In The Studio with producer Al Groves

UK-based producer and mixer Al Groves, who has over a decade's worth of studio experience, reveals his top music production tips and tricks, the ways in which he uses oeksound plugins, and reflects on how he took ownership of one of Liverpool’s most iconic recording studios and mix rooms, The Motor Museum.

Groves has established himself as one of the go-to producers for guitar sounds in the Northwest of England, but his humble beginnings paint a bigger picture. Having initially moved to Liverpool to study computing, he was soon finding himself drawn to the production side of music creation.

He befriended a final year student at LIPA – arguably the most prestigious music recording and engineering school in the country – who he would spend time in the studio with. This spurred the hyper-motivated young producer to teach himself; he would stay up all night reading and absorbing every piece of knowledge that he possibly could. The pair went on to build a “postage stamp-sized version of AIR Lyndhurst or Abbey Road” in the basement of a building in an industrial estate. It became Sandhills Studio, and Groves cut his teeth in music production there for six years until 2012.

The jewel in Groves’ crown however is The Motor Museum, one of Liverpool’s most iconic studios that has over the years welcomed the likes of The Arctic Monkeys, Oasis and The 1975 through its doors.

“When I was at Sandhills I met a really well known producer called Mike Crossey, who was the leaseholder of The Motor Museum from around 2008 to 2012,” recalls Groves. “He was looking for a Liverpool-based engineer and we built a good friendship; he was somebody that really influenced me and was very supportive of me back then.

“For a while things were quiet, but then out of the blue I got a message from Mike saying that he’s arranged for me to take over the lease of The Motor Museum, which as daunting as it was at the time, fortunately worked out really, really well.”

For Groves, everything started falling into place career-wise after that, and he eventually ended up buying The Motor Museum in July 2021.

In his time as a producer and mixer, Groves has worked with the likes of Bring Me The Horizon, Cast (a successful Liverpool indie rock band), as well as helping to develop a whole host of new musical talent. He admits to Headliner that it’s guitar-based acts that have always drawn him in most.

“Guitar is just in my DNA, really, and is a vocabulary that I speak very fluently,” he says. “What I like about guitar music is its originality, and the fact that there's a unique live element to it every night. Although I would say that I’m simply drawn to remarkable music and remarkable artists. People who have something to say, and can say it in an impassioned, provocative, relatable, or exciting way.

“The very first thing I always do is I try to ask the band to tell me what they’re trying to achieve in their career at that particular point, and get them to really immerse me in their headspace and their world. It’s probably one of the most important things I've learned to do over the years, to become an ally of the band and part of their inner circle.”

When quizzed about his top tips and tricks for creating music, Groves’ response is that he simply tries to do things effectively with the tools available at his disposal.

“A lot of people are surprised by how minimal my process is,” he adds. “It's very much a ‘90s era thing, with a big console like an SSL with automation and the bus compressor and reverbs and delays and not really much else. It’s about really good balances and really well executed EQ moves, so one of my biggest tips is just to listen to everything really closely, and to make sure what you're doing is actually better than before.”

One particular tool that helps Groves streamline his workflow is soothe2 from oeksound: “I remember being absolutely knocked out by the original version,” he tells Headliner. “You don't change the frequency balance of a mix, you change the density of those frequencies, which I think is incredible. You can make a sound thin, but still with bottom end, or still have presence and clarity in the mix, but without the weightiness. Or vice versa – you can make something quite bright and vivid at the top end, but not with a particularly sharper sound.

The updated version, soothe2, is a plugin that Groves finds himself using “across everything”, from vocals to cymbals and overheads and electric guitars.

“It's a more elegant, transparent way of doing things,” he continues. “Lots of little surgical moves across a few weeks’ worth of mixing really show that this is a profound musical tool, that sometimes does things that can’t be achieved with EQ.”

2022 has seen Groves begin working on an EP for an emerging Lincolnshire band called Vigilantes, a project that he’s particularly excited to be involved with – “It's very ambitious, very authentic guitar music” – so make sure to keep an eye out for anything indie rock related coming out of the North of England soon. It’s sure to bear Groves’ gold stamp of approval.