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Alan Moulder: Producing with Pro Tools, Logic and Reason
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Home-schooled In Audio
At one point, Moulder pursued learning with the Ministry of Agriculture. But, when he became interested in audio he decided to learn hands-on, sans formal education.

“Studios in London were not really employing people from schools at the time because the graduates would tend to think that after doing a couple of years studying they were proper engineers and were resentful of being asked to assist and get clients cups of tea and fetch pizza,” he explains. “Things have changed now and I think most London studios now only take on people who have done some form of training.”

Moulder himself started as teaboy for Trident Studios, where he tapped into JAMC. “I was very fortunate. When I was an assistant at Trident Studios, where I trained, I was really into ‘alternative’ music and since it was the mid-80’s most engineers were into the Trevor Horn style of polished and—from an engineering point of view—impressive style of production,” explains Moulder.

TODAL Studios

“I assisted Flood, who was also a Trident engineer, a lot and when he was booked to record a track with the Jesus & Mary Chain I made sure I was on the session,” he adds. “We got on well with the band, who had bad experiences with other engineers who didn’t really appreciate their irreverent style, and they asked me to do some live sound for them and then asked me to engineer their album ‘Automatic.’”

Patience Pays Off
The project went well and Alan McGee, who owned Creation Records and had signed JAMC, asked Moulder to do some mixes for Ride. “He then thought I would be good with My Bloody Valentine—who were also experiencing problems with unappreciative and less than patient engineers,” says Moulder.

“So I went on to work with them. The Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails were big fans of both the Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, and I think I got a reputation for being patient and easy to work with, so I got to work with them as well,” he adds.

Next page: From Retro Sampling to Virtual Instruments

Alan Moulder

1.	Self-Taught Audio Kingpin
2.	Producing with Pro Tools, Logic and Reason
3.	From Retro Sampling to Virtual Instruments

In the Studio
(part 2 of 3)

Pro Tools, Logic and Reason
Moulder uses Pro Tools for most of his recording work because he likes the way that it handles audio. “I also use Emagic’s Logic Audio, which is great for MIDI and being able to use VST plug-ins,” says Moulder.

“I also use Reaktor,” he adds, “which I think is fantastic for coming up with sequences and sounds you couldn’t do with anything else.” In addition, he likes Reason for its immediacy and the ability to come up with drum patterns that can be scrolled through loads of different sounds with ease.

Moulder runs Pro Tools, Logic, Reason and Reaktor on a Power Mac in the studio, and on a PowerBook for remote editing. “The PowerBook is great for all uses and I can’t think what I would do without it now,” says Moulder. “I can use it on long plane journeys to mess around with sounds or sequences and I can expand on those ideas when I get to the studio.”