CHASING WAVES

There’s an art to capturing a good rock sound. Though we’re often advocates for the simplicity of in-the-box production, if you want to bottle the flavours of flesh-and-blood live instrumentalists, you’re going to need a bit of space. Not to mention the right tools to bring out the band’s character.

Welsh-born Romesh Dodangoda is one of the industry’s foremost authorities on the subject, with a CV that takes in some of the loudest and most acclaimed rock acts of recent years. From Bring Me The Horizon and Funeral for a Friend to the mighty Motörhead, Romesh has recorded, mixed and in some cases mastered them to great success. The latest Bring Me The Horizon record, Amo, which Romesh recorded, received a prestigious Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album.

“I don’t like the idea of the singer being behind a window. If they see people laughing but can’t hear it, it can affect them”

With this genre, says Romesh, you have to be willing to bend and even break the rules. There are, however, a few methods that recur from project to project. “When you start getting into the heavier genres, one of the prime factors is aggression and how to make things sound big, wide and aggressive,” he says. “Volume comes into it. With the heavier artists, I still like it to sound fairly natural. There’s a lot of heavier records that are quite processed-sounding, which totally works, but I try and make it sound as real and like a band playing as possible.”