Ben Jackson on Kele – Trick

Partly engineered by Ben Jackson, Kele’s new album Trick is out now. Kele mostly went into The Bridge to record the album. Read a background interview with Jackson here.

Where did you start working on Trick?
I’ve worked with Kele for quite a while now. Kele always comes into the sessions with ideas, so the first thing I will always do is programme a beat and play in a chord sequence for him to vibe to based on what he describes. So technically Kele started work pre sessions, then we got into The Bridge and started making his ideas tangible.

What were some of the technical considerations when recording the album?
I wanted to make sure Kele’s vocal was clear and full. Recording the vocals and dynamic range is key to making an artist feel comfortable and creative during the session. I used compression on the way in and got the compressor to only react and kick in when Kele hit the loud notes so as not to distort to tape. Using a fast release setting it made the compression much more transparent and levelled the signal without overly colouring the sound, essentially limiting. Recording guitars was important to achieve a full body guitar sound and give the guys plenty to work with in the mix. Synth/bass/drum programming was done within Logic, each sound carefully chosen to keep in line with the overall sound of the record and Kele’s vibe. Most of the recording was done to give Kele, Alex [Epton, producer and engineer] and Tom [Belton, producer] as much to work with as possible in the production/mix stage.

What was the vocal chain setup?
For Kele I found a Neumann U47 into an API 7600 channel strip worked very well. The 47 matched Kele’s voice perfectly. For one session we couldn’t get the 47 so we used a CMV 563. It wasn’t the same vibe, but I have to say I was suitably impressed. The API channel strip is very versatile with buttons to change the configuration easily. The preamp sounds great and the compressor is extremely responsive which helped when limiting and taming the vocal to tape. Plus personally I’m a huge fan of switchable EQ to dial in the same settings each time.

Were there any challenges or special technical skills you had to rely on during the sessions?
Kele likes to work very fast. Sometimes we would work on up to eight songs a day using Logic Pro and Pro Tools. We would also have a vocal chain, guitar chain, bass chain, MIDI keyboard, and piano setup in the room and would bounce between each setup. It was quite challenging to stay on top of everything!

What was the atmosphere like during the sessions?
Fantastic. I always enjoy working on music that I would listen to at home.
Kele is a very inspirational person with an incredibly strong work ethic. The setup in The Bridge made us both feel very comfortable when working and I feel that always makes for the best product. This also helped when doing long days (up to 14 hours!). One major reason I personally wanted to continue using The Bridge is the monitoring. When working on the tracks I had full faith that what I was listening was true and would translate when I left the room, making creative, engineering, and mix decisions easy to make. I’m a big fan of committing early on to decisions in terms of sound and mix, it helps to capture and keep the original vibe being created.