Producer Martin Terefe has just added a new mix room to his studio facilities, just off the north end of Portobello road in the heart of West London. Kensaltown Studios is an eight-room complex, with one main room, the new "API Suite" mix room and multiple smaller rooms. It's also a treasure trove of high-end audio equipment and vintage instruments, from the Hammond organ and a number of old synthesizers to Crane Song, Thermionic Culture, Empirical Labs, Universal Audio, Neve or API outboard, and two Trident, one API and one Neve consoles. There are top quality microphones everywhere, including even a Telefunken ELA M 251 lurking in one of the smaller rooms. Clearly, Kensaltown is a temple of sound. And clearly, Martin Terefe is a good listener, a man with golden ears who knows how to use them. However, for once, we got him to do the talking…
Newsflash: Only a couple of weeks after giving us this interview, Martin Terefe informed us that James Morrison's debut album, "Undiscovered", entirely recorded and produced by Martin on Soundscape, had entered the official UK album chart straight at number 1. Click here for details.
Martin, I understand that you started learning guitar in Venezuela. What kind of music was around then and what did you play?
Wow...that was a long time ago. I started when I was 6 years old with a guy that came by and taught me Spanish and South-American folk songs. It was the 70s so the radio was playing things like Elvis, Marvin Gaye and… Julio Iglesias. But mostly around that time I remember sneaking into my parents bedroom and watching Starsky & Hutch on the only TV in the house. So I'm naturally good at car-chase music!
After you returned to Sweden, you toured with a 12-piece soul band. Is this the music you love to play when you "do your own thing"?
 Well it definitely was at the time. I've listened to and played a lot of different music but I really learnt a lot about playing with good musicians and arranging music with many people playing during those years. I was young... a few years before that I had a heavy metal band and a few years later I tried to learn to play jazz. I was better at rock though...
How did you go from being a musician to being a producer, and how does your competence in music help you as a producer?
I always wrote songs. I got my first publishing deal when I was 15 and they bought me a small home studio with an 8 track, a Tascam mixer, a Juno 106 and an Atari computer with Creator (remember?) on it. In 1993 I was recording songwriting demos for a girl that was signed to MCA and that turned into me producing my first major label album in the UK.
What is, or what are, the most important element(s) to a successful session when you work with other people?
Listening. To the music and to the sound. But most of all to what the artist is saying, sometimes without having the experience to express themselves properly in a studio environment, or without knowing exactly what they want. In situations like that I've learnt the hard way the importance of keeping the focus on the artist and not on your own ambitions and ideas. No artist is like the other. You've got to keep listening.
 What was your first experience of Soundscape?
I bought unit number 33 in 1994. It had 4 tracks (!) and I remember paying 15000 Swedish Crowns (around 1200 GBP) for a 1 GB hard-drive. I recorded analogue back then and used the Soundscape to run along the tape-machine to be able to edit things. I've used it ever since through all its development phases.
What is your current Soundscape setup (or setups)?
We have four systems. Three older R.Eds and a Soundscape 32, all with Mixpander cards. I've got a couple of the new iBox 48-TA boxes and a bunch of older converters. I still love the sound of the old 810-1 (think that's what it's called, the big 8 channel XLR box)*. Although it's 16 bit, it sounds open and ballsy and just sounds great…
* The SS8IO-1
Knowing that you also use other DAW systems, what are, according to you, the main advantages of Soundscape?
The sound. As simple as that! There are other digital systems (Radar for example) that also sound great, but I do think that Soundscape is the best sounding DAW ever made. I've recorded analogue most of my career and still do whenever possible. Soundscape keeps the openness and punch that I get when being on analogue. It's also easy to use and very reliable. The downside is that for better or worse, Pro Tools has been adopted as standard in the recording industry. When I take a project out of the studio to work in the States or even another UK studio I always have to make sure I have it as a Pro Tools project on a Mac formatted FireWire drive, ready to be opened anywhere. We have two Pro Tools 192 HD3 systems in the studio and they work great. They don't sound even close to Soundscape though.
I much prefer the much user friendlier Macs to PCs and I wish you could run Soundscape on OSX. Also, backing up and transferring projects to other platforms must be improved. To have to back up different drives separately is really a nightmare when you have 2-3 projects going at once in different studios around the world. I hope this is a development priority for Sydec.
You have acquired a Trident console for your studio. So how much do you mix on the console and "in the box"?
I don't mix "in the box". We have two Trident B-range consoles from the early 70s, one Neve 5106 "Baby V" and most recently I've purchased a vintage API 3216 that in the 70s used to be at Disney Studios in California. It's been totally refurbished this year in Nashville and we are currently installing it in our new mix room. On top of that I do more than half my mixes with mixers like Michael Brauer, Tony Maserati or Flood. All of them work differently and with different setups and mixing boards.
Mixing in the box on Soundscape does work though and I've had many rough mixes that are simple (track out on A1-2 and vocals out on A3) "in the box" mixes that have made it on to big albums and sound great. Again, compared to other DAWs the sound of Soundscape's internal summing is superior.
Please tell us about your facility. What were the main design priorities?
Apart from some pretty amazing gear, the place has 8 studios of which 4 are smaller "one room" programming rooms. The main Studio A, is a big "open plan" design with high ceilings and a Trident console in the middle. Kind of a living room feel. There's light everywhere and we have a balcony off the control room. It's just a lovely space to make music.
 And what about the artists? For instance, A-Ha hail from Norway. Was there some kind of "Nordic connection" or did you meet in London?
No, no Nordic connection. We met through Michael Brauer in New York. Artists often approach me because they've heard something else I've done that they like. Sometimes I hear an artist I really like and tell my manager Mike Dixon about it. Sometimes that leads to him approaching the label or artist about a collaboration.
You seem to be "eclectic" in your work, with regards to musical styles. What's important to you when you decide to work with an artist? Are there particular qualities you look for, or just a vibe?
I look for music that excites me. I've worked in many different styles and what gets me varies so much. A unique voice and great songs seems to be a returning theme though....
 You have a team working with you? Who are they?
Andreas Olsson, who has been programming, playing and co-producing on records I've done since 1999. George Tandero who is a great young engineer I met when working on the A-Ha album. He both records and mixes for me now. Iain Hill and Nici Reade who run the studio.
But records always involve a big team of musicians, engineers, mixers, mastering houses and I've been privileged to work with the best of them. Two people that aren't "in house" but that have been working very close with me are Claes Bjorklund, an amazing musician and producer from Sweden and also Michael Brauer in New York who's mixed many great records for me.
What are your main projects at the moment?
James Morrison, KT Tunstall, Dawn Kinnard and recently a lot of songwriting...
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