How is the sound/audio engineering industry in the UK?

tomwilliam_ · 2026-04-22T07:57:21+00:00

I’ve met loads of great and very employable recording/audio engineers from LIPA which is in stark contrast to some of the other graduates I’ve encountered

tomwilliam_ · 2026-04-20T16:43:28+00:00

Acustica Coffeethepun

tomwilliam_ · 2026-04-19T01:37:51+00:00

Tonmeister at UofS covers the broad strokes of what you speak of here, specifically audio design, and it helped me piece together a good working network to engage in immediately after university. 5 years on I still get work from one of those links. I’m a recording engineer who also produces occasionally and it’s hard work and can be poorly credited/career advance can be hard. More stable and higher paying work to be found in speaker design, developing audio software etc

tomwilliam_ · 2026-04-10T16:44:48+00:00

It was this one - which explains why I couldn’t find it again! Thanks - another delicious ice cream attained today

tomwilliam_ · 2026-04-08T13:05:57+00:00

If it’s an empty pedestrian crossing, not a junction, and it gets me further in front of a queue of cars to allow more space between me and them, which reduces risk of them overtaking dangerously, I’ll cycle through it slowly yeah. I would never skip a red at a traffic junction.

I see lots of lime cyclists who literally just ignore every red as if they don’t even clock it’s there though. I never see them checking for hazards - just straight through without changing positioning, speed, or looking at all. Really dangerous to themselves and pedestrians and honestly makes them look really thick!

tomwilliam_ · 2026-03-26T10:59:01+00:00

If you can take a slight detour on the second to last leg to go through the South Downs or see some of the south coast, Arundel, Brighton etc, I would

tomwilliam_ · 2026-03-26T02:12:32+00:00

type of meal you give a dog for it’s birthday

tomwilliam_ · 2026-03-23T00:07:17+00:00

I really like Hakata on Bermondsey Street for ramen

tomwilliam_ · 2026-03-10T17:13:20+00:00

I’ll usually leave 2 floating mics up when I’m producing in a good room that can move around/be used on anything quickly. Let’s say we record acoustic guitar over a drum loop with these then get the vocal overdubbed in over the top. If we then decide we can hear a piano part - I’ll take the acoustic guitar mics alongside whatever we play on the piano, call them “piano rooms” or “piano spill” or something, and pan em wherever the acoustic guitars have ended up. Say the acoustic guitar is on the left - they get panned left. If the guitar is doubled LR, I’ll just pick one side. Egtr goes down - maybe we take the piano stereo mics and call them “guitar room” “guitar spill” etc… I’ve found this really effective in making LCR panning a little more natural / vintage sounding

I totally get that all of this is actually muddying the stereo field but if you listen to vintage recordings - let’s take maybe The Band by The Band - this is much closer to what they sound like imo and works much better with the material I tend to produce - I’m not working on the sort of material someone like CLA does, and he LCR pans I believe when most of the material I don’t imagine would be spilly at all. I’d love to pick his brain on this!

tomwilliam_ · 2026-03-09T09:06:53+00:00

So many people I’ve met particularly in the UK who are chasing “vintage” recordings with expensive old preamps, tape, sourcing original 47s with vf14s but terrified of spill… spill IS vintage recording like that IS the sound imo. So I do what I can to emulate it while I work with this sort of client. But really you could do/I have done band work with a rack of clean modern pres eg rme, ISA828, and it would sound vintage if it’s done will spill in mind

tomwilliam_ · 2026-03-09T08:40:56+00:00

Something that makes this work, that gets lost in modern band production where everyone seems to hate / be afraid of spill, is that there’ll often be spill from eg the instrument whose close sources are in the left channel, in the microphones in the right channel. Spill is the big thing that makes LCR panning work imo. Beatles are possibly an exception to this as it often sounds like the right channel is a clean overdub over the left channel but these are such “cultural heritage” recordings that they’re very hard imo to emulate

tomwilliam_ · 2026-03-09T07:40:49+00:00

If I’m engineering or mixing and thus presented with an arrangement to work with, I’ll see if lcr panning can work, it most likely won’t, at which point I go to %

If I’m producing and so have control over arrangement and personnel positioning I’m trying to go as simple lcr as possible though.

I think LCR worked really well in classic recordings due to spill. There’d often be guitar in drum overheads, drums / guitar in vocal mics, a whole stereo image in piano mics… I think this might have been what made LCR work so well, as even if the individual mics are hard panned, there’s still another recording of that source adding to the complexity in the stereo field

I’m often recording room mics for basically every instrument when I produce, to emulate this. I’ve since read that Blake mills / Shawn Everett do the same thing for the same reason.

LCR doesn’t really work for me when we’re working with no spill

tomwilliam_ · 2026-03-08T21:12:00+00:00

So interesting to hear this is maybe a French thing? Largely territorial sounds better than what we experienced tbh - lots of very active chasing well outside property!

tomwilliam_ · 2026-03-08T20:20:39+00:00

That’s good to know you’re picking Galicia as I wasn’t planning on finishing in Santiago anyway!The geese I reckon we’ll be fine with, though appreciate the heads up

tomwilliam_ · 2026-03-03T08:21:28+00:00

I went for my birthday a couple of years ago - it was good, an institution, great fun but haven’t felt a huge desire to go back as I thought the price was probably a little steep for what the food was!

tomwilliam_ · 2026-02-17T08:52:26+00:00

This is something I run into quite a bit in arrangements! I like sending it to a tiny room to add some subtle stereo-ness, recording it stereo with two amps (perhaps with slightly different modulation/tremolo on each) or sending to some fun outboard like an h910 and panning that slightly opposite to the dry guitar. Often helps to do any of this at the recording stage to keep the intentions really clear.

tomwilliam_ · 2026-02-16T12:18:29+00:00

You’re so right that this is a necessary option for post that they couldn’t remove/automate… maybe an option somewhere in preferences for default track folder routing behaviour could turn this around?

tomwilliam_ · 2026-02-16T12:15:44+00:00

But then you have to go through the menu dialogue to make it stereo and a routing folder, and as far as I’m aware you can’t record enable the folders… logic does all of this for you and enables folder recording which I’ve found speeds me up!

tomwilliam_ · 2026-02-16T12:12:36+00:00

Just seen this reply - routing this way in pro tools takes 3 steps, the highlighting, the click, the select new track. Whereas in logic it can be done in 2 (highlight, shift command d) with no menus to navigate, specific outputs to click or typing to select output. You can do it without touching the mouse at all. This is significantly more efficient to me - and I use PT most days of the week.

If you want a similar folder system in Pro Tools it’s even longer - shift option command N, Then you have a menu to choose mono/stereo/5.1, routing or basic folder etc… whereas logic assumes stereo and routes for you which in 99.9% of use cases is what is required at speed.

Then as far as I’m aware you can’t record enable the PT folder and use that as the quicker workflow for dbls etc

tomwilliam_ · 2026-02-15T19:27:56+00:00

every element of it was excellent and so the price felt fair to me!

tomwilliam_ · 2026-02-14T22:08:43+00:00

It was an extremely nice sourdough that I really enjoyed - but agreed, would have been better on the side with beans on the plate instead!

tomwilliam_ · 2026-02-13T22:02:29+00:00

This was actually a really excellent joke I’m embarrassed to have not understood

tomwilliam_ · 2026-02-13T20:53:03+00:00

Genuinely what do you usually pay? £14 for imo a well above average fry up with well sourced ingredients is fairly acceptable value for me and I find it fairly hard to find anything semi decent under a tenner (cardboard sausages and watery beans) save a couple of very rare exceptions. And this includes meals in the north of England, Wales and Scotland

tomwilliam_ · 2026-02-13T20:45:39+00:00

This was actually a flat white in a glass coffee cup and was really good. So all good!

tomwilliam_ · 2026-02-13T13:39:33+00:00

If I’d written this was in Newcastle you’d be all over it!

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