By Barrie Bardoe
Melbourne’s Incubator Studio has been operating since the late 90s and it would be fair to say it has played a significant part in Australia’s music scene. The studio has been used by many iconic artists and generated thousands of recordings, many of which have proven popular and influential. It seemed like a good time to catch up with owner and in-house engineer Adrian Akkerman and get his views on what makes for recording magic.
I started by asking Adrian what prompted him to start a recording studio. “I ventured into sound recording in 1997,” he said. “I have a passion for music and have had from very early age. As a result I began performing in bands as a bass player and manager. My youthful mind thought “Why spend our hard earned band money on recording studios, when we can buy our own equipment and do it ourselves”! Well life can be viewed so simply however the learning curve that’s required to get good repeatable results and the amount of money invested in equipment in 1997 was quite different than today. There are many more manufacturers delivering recording equipment very cheap – some sound decent others not. And it is anything but simple.”
“ ‘Professional quality’ recording equipment has never been inexpensive. Good is not cheap and cheap is never any good. This attitude is not unique to myself, and I bet there is an aspiring musician – sound engineer right now treading the same thought process I did. An incredibly tough industry to get support from financial or communal. So why do it? When microphones, pre-amps, compressors, microphone placement, atmosphere, cosmic astrological alignments, well rehearsed musicians and the song is good – absolute magic!!!! That is the pursuit.”
Many notable artists have chosen to record at Incubator. “Some artists I have worked with include The Fauves, Mick Harvey, The Fireballs, The Manic Pistoleros, Mike Peters of The Alarm, Hugo Race and True Spirit, Kim Salmon, Spencer P. Jones, Brian Henry Hooper, voice over by Cathy Freeman, plus about 2500 other recording sessions over the years,” said Adrian. It is a formidable resume and demonstrates the extent to which Incubator has impacted the national music scene.
One lesson Adrian has learned is to “always be recording, especially more seasoned artists who in most cases will only like to do a few takes so your skills need to be tip top ready to rock. Recording can sometimes produce happy accidents. Once a second not main microphone drooped off position and was touching the floor, as a result the sound was very unique and not as I would have expected but did add a texture that was welcomed – a happy accident.”
“Spencer P Jones was quite interesting to record; his guitar parts on one particular song seemed to not really be doing what I was expecting, after laying down two parts to not much excitement in my ears. It was when the third part was recorded it “glued” the first two parts together for quite a spectacular wall of sound. It helps to have a “sixth sense” which I feel that I have tuned into over the years to be aware of such situations because you need to keep the creative flow moving to encourage sudden inspiration.”
Finally I asked Adrian to provide an overview of his studio gear. “The studio is very well equipped. I use two Universal Audio 8P interfaces with the OCTA UA-2 for extra processing DSP. The UA 8P is an amazing converter and audio system. It’s like after 25-30 years of amazing audio promises I believe it was UA who actually delivered much later. The studio has a very good pre amp selection – API 512C, RME and Sebatron valve pre amps. I have Neumann, Sennheiser, Shure as main selection microphones, and others for extra character. The studio is a three room set up – a large live room and control room and a separate isolation room. It is in a super central location in Thornbury Victoria. Incubator is well serviced by music and food shops.”
“Come visit the studio and have a chat about your project.”
https://incubatorstudio.com.au/