Bank cottage has installed an Audient Zen which was used for tracking and mixing Fear Switch recently. Sounds great!

Currently here on review is the X-Desk which is looking and sounding very nice!

A whole new album of photos from yesterday's session with Chloe is uploaded. She sang some beautiful vocals, while drums were impressively played by Matty Sellars (I talked Matty into using the Black Beauty of course...!) while Chris Gumbley played the piano masterfully. Chris overdubbed bass and Mellotron M4000 parts (dialled up by top Mellotron expert and M4000 designer Martin Smith and recorded through a Gyraf GII) before tackling Clarinet, Alto and Baritone Sax parts. A great day!

My Ludwig Black Beauty is here, the Rolls Royce of snare drums!
It's like this one...

I've just ordered a Ludwig Black Beauty snare drum for the studio, so visiting drummers will have that available as an option. These are reliably one of the best snare drums, and always sound great in my experience!

Another recent acquisition was a comprehensive set of reverb impulse responses by Acousticas, with loads of settings for EMT 245, Lexicon 224X and Lexicon 300 reverbs - they sound incredibly smooth and rich!

Also new in the mic cupboard is a vintage Grampian mic, a great characterful mic for drum recording.

Currently mixing tracks for Lazare and Saibu, two unique and superb French artists. On review - my new API 3124MB+ and McDSP Retro plugins.

And in riveting news, I have purchased six Monster Cable ProLink guitar cables, one of which I have run under the floor between control room and studio. I thought my old cables were pretty good, but there is a noticeable and audible improvement with these, especially using the Telecaster in the control room plugged straight in. So when you book in, leave the guitar leads at home...!

Other recent acquisitions are the latest UAD plugins - the excellent SSL 4K emulations and the quirky Cooper Time Cube.

Bank Cottage has proudly acquired a lovely brand new API 3124MB+ which is four top-notch API mic preamps with a routing buss for mixing mics down to mono or stereo. Sounds fab!

Also, new to the mic cupboard is a terrific rare vintage Lustraphone ribbon mic.

Thursday night was a great night for Record Producers - the MPG Awards in London was a fantastic event, and my old mate Bernard Butler collected Best Producer and also the BRIT Awards for Best Producer, which Duffy turned up to present. Also James Towler who worked with me on Steve Winwood's About Time picked up Best Engineer and Steve Winwood turned up too.

I'm currently recording demos with Simon Fowler and Steve Cradock, and even sneaking in a bit of cello playing!

I was recently invited to join the voting panel for the first annual Music Producers Guild Awards. The ceremony is on 12th February, and the Producer award also counts as a BRIT Award. Mum's the word for now!

Meanwhile here at Bank Cottage the Mac is installed, Pro Tools 8 is running, and coming next is a new Universal Audio UAD-2 card to boost the power further, enabling more of the superb UAD plugins such as the Fairchild Limiter, Neve Channels, Moog Filter, SPL Transient Designer, Helios and Harrison channels. And I love the Plate 140 reverb!