May 21st 2024: These industry luminaries will impart advice and words of wisdom to those attending this exciting educational event, held at the world famous Rockfield Studios in Wales.
Producer and engineer Joshua Blair and mastering engineer Nick Watson will be sharing their music industry knowledge and expertise at Prism Sound’s 8 Hours At Rockfield, which takes place on July 16th 2024.
This exciting educational event gives attendees the opportunity to learn about all aspects of the recording process and music production while soaking up the atmosphere of the legendary Rockfield Studios in Wales, which has played host to some of the greatest artists in the world including Coldplay, Oasis, Queen, Iggy Pop. George Michael.
Joshua Blair and Nick Watson’s seminars will run throughout the day, alongside presentations from top manufacturers including Prism Sound, Solid State Logic, PMC Speakers and GIK Acoustics who will highlight their latest products and technologies.
Based in the UK but with a career that spans the globe, Grammy Award-winning Joshua Blair has worked with many household name artists including Duran Duran, Black Sabbath, Mark Ronson, Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga and Adele. Among his most recent projects is pre-mixing and editing the Oscar performance of I’m Just Ken from the Barbie movie soundtrack.
Nick Watson, who co-owns Fluid Mastering with Tim Debney and works from a state-of-the-art mastering room in Bristol, also has a string of high profile credits to his name. Projects include the latest albums by The Feeling, Jethro Tull, Hawkwind, Embrace, Black Grape, Cast, and The Zutons (whose new album was produced at Abbey Road by Nile Rodgers). In addition, he has recently mastered jazz albums by artists such as Henry Spencer, Ian Shaw, Judi Jackson, and remastered material for artists such as Chris Rea, Howard Jones and Toyah.
To give a flavour of what attendees might expect from these industry luminaries, Prism Sound asked them both what advice would they give to someone just starting out in the music recording industry?
“There are so many educators now, both online and off, telling people how to engineer and giving them tips, techniques and hacks to improve your mixes and so on,” Nick Watson says. “My advice is take it all with a pinch of salt. What’s often missing is context – i.e. something that works 100% of the time for someone else might not work at all for you. If an idea has merit, it’s important to understand why so you can decide whether or how to implement it in your own situation. The old adage still applies: If it sounds good, it is good (as long as it also sounds good in mono!).”
Joshua Blair adds: “Do every project you can, help every person you can along your journey and always keep a positive “can do” attitude. You never know where it might lead and what connections you can make. I got my break in the industry because I always said to yes to every project I was asked to do as an assistant in the studio I worked at, and that let to me working with more high profile clients.”
Both agree that the best thing anyone can do in the current economic landscape is to pressure Government to support the music industry so that it can continue to thrive.
“We need better provisions for music in schools and better support for small to mid-sized venues, and so much more,” Watson says.
Prism Sound’s 8 Hours At Rockfield is held in association with Project7, the collaborative songwriting experience, which is holding residential songwriting sessions at Rockfield immediately after the event.
Pro7ect events start on July 16th and culminates on July 20th with a one-day song writing Masterclass, hosted by producer Julian Victor Hinton (Stormzy, Seal, Rod Stewart, Robbie Williams, Trevor Horn). Other producers involved in the retreat include Sophie Ackroyd (Kings Elliot, lleo, RØRY, Kate Wild, Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Nina Nesbitt), Gethin Pearson (Badly Drawn Boy, Charlie XCX), Stew Jackson (Massive Attack & Phantom Limb), Jon Fletcher (The PFQ, Magpie Lane) and Pro7ect founder Lisa Fitzgibbon (The PFQ, The Standing, Moonshee).
