‘It’s a bit of a black art – I have recorded on cruise ships, in hotel bedrooms, in wardrobes and even in cars,’ says Peter Dickson, with the distinctive voice made popular by work on UK TV’s X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and Family Fortunes.
and Nigel Heath
To address the problem, Soho audio facility Hackenbacker has helped capture his trademark voice-over style while mobile. Using a combination of Hackenbacker Studio One’s Neve fully digital console and Peter’s own personal mobile recording rig, including microphone, preamp and audio interfaces, Hackenbacker founder Nigel Heath is able to achieve what he calls ‘The Full Dickson’.
To do this the Neve’s settings and processing were modified, translated and transferred to Dickson’s software by Studio One engineer Alex Fielding. Acoustical and software techniques were employed to ensure that his voice hits the processing chain in exactly the same way, no matter where he might be recording. Thanks to Hackenbacker’s input, Dickson can now be confident that he can deliver a punchy, top-quality voice track with virtually the same sonic qualities it would have if it were recorded in Hackenbacker’s high-end audio facility.
‘Nigel and Alex have created an effects stack on my Mac-based recording software that, when applied to any raw WAV files, re-creates as closely as possible the Big Hackenbacker Neve studio sound,’ he says. ‘After several hours of experimentation and using several pairs of the finest Mark 1 earholes in the business, we finally cracked it. This means that I can now deliver the best sounding audio possible while on the road – and all thanks to the guys at Hackenbacker and Mr Neve for his wonderful processors.’
‘This was a particularly interesting technical exercise for us and the end results are really very good,’ Nigel Heath adds. ‘I suspect that only a really tweaky sound head could tell the difference between the “big desk” sound and Peter’s portable version.’
More: www.hackenbacker.com
