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John Cornfield - Sawmills Recording Studio
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From Muse to Supergrass, Catatonia to Robert Plant, Terrorvision to Oasis, as an engineer, mixer or producer, John Cornfield's credit list reads like a who's who of British rock music. John operates largely from the Sawmills Recording Studio. Located in the heart of picturesque Cornwall, accessible only by boat at high tide, Sawmills is one of the most intriguing residential studios in the UK. It's also full of highly desirable recording gear. And when it comes to recording systems, John only trusts one name: Soundscape. He tells us why in this interview.
John, your name is associated with the Sawmills recording studio. Could you please explain your relationship with Sawmills? Is it actually your own studio?
I am a 10% partner in the business, and mainly work out of there although the last few years I have been travelling around to work in a lot of studios all over the country.
And how did your interest in recording technology originally start?
When I was at school I got involved with the school's rock band, who used to rehearse in the school gym/theatre above the chapel at lunchtimes and wednesday afternoons and week-ends (wednesday afternoons were free time and we went to school saturday mornings). I used to build up lighting rigs and rig up sound systems from stuff we could srcounge from a variety of sources. My parents weren't too happy about me wasting my times with these "dropouts" - as they refered to them - and were always trying to discourage me from spending time there and encourage me to concentrate on my academic studies, which of course bored me shitless.
I eventually got expelled from that school and sixth form college. After that, my folks persuaded me to do an engineering apprenticeship with English China Clays. I continued my involvement with bands alongside this and eventually ended up getting to know Simon Fraser (Sawmills then) and Dennis Smith (Sawmills now) through a mutual acquaintance, Martin Griffin (one of the many Hawkwind drummers), who had a 16 track studio in Roche where I was doing a lot of work in the evenings and week-ends alongside running a PA system which I had built from bits and pieces that I had blagged from many different sources.
Sawmills was first opened as a commercial studio in 1973-ish by Tony Cox along with Jerry Boys and Pete Martelli. This ran until around 79-80, by which time Simon Fraser had been engineering there for a while, Tony was moving to Oxford and Jerry and Pete started Livingstone Studios. Tony sold the premises and some of the gear to Simon Fraser who bought it as his family home and used the studio for his own music and a few select acts. Roche closed down due the premises being sold by the landlord so Martin suggested Simon Dennis and myself got together to revamp the Sawmills. Dennis already owned the Trident 80B which was for another studio project that fell through, but it hadn't been built yet.
So over the next few months we built up the studio and I finally got my chance to do my first label session, tried to take holidays from my job at ECC and they said we were too busy so I resigned, from there on it was just a case of heads down and keep at it and slowly it all came right.
Are you also a musician? And if so what instruments do you play?
I wouldn't really class myself as a musician, I can knock a few chords out on a guitar but never in public.
Who inspired you as an engineer/producer?
In the early days I learnt most of my studio skills (engineering and studio etiquette) from Simon Fraser. After that my main inspiration came from working with people like John Leckie, Hugh Jones etc.
Is it through affinity or cirumstances, or because of your track record and reputation, that you often work on rock/band projects?
I think, because of my history of being brought up on real bands, that this is where my passion lies and it is all I really know, but I have worked on all sorts of different projects and enjoy many different genres of music.
How and when did you first discover Soundscape, and why did you choose it?
 I first learnt about Soundscape in the early 90's when a friend of mine who had been working for Allen and Heath as a programmer made contact with Soundscape Cardiff and brought one of the original SSHDR1s over to the studio to show me. I believe it could have been version 1 beta software, and I believe it was 4 tracks with 2 inputs and 4 outputs on phono connectors. I remember being impressed by how intuitive it was to drive but the lack of I/O meant it wasn't much use in my application.
A few years later I heard through colleagues and the media that Soundscape had the facility for multi I/O (V2.0). I thought this could be the answer. I received a Royalty cheque for the second Supergrass Album and thought, time to have another look at Soundscape. I went to Raper and Wayman and spoke to Phil Darke and discussed the possibility of buying a Soundscape 24 track system, he brought a 12 track system to the Sawmills and left it with me for a week. I spent a week running the system in parallel with the tape machine and was very impressed by the sound and reliability of the system; I had never read the manual and started editing with amazing ease.
A short while later I was recording an album in Great Lynford Manor in Milton Keynes and doing a hell of a lot of edits on tape. It took ages. I was returning to Great Lynford Manor to finish the same album and thought of the impending editing job I had coming up so I went to the second preproduction session in London and ordered my Soundscape system there and then. Three days later I was in the studio recording the second half of the album, by recording on tape then transferring to soundscape for editing, it was amazing to be able to edit so easily and to be able to use the system in anger 12 hours after taking delivery of the system.
Do you find Soundscape particularly convenient when running a session with real musicians (as opposed to styles of music that rely more heavily on programming)?
Nowadays I record record straight on to soundscape without the tape stage and it is absolutely ideal for live band recording, no worries about the tape running out half way through the take or saying to the band, that are red hot and just about to deliver the take, can you wait a moment while I put a new reel of tape on, it keeps the session flowing.
The fact that you can use the Soundscape DSP plugins in real time with zero latency is also another real plus point, try doing much of that with many other Native DAW's and you will end up with some very confused performers and a track that just doesn't groove.
I have recorded a couple of live concerts directly on the system using one of the Sanctuary Mobiles. They laughed and said "good luck mate, we haven't seen a DAW get to the end of a live show without crashing before". Of course it did, three times in a row without a glitch, it was double headed with DA98's which did screw up at least three times during the week-end, just as well we had Soundscape there, 100% reliability.
What Soundscape configuration are you using at present?
 My current configuration is 2 R.Ed's with 2 Mixpander/9's running 64 native tracks at 44.1Khz 24bit, using 2 iBox 48-TA for I/O, With 2 UAD1's and a TC powerore PCI Mk2. I have both the iEdit keyboards and a Mackie HUI and a Mackie control and a JL cooper CS10. I also have a third Soundscape 32 and Mixpander/9 which I have for when I have to mix 96Khz projects or just need even more tracks.
How is the Soundscape system connected to the console and/or preamps in Sawmills?
All my equipment is in SKB suspension racks as I do move around a lot. I have four Cannon 96DL ZIF connectors on my rack and the same at the Sawmills, the TO 96DL's at the Sawmills are paralleled from the 24 group outs of the Trident via the patchbay giving me discreet access to all 48 ins and the returns are fed to 48 line ins on the Trident again via the patchbay. The DL connectors make it a very quick job to change the system. The Sawmills also has its own Soundscape setup which is very similar minus the UAD's and Powercore and is still using 6 SS8IO1's connected Via XLR to DL looms.
The Sawmills equipment list is seriously mouthwatering… an 82-input 72 channel Trident console, some outboard gear by companies like Neve, Urei, Fairchild or Drawmer… so… considering that you have some of the best hardware available anywhere, do you mix in Soundscape at all?
What I normally do is mix on the Trident using all the outboard but set the console up in such a way that I have all the stems routed back to Soundscape's inputs and do the final stem mixing in the soundscape mixer, so when I have the mix almost there I will print the stems back in to Soundscape, sometimes using as many as 24 tracks, this way I have pretty much total recall of the mix and the sound of the real analogue outboard.
I have just mixed my first rock album entirely in Soundscape's mixer. This was an interesting departure for me but it worked out extremely well and I might do this some more when I don't have the luxury of the full studio or maybe when I do have the studio, the only problem with this method for me was the multi unit delay compensation manual adjustments I had to check everytime I added a VST plugin, the band were a little perplexed as to what I was doing, hopefully this is on the agenda to be fixed.
Do you have favourite microphones and front end units that you find yourself using again and again? And if yes, which ones?
I don't really have favourite units as such but I do use particular units to achieve particular sounds if I am in a hurry, a lot of it depends on the source sound and the sound I am after. I have access to pretty much all the classics microphones and preamps, sometimes the most unlikely combinations can achieve what you are after. I try not to get too formulaic about the way I work, this can be get a bit tedious and it can prevent you from discovering new techniques.
What are your impressions of the new DSP plug-ins for Soundscape: the SSL Console EQ and Filters and EACM|EQ1?
So far I am absolutely amazed by the sound and quality of the plugins and they leave me thinking, "how the hell has this been achieved with zero latency?" I have not yet fully explored all aspects of the new EQ's but will be getting stuck in to it as soon as I have finished this interview!
As a producer do you like to use a lot of editing, or do you prefer to get the "perfect take"?
I always prefer to get the performance from the band, and all in one take together if I can, this makes recording much more fun and of course saves a lot of wrist time. I prefer not to use clicks if the band have the ability to do it. Does the perfect take exist? And who says it should be perfect? Personally I quite like minor mistakes it makes it all more convincing for me, keeps it real but exciting.
As a producer, what are - to you - the most important factors towards a successful recording?
A good song and a lively performance.
Please tell us about a few of your most memorable sessions?
Most memorable sessions, that is always a hard one as they are all memorable for various reasons, I think the Sessions I did with Robert Plant would have to rate as the most nerve wracking sessions having been a big Zeppelin fan and having to press the record button to record Robert's lead vocal was definitely a "wake up it is happenning moment".
All the New Model Army Sessions were amazing as this was the first time it really came together for me and I started to realise how much of the sound of the recordings had to do with the sound and the attitude of the band.
The Supergrass sessions were always really good fun and a pleasure to do, well they are almost family really and they spawned my first number one.
The Terrorvision Sessions were very memorable for how long it took to recover from the general abuse that occurred during that one.
And all of them for various reasons as I said but I think a lot of what goes on behind studio doors should remain behind the doors as the artists are very much at their most vulnerable in these situations and it wouldn't be fair to betray the confidence of the artists, almost like a doctor patient relationship… but sometimes I am not sure who is the doctor and who is the patient.
What are your next projects and plans for the future?
I am looking at The Subways second Album, a new signing to Parlophone named Chopper Harris and a new signing to Island Called Clocks.
Useful links:
John's official website
Sawmills recording studio website
John's Soundscape Public User page (credits, equipment list...)
Sawmills Soundscape Public User page
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