Darren Sell
Wednesday 20th April 2011
Darren Sell has been a professional musician, recording and mix engineer, composer and arranger, and has worked with some of the top acts in the world. His career is nothing if not varied, but he always turns to his Gemini II when there's an important vocal job to do…
Summary:
sE Endorsee: Darren Sell
Profession: Professional Musician, Engineer and Producer.
Artists: One World; Gary Moore, Steve Winwood, Brian Wilson, Robin Gibb, Boy George, Bill Wyman etc…
Mics/gear: Gemini II
Key quote: "Artists that have sold millions of records and have sung into all the "classic" mics all loved the Gemini."
"I grew up living next door to the record producer Tim Palmer (City Beat, Beggars Banquet, XL Recordings), he was always introducing me to new music from the latest Def Jam release to early Beatles recordings. By chance he had to pop in to work one day I tagged along and was introduced to the recording studio, I was fascinated by the way that people and machines in this environment created music; I was immediately hooked and so the journey began."
Darren first studied as a musician in London, Performing Arts, Language of Music, and Music Technology then over the next decade played in the UK, Europe, Dubai, New York, Nashville & Philadelphia.
About 10 years into his journey as a professional musician Darren rediscovered the world of recording, and has since programmed, arranged, recorded, performed and been a musical director for various production and record companies including EMI & Rosette records. As well as working on the BBC Radio 2 series 'The Record Producers' Darren has worked with a host of household names…
"I've had the privilege of working with many great artists including One World, Gary Moore, Steve Winwood, Russel Watson, Brian Wilson, Robin Gibb, Boy George, and Bill Wyman to name a few, during a period in my career spent working alongside producer Steve Levine."
Darren has since relocated to Australia, where he now works in The Orchard Studios, a private studio on the coast of SA.
"With music, understanding the 'language' is one side of it, but the experience you achieve learning, playing other peoples music, pulling songs apart, teaches and prepares you how to build your own. With audio, study can help with the physics and the math, but none of it compares to what I've leant being mentored by a producer with some of the best ears in the business, not just on a technical level, but also Steve knows how to get the best performances out of people and knows through his active listening when he's got that elusive perfect take."
Darren runs a MacPro using Logic, UAD 2, and Waves SSL through an Allen & Heath console. He monitors through Genelec 8040's, uses Mackie 1232's for the extended bass, and has a pair of Mackie HR824's as well.
"I have kept a few keyboards along the way, Yamaha, Korg, but I'm doing more stuff in the box, I use Arturia. Because I'm swapping tracks and projects a lot of the time, we need to recall everything with the song files, it's just easier to use the hardware as controllers. We also have access to a great collection of guitars from a very old Strat to modern day Martins."
Darren's sE Gemini II, which goes through a TLA Ivory pre-amp/channel strip, forms the front end to his recording chain and has pride of place in his mic collection.
"Originally Steve Levine introduced me to the Gemini 1. He's got a great collection of mics, but the Gemini works so well recording pretty much everyone's vocals that Steve used to use this as his 'go to' vocal mic... so, of course, I got the Gemini II for myself! Artists that have sold millions of records and have sung into all the "classic" mics all loved the Gemini."
"I really love the Gemini, I've worked with singers that bring their own mics that they know and love to sessions, but I encourage them try out the Gemini and that's that; no contest! In fact one singer made me set up his favourite mic and the Gemini, he then recorded with both and made me do blind tests on which one I liked the most, I picked the Gemini, then I made him do the same, and guess what… the Gemini got the gig just like it always does."
Most recently 'Naturally 7', who are supporting Michael Buble on his world tour came through the doors of the studio, with their engineer James Caran. All the guys loved the Gemini, and we are talking very different vocalists here, with a whole range of varied harmonic content. At one point the Gemini was even recording human beat-box, but it more than stood up to the test."
With all the use Darren's Gemini gets, and with the kind of clients that demand the best sound and 100% totally reliable gear (or else…!), its not only the way the mics sound that wins so many people over…
"It's very important that the sE mics are built so well" continues Darren, "they get used a lot and need to be robust. A lot of big brand, mass produced mics, just aren't built the old-school way now; you know, the way Neumann built mics. sE build all their mics, and their capsules by hand, and it shows, both in the performance and in the knocks they can take when being constantly used in a professional environment."
"The lockable arm on the cradle mounts sE build is a nice touch too. I'm forever changing the angle for different singers, so they need to hold solid without the usual 'droop' you get with other mounts… and they do!"
So what of the future…?
"I'm producing a band of brothers signed to Frogs Head records, we've already tracked some vocals with the Gemini 2, and I'm looking forward to doing some stereo work with the Gemini 3 as well. We have guitars to track and more interestingly some drum overdubs, can't wait to see what the sE mics can handle there!"
