Sitting In The Dock
Comfortably perched inside the familiar mixing room, GEARED sinks a couple excellent brews with DOCKING STATION STUDIOS’ proprietor/sonic guru STEPHEN BARTLETT – AKA the person behind Skinny Jean’s recorded output.
GEARED: How did you end up with this marvellous studio, Stephen?
STEPHEN BARTLETT: I started producing eight years ago - slowly at first – and in 2006, I started producing full-time. For those first few years, I was freelancing a lot and I ended up setting up a small-mix studio with my Geoff Tanner desk. Over time, I started recording more and more things there and I found the need to have a studio in Brisbane that was all of the things I wanted. The conclusion was to build it, so last year we signed a lease and spent about seven months designing and building the studio; I imported the Neve desk from New York and this year, we finished it off with tape machines – a Studer A80 eight-track and an Otari MTR-12 quarter-inch mixdown machine.
G: I understand the Neve console has a legendary reputation.
SB: Definitely – this is the only Neve in Queensland and one of only a handful working ones in the country. This came straight from New York, where it was rebuilt by Jeff DelBello [of dB Sound Design] – former Hit Factory maintenance man. It’s from 1974, in perfect condition.
G: Tell me about your current recording projects.
SB: At the moment, I’m working on a record with Skinny Jean – entirely to tape; with Steve Grady, where we’re using some tape and digital, and on some stuff with A Family Of Strangers, which is Glenn [Esmond] from The Butterfly Effect’s side project.
G: Keeping busy?
SB: I’m just starting on holidays – I’ve barely had a break all year [laughs]. I’ve done a lot of albums this year.
G: Speaking of Skinny Jean, both Shêm Allen and Andrew Sydes played guitars on Brisbane All-Stars’ Do They Know It’s Christmas? charity single last year – which was also recorded here. What’s it like working with these guys?
SB: I’ve worked with them since their first EP in 2007. Everything that we do is about pushing limits in creativity and finding different ways to do things, so it’s always different. The last record [2009’s Dolce Doggerel] we did entirely live – all in one room, playing everything together. On this record, we stripped it back, fully multi-tracking to tape and running sub-mixes as we go. We’ve been working on it for about six weeks, so that process has allowed us a lot more experimentation and even writing some things in the studio.
G: What’s Shêm like in studio mode?
SB: Depends what day you get him on [laughs]. Shêm’s great – he’s always got a distinct vision for what he wants. My job is to extract that vision. Musically, he’s able to cover a lot of different instruments and come up with a lot of different things – he always supplies me with scores, which make it much easier for me to communicate with him and figure out how to develop things.
G: Now to Brisbane All-Stars…
SB: It all came about after far too many beers with Stephen Green [of SCG Media] – initially, it was going to be a joke, but people just kept contacting and wanting to be part of it. It was a bit of fun and hopefully trying to raise some money for charity. If we get the chance to do it again, I’m sure we’ll be able to plan it a lot better – and have as much fun.
G: That’s the way – thanks Stephen!