Location, location, location.

While I have spent a lot of my career recording in studios, I do have to record on location as well. There are advantages to both, as well as disadvantages.

The advantage of recording in a studio environment is that we have complete control of the space. We control the light, the backdrop, and the sound. For the right type of work, this is always my preferred option. The disadvantage is that it is very obviously a studio. It is very sterile for want of a better word.

While recording on location brings a whole host of potential problems with it, it also opens an entire world of visual possibilities. We could be recording surrounded by stunning scenery, or we could be in an old historic building. Or we could be in a state-of-the-art facility that only exists in one place, or we are interviewing people with incredible stories to tell, who are unable to travel to the studio.

While this is all great from the visual point of view for the camera, it can come with other problems. People will often interrupt the recording, noise will happen that requires us to stop recording. Sometimes we get lucky with noise, but on several occasions, it felt like the world was conspiring to prevent us from recording anything. On one such occasion we had interviewed 2 people, with one more to go, when Belsonic music festival began their sound check in the park beside us.

On another occasion we were interviewing in a room like any other we had recorded in many times. However, we had people visiting the space on the floor below us, we had dogs barking, we had trucks reversing and we even had builders working a few doors away. Then the cherry on the cake. We had an emergency vehicle go past with the siren going, which lasted for ages.

However, we do get to go to some unexpected places. I have recorded from helicopters, from the drivers cab of a train, I have even been on the bridge of a ferry as it berthed.

Over the years I have been to locations 100 meters from my house to locations as far East as Newcastle upon Tyne, as far South as Waterford, Ireland, or West as Donegal. I have even been to record at the Goodwood Revival, which was a fantastic experience, while also exhausting.

I have been to a location to record for around 6 minutes, while on another occasion I recorded for around 21 hours straight.

This work is as varied as it can get.