“I don’t know how many people would have the knowledge to bounce down tracks on two tape machines and stuff like that… I still don’t understand it. It’s all a bit like maths to me. I was fortunate enough to record our first three albums in this manner, on tape. All those songs were played live…some bands these days would freak out if they saw a tape machine”
(Noel Gallagher, on recording Oasis on analogue tape during the making of their cover of The Beatles’ song Within You Without You for the BBC Radio 2 documentary Sergeant Pepper’s 40th Anniversary (first broadcast 26th December 2007)
On this page you will find information about some of the equipment used in the recording sessions for Morning Glory provided by Lisa Ward, who is manager of Rockfield Studios. Thanks also to Nick Brine, who engineered the Morning Glory sessions, for providing information on tape machines and formats.
Bonehead’s guitar: Epiphone Casino
Electro-Voice RE20 (on the bass drum)
Shure SM57s (on the snare)
Neumann U47s (on the rack and floor toms)
AKG C12s (overhead; the hi-hat was likely not miked; several unspecified ambient mics)
Electro-Voice RE20 (on Guigsy’s bass amp, plus a DI)
FET 47 (for lead vocals)
Neumann U47
AKG 414
Recording console
60 channel Neve VR with flying faders (The Coach House studio at Rockfield had the very first VR ever made, serial number 1; the album was mixed on a Neve desk at the mix room at Orinoco Studios in South London)
Rockfield studio monitors
JBL 4350s (main)
Yamaha NS10s (nearfield)
Tape machines
Studer A820
Studer A827 (the sessions were recorded onto 499 at +6 over 200)
Various DAT machines
Equipment used at mastering stage
Neve 1081 equalisers
Apogee AD-500 A/D converter, with Soft Limit feature
The Recording Studios
Loco Studios, Wales (for Some Might Say)
Rockfield Studios, Wales (for the main Morning Glory sessions)
The Engine Room at Miloco Studios (formerly Orinoco Studios) where Morning Glory and Be Here Now were mixed
The information presented in this article is cited from correspondence with the engineer Nick Brine and Rockfield’s studio manager Lisa Ward, as well as from an article by Owen Morris entitled Recording Morning Glory from The Official Oasis Magazine (published Winter 1996) and an article called Classic Tracks: Oasis – Wonderwall from the November 2012 issue of Sound on Sound magazine.
Further reading
Jeff Collins. 2007. Rock Legends at Rockfield. University of Wales Press. An excellent and frequently very funny history of the famous recording studio. Includes photographer Michael Spencer Jones’s recollections of the Morning Glory sessions.
A brief video on The History of Studer Tape Machines can be found on YouTube.