About the author

Philip Newell began his career in the music industry after leaving school in Blackburn, England, in 1966. His first job with live music was as an assistant sound and light operator in a number of ‘Mecca’ ballrooms in the north of England. In 1968, he moved to London, where he then worked as a live sound engineer in some of the country’s largest ballrooms. In those days, touring bands did not travel with their own sound reinforcement equipment, but used the in-house equipment of each venue. During this period of time, he was fortunate to work, in some cases many times, with artistes such as The Who, Booker T, & the MGs, Sam and Dave, Jnr Walker and the All Stars, Wilson Pickett and many other ‘classic’ musicians from that era. This was an exceptionally fortuitous beginning, because he realized at a very early stage that no equipment, no venue, nor any special technique could make up for pure musical talent: a topic which threads its way in and out of this book. Stars shine!

In 1969, Philip became more involved in recording, and was fascinated by the concept of studio design. In 1970, he designed Majestic Studio, in south London, then moved to Pye Studios, Marble Arch (London), at the end of the year, where his background in live music made him a prime candidate for work with their mobile recording unit. This was still a golden era for music, and in twelve months with Pye he was involved in the recording of rock artistes such as Traffic (‘Welcome to the Canteen’), Stephen Stills, The Who, The Faces, The Grease Band, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and many others. During the same period, recording work also involved the English brass bands, Welsh male voice choirs, Scottish pipes and accordians, church organs, fairground organs, musicals, and classical piano recitals. At the end of 1971, he was invited to join a fledgling Virgin Records organisation as a chief engineer of their first studio, The Manor, in Oxfordshire.

Again, there was a great intensity of work with well-known artistes, including The Bonzo Dog Band, John Cale, Fairport Convention and Elkie Brooks, but Philip felt restricted in the studio, and wanted to return to his travels. On New Year’s Day, 1973, Richard Branson offered him a partnership in a new mobile recording company, if he would commit himself to it 100%. As that was what Philip wanted to do anyway, the discussion on the subject was very brief. The first Manor Mobile, designed by Newell himself, began work in July 1973, and did what was perhaps the world’s first recording with a 24-track mobile vehicle in the following month. Some of those recordings are on the CD ‘Going Live etc’ which is still available almost 25 years later.

Once again, Philip found himself in a fortunate situation, with many of the world’s leading artistes gravitating towards what was, at the time, Europe’s most advanced mobile recording vehicle. The list of recordings in which he was involved is far too long to publish here, but his widespread work included such a variety of musical styles as Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, Tony Bennett, Queen, Dizzy Gilespie, Alvin Lee, The Duke Ellington Orchestra, Jack Bruce, The Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Gary Glitter, Johnny Halliday, Tangerine Dream, The London Symphony Orchestra and, of course, Mike Oldfield, with whom Philip engineered or produced six albums. These included ‘Exposed’, the live recording, made from concerts in nine different countries, of an entourage which included 45 musicians, 40 road crew and three PA systems – one for the rhythm section, one for the strings, and one for what remained. This extravaganza took place in 1979, and as well as producing the album, Philip Newell also did the live sound for the concerts.

By 1978 he was technical director of the entire Virgin recording division, and was charged with the choice of design and the overseeing of the construction of the now famous Townhouse Studios in London. It was direct experience of the great and different sounds that could be achieved in non-studio locations that drove him to break with tradition and build the famous stone room in Townhouse Two.

Although Philip had been very much involved with the early Punk Rock scene, recording artistes such as the Buzzcocks, Siouxie and The Banshees, Wire and even later bands like XTC, by 1981 he had become a little disillusioned by the whole Punk/New Romantic era. This disillusionment, together with a faltering romance and an urge to spend more time flying seaplanes, led him to sell his shares in Virgin in 1982. The seaplane saga began in 1977, when Richard Branson bought Necker Island, an uninhabited island of 84 acres in the British Virgin Islands. Newell had been given the task of preparing the island as a tax haven recording studio, and seaplanes were the best means of travel to its deserted shores. However, on Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power in 1979, her tax reforms slashed the 93% rate that many top artistes were paying on UK recordings, and the raison d’être for the island studio ceased to exist. Branson built a luxury island resort instead. For a period of six years, from mid-1977 to mid-1983, Philip Newell operated a seaplane company in the UK, and piloted aircraft for air displays, films and television, and he also became an instructor of pilots.

The wind-down of his involvement in music from 1982 to mid-1984 gave him time to reflect on many concepts of music and studios, and when in mid-1984 he returned to studio design, it was with a refreshed approach. From 1987 to 1991, he sponsored work at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, in Southampton University, both on aspects of loudspeaker performance and room design. From this work, he wrote many articles and technical papers, and this prompted the writing of his first book, Studio Monitoring Design. Although acoustic design is now his main occupation, Philip has never completely left the realms of engineering and production. He still makes live recordings, and in 1995, at the football stadium of ‘Sporting’ in Lisbon, Portugal, he recorded (with help) nineteen bands and five hours, for television and CD use, using a discrete 104-track recording system, by means of thirteen synchronised 8-track machines. This was certainly one of the largest recording set-ups ever used in Europe.

Philip Newell is a member of the Institute of Acoustics, the Audio Engineering Society, British Mensa, the US and Canadian Seaplane Pilots Association, and the League Against Cruel Sports. Since 1991, he has lived in Spain, which he now considers to be his home, though he continues to travel the world in the course of his work. To date, he has worked in 33 countries, Ukraine being the last one added to the list, where he is currently designing a concert hall.