For more than seven years, Jellyjam Studios in Runcorn, England—about 35 minutes’ drive from Manchester and 20 minutes from Liverpool—has recorded such artists as Echo and the Bunnymen, Ralph Santolla and Cryptic Vision. The studio’s philosophy—”Analog Sound, Digital Freedom”—is backed by an extensive list of gear, including four Eventide H8000 multi-effects processors.
“The studio has had two H8000s for just over a year now, and about six months ago, we added another two,” says Greg Burnell, who runs the studio. “Primarily, we use the processors for rock ‘n’ roll projects because the engineers we use are experts in that end of the market. In the current arrangement, we have them set up as stereo machines, so it’s like having eight stereo engines running at once. One unit is typically dedicated to reverb, and the rest of the units are then used, to varying degrees, for delays and pitch shifting.
“Our engineers find the plate reverbs to be superior, and we agree with that assessment,” Burnell continues. “One of our engineers, Pete Coleman, who has worked in the past with bands like AC/DC and Black Sabbath, among others, was able to create his own plate algorithm using the H8000. It was something he did when he couldn’t quite re-create a specific sound he wanted. He ended up using the EMT Plate reverb preset on a snare drum to re-create the plate sound of another hardware box that they have at the Great Linford Manor studio. He uses the H8000 pretty regularly now on snares, but he also uses it for some delays and for some bands we’ve had in, which like to use the reverse shifters for certain intros and solo breaks.
“We also used the Eventide H8000 on guitars in the mixing stage,” Burnell says. “We sent the track from the computer into the H8000, then through the studio wall and into a VHT power amplifier, miked up two Bogner 4×12 cabinets and rerecorded the sound. In another session, we used the H8000’s Guitar Rig preset a lot when we were recording and mixing a Boston tribute album for Escape Records. Some of the guitarists we were working with wanted that classic Vox AC30 overdriven sound, but we didn’t have any Vox amps. Using the Eventide, though, we were able to re-create that sound, and it was just mind-boggling to know that you could plug a DI guitar into a computer and then just have those sounds at your fingertips. In that case, we just used the Eventide as a preamp and fed our VHT on 10! You would have bet money that we had borrowed 25 AC30s from Brian May.”
For more information, visit www.eventide.com and http://jellyjam.co.uk.
