London Elektricity
Hospital founder Tony Colman invites us into his studio and lifts the lid on two decades of DnB wisdom
Two years after the creation of London Elektricity, Tony Colman and Chris Goss made their mark on the DnB genre with the pulsating jazz-step floor-filler Song In The Key Of
Knife (1999). By then, the duo had already conceptualised Hospital Records, which has grown to become a key player in DnB and one of the most well respected labels in dance music. Following the success of their debut album Pull The
Plug the following year, Goss stepped away from production in order to fully focus on label operations, leaving Colman to further stylise London Elektricity’s sound.
A second album, Billion Dollar Gravy (2003), epitomised the London-born producer’s approach. Placing huge emphasis on live musicianship and traditional songwriting, Colman earned himself widespread recognition. Meanwhile, Hospital has gone from strength to strength, introducing the world to a catalogue of talent including High Contrast, Logistics, Camo & Krooked and Danny Byrd. Today, Colman is as busy as ever, running the label, DJing and touring a full live band, all while creating a seventh album.
Hospital Records has been running for over 20 years now. How difficult has it been to navigate an industry that’s changed enormously?
“When you’re tiny, navigation is easy as long as you’re prepared to take risks. I remember how when iTunes started I saw it as an opportunity to sell music without having to manufacture something. We were the only DnB label on it for 18 months. I’ve always loved vinyl, but we embraced the digital side very quickly. The majors were scared and panicking and a lot of the DnB labels didn’t know what to do. We just rang up Apple and set up a direct deal, and took the same approach with every decent new service that came along.”
Has it helped that DnB has a resilient fan base – or would that be complacent thinking?
“Both, I think. DnB has an incredibly loyal and resilient fan base. We’ve been around for almost 30 years. Hospital was relatively late and viewed with a certain amount of suspicion. People would say: ‘who are these weird jazz people?’ I remember doing interviews in 2000 with journalists who said, ‘DnB is dead, what do you think?’, just because we had that peak at the end of the ’90s when Roni Size got a Mercury Prize and you had DnB shampoo adverts. But our fan base has gone on to grow internationally and is now a thriving, self-contained industry. It’s probably one of the most consistent genres over the past 20 years, along with reggae. Now there are festivals like Let It Roll in the Czech Republic that has 25,000 people, while Hospitality In The Park packs in 12,000 and we’ve sold out every one so far. Who’d have thought?”
Why is it called Hospital by the way?
“When Chris (Goss) and I sat down to think of a name, we literally spent three weeks in The Three Kings in West Kensington drinking a lot of beer and trying to think laterally. We wanted something that would have legs. My grandfather was a GP, so Hospital kept winning the shortlist battle. We ended up with two, Hospital and Odd. We thought we could have compilations called Plastic Surgery or Outpatients, and it all made sense. I went to a chemist and asked them where they got their stickers printed for their bottles of pills, then we ordered rolls of stickers so the promos looked like they’d been prescribed for you.”
Is how you sign artists today different?
“We played a gig in Cardiff and this guy with curly hair came up to me and asked if he could MC, and I was like, ‘no!’. The next day we went to Catapult Records, which was an amazing vinyl shop, and there he was behind the counter. Anyway, I apologised and he asked if I’d take a listen to his stuff if he plugged his MiniDisc into the shop system. That was Lincoln Barrett of High Contrast, and he played this amazing disco-flavoured DnB that was unlike anything I’d ever heard. We asked him to slow his tracks down to 173bpm and send the tracks to us, which he did, and we signed him. We’d already signed Danny Byrd who’d sent two amazing demos on CD-R. For about 10 years we used AOL Instant Messenger, which was huge in DnB if you wanted to send demos to labels. AOL shut that down, so we built a demo inbox system into our website.”
What would you advise people when they send you demos?
“Make sure the artist name is good and your track name is really fucking good, because if they’re boring no one’s even going to bother listening to them. Your artist name has to have a very good SEO, so test it on Google and Discogs. Be original and put thought into it, because once you’ve decided on a name, you’re stuck with it.”
Have you seen a big change in how DnB tracks are formulated? Loops seem to be less common these days; beats have to be programmed?
“The scourge of the sample pack? There is a whole load of music being made by people using presets, and as long as you’ve got a trained ear you can tell. It causes copyright problems actually, because if two people take the same loop from a copyright-free sample pack and one of the track blows up, there will be a dispute. We’re very interested in how artists make music, and if they’re simply putting pieces of a kit together we’re not interested.”
Still, don’t you find it’s increasingly difficult to be original these days?
“People say the last truly original song was probably written in 1990, because technology has allowed people to just recreate and copy the golden eras of songwriting and music production, when there were huge political, spiritual and technological changes.”
“If artists are simply putting pieces of a kit together, we’re not interested”
Presumably, you sampled breaks when you started yourself?
“I’ve got an enormous collection of drum loops that I’ve reworked over the years. My record collection has been slimmed down but there’s a lot of car boot sale purchases in there and I used to discover loads of mad breaks. Sampling drum breaks is a bit of a lost art, but it’s really valuable. Especially with the technology that’s available now for manipulation, those old breaks can be a really good starting point when it comes to creating your own drum sounds. If the record’s obscure because most of it’s so terrible that no one bought it, the chances are no one’s used a break from it. I mean, Mr. Scruff probably has, but copyright’s never really been a thing with drums. Can you imagine if that was suddenly claimable? Everyone would be completely screwed [laughs].”
You built a studio in the attic of your house. Was that difficult, as it’s an odd-shaped room?
“It’s bizarre. It was actually quite big when we moved here and I was all excited. I was working on Mackie HR824s and the ceiling was asymmetrical – you don’t want a parallel ceiling or you’ll get standing waves between the ceiling and the floor, but when I set the speakers up they sounded awful. I was recommended some guy from Anglesey who’s a genius at getting any room to sound good, but it was quite possibly the most depressing day of my life. New house, studio room, audio expert and he’s pinging off sweeps, analysing them and going pale. The way the builders did the conversion, the room was completely resonant in all the wrong frequencies, and the only thing I could do was put as much bass trapping in as I could. He recommended rock wool density to give a vast amount of absorption and a rough construction plan that removed a third of the floor space. It’s somehow ended up sounding brilliant.”
You use Focal monitors. Would you recommend those to DnB producers?
“Absolutely. We’re building the Hospital studio from scratch right now, but when we were in Forest Hill and rejigged our studio, we got a company to bring along two big Adam monitors and a pair of Focals. The Adams were gorgeous and a lot of people swear by them, but they were slightly overemphasising the mid-range detail and the bottom end wasn’t quite there. The good thing about these Focal SM9s is that you can turn the sub off. They’ve got an extremely good built-in sub, brilliant tweeters and the mid-range is really accurate. The sub pumps out a lot of energy from the top of the speaker, so they’re amazing for DnB.”
What keyboard controller are you using?
“This is the original Yamaha KX88, which is really hard to get now. I’ve had it since the ’80s. Obviously, it has 88 keys, it’s as big as my Steinway and the action on it is amazing. I don’t really use the controllers, I’ll assign the modulation wheel to whatever I want to change, but if you’re a keyboard player then this is the ultimate for MIDI – it’s got a really fine touch.”
You have a few vintage keyboards, which you wouldn’t necessarily expect for a DnB man?
“The great thing about the Wurlitzer is that it’s got built-in speakers so it’s quite inspiring to work on. I use it for every piece of music that I write. I may not record it, but I work out ideas on the Wurly and quite often mic it up because it’s much better than a plugin. I used to take this one out on the road – it’s my companion.”
Do you use the Rhodes for writing too?
“I don’t, because it’s downstairs and my boys like using it. If there’s a part in a tune where I’ve used an Arturia Stage-73 or similar VST, after I’ve learned the part I’ll mic up the Rhodes and play it. I like the nuances you get from a real performance, so it makes sense to do that. I’ll tend to use all sorts of guitar and effects pedals with it too. Anything that can transform what you’re doing in real-time is good by me. I’m just missing the Hammond now [laughs], but a Marimba’s also definitely on my bucket list.”
When did you acquire the Steinway piano?
“The Steinway’s an air loom. It’s a full-size grand, built in 1893 that my grandfather got in the 1960s. On my last album, AreWeThereYet, I wrote all the tracks and took my Mac Pro, interface and mixing
desk down to the piano room and set up there for three weeks. I overdubbed each track in lots of different ways, but every track is full of piano, which brings them to life. Again, it’s got its own sound and adds a completely different dimension to a mix. I’ve never been really good at learning sheet music, but I can improvise in a modal jazz sort of way, so it’s another go-to writing tool. I’ll probably do the same with the new album I’m working on at the moment, which should be finished in March.”
It’s not often you’ll find a DnB act using a grand piano in a way that’s integral to the production process?
“For DnB it’s always been quite dense, musically. Too dense for most people to play out, which I understand and have gradually come to terms with. But I’ve got a bit of a short attention span when it comes to ideas, so I tend to have a lot of them. On this next album, I’ve decided to fully let go and be myself. There’s one track I’ve been writing since 2006 and I’ve finally cracked it. It’s got no lyrics but has a full orchestra and an opera singer, which sounds incredibly pretentious, but it kind of works.”
You’re a big fan of the Suzuki Omnichord?
“Lovely to play. It came with a conductive plectrum, which I’ve lost, but you can choose any chord progression type and slide your finger down the touch plate. It works by bridging each little contact and you get amazing sequences going. It’s got a crap drum machine too. The tape’s snapped on my Space Echo, so I’ll use that to add reverb then go through the Lexicon PCM 41 for some delay. That’s the fun of hardware; if it’s got character then it’s emoting.”
Is everything running through the Mackie desk?
“My old Mackie, the Onyx 1220. I’ve had this for about 13 years and love it. It’s got really good in and out converters, mic inputs and EQs, and if you want to multitrack with it you can. I’ve recorded drum kits through this and it sounds really good. I’m not an equipment snob. It’s the same with software; people always ask me what they should get. My usual answer is, “have you got a Mac Book?” If yes, use something like GarageBand until you’ve squeezed everything you can out of it, then maybe think about getting something like Reaper, which I’d probably use if I was starting out.”
You prefer Cubase over the other DAWs?
“I’m sure you’re aware there are two routes – it’s like North and South London or Man Utd versus Man City, there’s Logic and Cubase. Logic was called Creator back in the day and people were either Steinberg or Creator, unless you were on a salary in a studio, in which case you’d probably use Pro Tools. I flirted with Ableton Live and thought it was brilliant, but it’s not me. Something in me thinks it doesn’t sound right. Reason is brilliant, I wrote
BillionDollarGravy on that because I was on the road so much and it uses almost no CPU.”
You’ve always had vocals on your tracks. Any tips for treating them?
“What’s really good is that you’ve got tools like iZotope RX, which in many ways is quite a humble piece of software but it can do things for postproduction that you never would have dreamed of a few years ago. It’s amazing for correcting vocals. It uses artificial intelligence to govern what you’re doing; so you can run a vocal through it and it will tell you what’s wrong with it and suggest corrections in terms of breath control, popping and room sound. These days, it’s less important to have an amazing room to record vocals in. If you can have one, that’s lovely, but there are enough plugins available today to recreate that. As usual, it’s about what you take away rather than what you add. Removing unwanted room sound frequencies is really important. I very rarely add EQ; it’s nearly always about subtracting.”
Talking of iZotope, we noticed you use their Spire recording device?
“Yeah, the Spire is their first piece of hardware and a wicked little device. It’s got its own mic and an input for two more. It connects to an app on your phone and can be used for high-quality single pass recording. It’s self-levelling, so you set up the threshold and literally use its sound check button. You can overdub on it too, so it’s really good for acoustic sketching and you can add input and bus effects. It’s like my remote recorder now. I’ve got a Tascam stereo field recorder, which is great for Foley sounds when I’m out and about, but if I want to record my Rhodes or try out some piano ideas, boom, I’ve got the Spire. I’ll literally open my phone, connect it via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, upload what I’ve recorded to the cloud and it’s in Dropbox.”
You’re quite tight with manufacturers. Do you make suggestions to them about products?
“I’ve been working with iZotope since they started. The first piece of software they made was a Vinyl Emulator, which is free now. About 10 years ago I was talking to one of their product managers and he asked me what I’d like to see them create. I asked if they could make something that enabled each channel within a workstation to communicate with the other channels to consciously gate the frequencies. There was nothing like that at the time; then a few years ago Neutron appeared which can do exactly that.”
What does Neutron do that you’d hoped for?
“You can nominate your priority sounds and get them to take dominance over each other in the mix without eradicating frequencies. Side chaining is very crude. If you can’ t hear your vocal, everyone says put all the musical elements into one bus, side chain them to your lead vocal and you’ll hear it better. Yes, but you’ll lose all sorts of frequencies you didn’t need to lose. Frequency conscious side chaining isn’t volume-dependent; it’s frequencydependent, and brilliant for clarifying a mix.”
Is there any other software that you find is great for making DnB tracks?
“You can make an amazing tune with the basic set of plugins that come with your workstation, because all compressors are basically the same. I really like Valhalla reverbs and Eventide are coming through with some brilliant plugins like Blackhole delay, which is outstanding. They’re also releasing their emulation of the Instant Phaser, originally used for
the drums on Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir. It was actually the first 19-inch rack effect unit ever made. I’m an absolute phaser freak, and ashamed to say that I might not buy them all but I test them all. I grew up with phaser pedals – they’re ingrained in my brain ever since I heard Zeppelin’s intro to Achilles Last Stand. The phasing on that is glorious.”
What other plugins do you find to be quite innovative right now?
“There’s a company called GEM who have released a plugin called Dopamine. It’s extraordinary on vocals – it really brings them to life and I’ve been using it on every track lately. I also love Noveltech Character. It’s a strange plugin that was initially only available on TC Electronic hardware. It’s an exciter, but it’s much better than the Aphex Aural Exciter emulation and by far my favourite way to bring out the high-end harmonics on instruments. For accentuating bottom end, there’s a tiny little plugin by Brainworx called bx_boom!. It looks like a bass drum and it’s great on kicks. Just put any kick through it, make sure you take off anything below 40Hz and it gives you a really nice warm punch.”
Any that are useful for processing breaks?
“My favourite plugin is the SPL DrumXchanger. If you get the balance right, you can create this massive sound from any great, but shitty-sounding drum break. For example, you can take an Amen break, chop it up, put all the kicks, snares and other stuff on separate tracks, then use the plugin to build in your own kicks and snares from your library by dialling in how much or little you want to mix them in with the original. If you have crowd noise in the background or some weird hi-hat, you can just compress them then side chain to the new kick and snare. The process may take a lot longer than using a break from a sample pack, but you can create something completely unique and yours.”
Making sounds your own seems to be a big part of your production ideology?
“My philosophy on everything is: be original, from your artist name and tracks, right through to how your bass and drum sounds are created. Throughout the history of music, the finest productions have been those that resonate with the listener’s emotions, not the technically perfect ones. One of the biggest tunes in DnB is Together by Logistics. It was phenomenal then and still is now, but it’s one of the worst mixdowns you’ve ever heard. It shouldn’t work but it does because of the sheer emotional intensity of the tune.”