The response from the winners of our inaugural Industry Excellence awards has, across the board, been a humbling one, but a handful of winners spring to mind for the sincerity of their reactions. One of these is producer, engineer and label owner Haydn Bendall, who took the gong for Best Studio Engineer. Bendall was truly appreciative of the award and noted what an honour it was to be nominated and voted for by his peers.

It was only in February this year that Bendall narrowly missed out to James Towler at the MPG Awards where he was nominated by the industry for Recording Engineer of the Year. With this in mind, when I went over to Strongroom in East London last month to get Bendall’s post-award thoughts over a cup of coffee, the first thing that I was keen to put forward was that being recognised by his fellow professionals for the second time in a year speaks volumes about the quality of his work and the respect he has earned during his career.

Bendall was somewhat philosophical in his response and immediately sought to divert some of the attention from his work and onto to that that of the artists whose records he had helped create. He was keen to put the relative contribution of each into perspective and seemed uncomfortable with the idea that engineers should take a lot of the credit for successful recordings.

“I’ve made some great records,” he comments, “but I’ve also made some really bad records. In each case, the engineer, myself, was the same. I used the same eqs and the same compressors, etc. The only thing that changed each time was the artist. I should imagine that if you’ve heard any of my stuff it’s only been the stuff that has been popular. Everybody’s made stuff that’s been really unpopular, but you don’t tend to hear about it.

“The artist is the most important person in a studio, without any doubt. Obviously I do think production and engineering are important and I care a lot about them, but it’s nothing compared to the importance of the artist and I think, quite often, we as an industry, not necessarily the music industry, but we as a group of engineers and producers are in danger of looking upon engineering and production as being more important than they actually are. They are undoubted skills, and experience, talent and creativity are a huge part of getting them right, but they just need to be kept in perspective.

“It’s quite difficult to express exactly what I feel because I do see the importance of my job. For example, there are certain microphones that I really do love and some people would think that that’s a bit fussy, but when I’m recording an orchestra, there are certain microphones that I really do love using at Abbey Road or at Air. I’m very relaxed in sessions, but I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere, looking at the positions of microphones to ensure they are where I think they will capture the performance as well as possible. If somebody says: ‘the strings are a bit harsh’, I know that it’s not the microphones and I know it’s not the room, so I’ll speak to the orchestra and maybe suggest that they don’t dig in quite so much, for instance. So anything that I’ve recorded that does sound really good is due to that interplay with the musician.

“I care passionately about my work and I put in a great deal of effort to do it as well as I can. I care about the microphones I use, I care about the acoustic environment I record in and I care about the equipment I use. All of that is essential and I think it’s essential for me to do my job properly. I’m a fairly old-fashioned engineer, I suppose, and I like working in big studios with big desks. Likewise, when producing, I take that very seriously; the arrangement of the track, vocal, the key of the song, the tempo are all vital. But sometimes we get it slightly wrong in lauding various engineers and producers.

“I don’t want this to sound as though I don’t care about this award, because it’s an honour to know that one is respected by one’s peers and I am very grateful for it. I’m not being churlish, but I’m nervous about the self-promotion thing.

“If you think about what our job is, it is to co-ordinate and record a record and you’ve got enough egos to contend with. Quite often, with the artist, managers, A&R people, lawyers, accountants, everybody wants to have a say in the record. So in a way, our personality is one of understanding, compliance, decision and flexibility. That doesn’t sit easily with trying to sell yourself, really. It should be part of your character. One of the prerequisites of being in a studio is basic awareness, good manners and an understanding of what’s going on. Hopefully, if you understand other people, then you also understand yourself and vice versa.
“I’m quite happy to admit that if somebody says: ‘I really like what you’re doing’, it gives me pleasure. Everybody likes getting a pat on the back. Only this morning I came in and one of the guys said: ‘I heard what you were doing at Air the other morning; it sounded fantastic’. Those sort of quiet compliments, I like. It’s just the accolades that are linked to a successful record that I’m not fond of, because they don’t demonstrate anything except that, maybe, the producer helped get a certain great performance out of the artist.

“For example, do you know who produced the last Elton John record? Does it matter? Who engineered it? Does that matter? There are certain producers who consistently give something innovative and creative-Trevor Horn, for example,  but I think there are only a handful of those producers in the world who have that creativity. And you can quite often recognise a Trevor Horn production. He occupies a special place. People like Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois I’ve got a lot of respect for, because they are always trying to push boundaries and a lot of their stuff is very commercially successful, but really, it’s the song and the artist that people respond to.

“If you look at The X Factor stuff, you assume that it’s all being produced and put together by the same team because it all sounds the same and if anyone is remarkable on that, it isn’t because of any production, it’s down to the artist.
“We’ve got a very powerful Pro Tools HD3 system here with Prism converters and loads of wonderful plug-ins and it’s fantastic. I’ve spent quite a lot of cash getting it together, but even with all that stuff, you can never make a bad singer sound good. You might be able to make a bad singer sound in tune and in time, but they’re never going to be good - you’ll just be listening to a bad singer in tune and in time. Music that communicates emotion and passion is something wonderful that only a talented musician can create and you’re never going to get a great recording of a terrible artist. Likewise, you’ve got to work really, really hard, if you’ve got a great artist, to record them badly.

“A good friend of mine, the drummer Ralph Salmins, as soon as he starts playing you’re transfixed because his groove is fantastic and his sound is amazing. And people say: ‘Wow, what a great drum sound’, but I haven’t done anything really. I’ve chosen the mics, which are the mics that I’ve chosen for the last 25 years generally, I’ve put them in the positions that I think sound nice, where I know they will work with Ralph’s kit, but that’s all.

“And it’s the same with orchestras and the same with vocals. I did a tremendous amount of work with Kate Bush and people said: ‘how did you get that vocal sound?’ Well it’s how she sings; it’s her. I’ve got friends who have worked with Michael Jackson and they say the same thing. There’s nothing to replace talent and it’s very difficult to obscure it. Real talent is the thing that makes music so wonderful.

“But we musn’t become too polarised with these views, because the fact is that we do help and quite often we’re a catalyst, that’s for sure. It’s just that, if you’re going to claim ownership of some of the recordings you’ve done, you’ve also got to claim ownership of the bad ones. And I’m quite happy to do that, I don’t want to forget the bad ones.”
www.myspace.com/haydnbendall