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Whether you want to record a single, EP or an album, Sailing Sound can help you to explore your abilities, get creative and achieve your best work.
Urging artists to have fun when making music, Sailing Sound attaches a great importance to the idea of unrestricted creativity in the production of music and aims to provide a relaxed yet highly professional environment in which this can take place.
Sailing Sound producer and musician Andrew Neelands has a lot of experience both in the recording booth and behind the mixing desk, producing a diversity of projects as well as laying down his own work with a number of previous bands, most notably Redeye. Be sure to check out the Music section to find out more about these artists and listen to their work. Sailing Sound aims to promote not only itself but the talented artists it works with, so follow the links for more information and to be redirected to a band’s Myspace address.
Brought up in a musical family and fed on a varied musical diet, Andrew admits that despite often being dragged to Saturday morning concerts at ‘The Royal Festival Hall’ in London with his father, that ‘Only later in life did I see the importance to being exposed to a variety of music.’ This
diversity of influences is something that both Andrew and Sailing Sound aim to direct at the music they produce.
Picking up a bass guitar at the age of seventeen, (‘a key turning point in my musicianship’), it was with the band Redeye that Andrew was really able to develop his abilities, working with great musicians unafraid to try out new ideas and consequently producing some of his best bass-lines to date. Redeye was fortunate enough to be given the chance to work with producer Gareth Young, who has since worked with artists like Danni Minogue, the Sugababes and All Saints.
After Redeye split in November 1999, Andrew decided to purchase a home studio, using the Logic Pro production programme, a versatile system recording at industry standards. In order to further understand the technical ins and outs of sound engineering, Andrew took a Diploma in Music Production at Liberty Hall Studios in North London, gaining an impressive 89% merit. Following this he worked as a trainee at Bonafide Studios in London, meeting a band called The Fluids (see Music), and co-producing two of their songs.
Looking for ‘great bands, great sounds and great songs’, Andrew has spent the past year regularly attending gigs and open mike nights throughout the capital every week in search of something unique: ‘Believe me there is a lot of talented artists out there.’
In this interview with Simon Lofting, Andrew Neelands explains further his and Sailing Sound’s ethos and approach to music.
Providing reasonable rates for studio-time, Sailing Sound aims to get the best out of talented musicians by above all identifying their abilities and strengths and letting their efforts produce innovative results. Placing a particular emphasis on the importance of pre-production means that time can be managed and used more effectively. Whilst any unwanted mistakes can be fixed in the mixing process, it’s always a smoother and more successful day’s work in the studio when instruments are tuned and voices are ready to go. However, it’s always difficult to try and put a time-frame on musical invention and producer Andrew Neelands also recognises the spontaneity of truly original imagination, stating,
“Creativity can strike at any moment, even when the pre-production is over …sometimes the magic just happens when we least expect it.”
Andrew’s insistence that “It's always important to keep a positive attitude in the studio when working on projects” is the perfect encapsulation of Sailing Sound’s approach to music, a confident and assured understanding of the critical significance of the right dynamics to make the song work, and above all things, breathe.
“I can't stress enough the key role dynamics play in a great song. I've seen so many bands that just don't let the song breathe. I believe, that if you let the song breathe, you allow the audience into the song.”-Andrew Neelands
Recent testimonials (see Testimonials section at bottom of page) made by Sailing Sound’s clients highlight the efficiency of Andrew’s relaxed attitude in the studio, testament to his willingness to produce work that’s as good as it can possibly be.
So it is with this interaction between all-important pre-production and a keen willingness to let things unravel naturally in the studio that Sailing Sound builds its ethos and approach to music production.
The Sailing Sound ethos:
Our approach to music production can be exemplified by these five elements:
-The importance of preparation and pre-production before recording.
-Encouraging unrestrained creativity and the freedom to achieve unique results in order to capture and showcase the artist’s true potential.
-A sense of humour and a positive attitude in the studio: “We all know that hard work gets results, but to achieve a great performance, the musician needs to be relaxed and I strongly believe that humour in the studio is the way forward.”-Andrew Neelands.
-A high degree of professionalism based on experience and a pure passion for music.
-Above all things, assisting the artist’s personal development by letting them have fun with the songs and helping them to explore new, unforeseen avenues of thought.
There is so much musical talent out there that simply needs a platform and a guiding eye (and ear) to help it progress. Sailing Sound is an ideal production company for any solo artist or band aspiring to create a piece of work that showcases them at their best. Furthermore, Sailing Sound also offers the same high-quality recording facilities for those interested in recording spoken word and poetry.
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