achieve that.
– Is there a bass sound in there?
There’s a bass synth in the chorus. We tried a real bass, but with the kind of arrangement we had, the bass didn’t add much and we were in danger of moving back into band-world, which we didn’t want.
– Did you handle the mastering or did the label?
I think his label had someone they wanted to use. It may have been someone over at Metropolis but I can’t remember.
– Cool. Thanks for the chat Hugh. Is there anything you’re currently working on that you can tell me about?
I just finished the debut album of a band called Movie which was a lot of fun and I’m working with a guy called Will Joseph Cook who’s signed to Atlantic. He has a really original voice and writes amazing songs. We’re spending a lot of time on arrangements exploring and refining which is an exciting process.
