The word 'Sound' holds a different meaning for me post interviewing K J Singh.
A little introduction is necessary because this man has been associated with all the possible positions that encompasses music and sound in India. He has worked on Films Background Score & soundtracks like Satya, Maqbool, Rage De Basanti, Omkara, Black Friday and many more. Also he has produced the greatest Indian band 'Indian Ocean' and Rabbi's Shergill debut album 'Rabbi'. I would like to congratulate Mr.Singh for winning the National Award this year for Audiography for the film 'Omkara'. (A full fledged discography of K J Singh can be checked here.)
PART 1 -Straight Q&A
From Guitar Singh (you were fondly known as that - why? any story behind that) of Graffiti to K J Singh Producer/Sound Engineer - how did that all happen? Tell us about your college band.
Because I carried a guitar with me in college and could be found in the park area, in front of the Hindu College canteen, that I got nicknamed so.
I started a small band in school called Applecart. A motley crew of aspiring, untrained singers, who loved the classic rock and pop of the sixties. Then in college, I was part of a very creative team of performers who wanted me to accompany them for festivals. From this group emerged a band, with a friend from across the road college and we formed GRAFFITI. We did two commercial shows in Delhi. The first one had all the hallmarks of a sold-out maiden concert; as many people outside as inside, fist-fights, people standing/sitting in aisles post the interval, demand for passes from the bureaucrats and friends. I was playing sessions in studios since school. So knew most of the people in the music circuit in Delhi. Then, during our own shows I got interested in the sound part of it. Why my guitar gives feedback, why the bass booms. All that led to an inquisitiveness that resulted in my joining the very eclectic sound team of the Chandra Brothers. I assisted them during live concerts for Shakti, Dizzy Gillespie , Charlie Mariano etc. Great learning experience followed by extra classes with him, at night, before the concert at his house.
From there, to landing a job as a sound recordist in the studio of famous English newsreader of Doordarshan, Komal GB Singh. From learning the ropes literally on a day to basis to flying off to Toronto Canada to do a two year course in Sound Recording at Trebas, in 1985. Came back in 1987 to start my own company FAST FORWARD PRODUCTIONS. Started work, surprisingly as a composer rather than a trained engineer as in that time no one wanted a free-lance engineer. Either you worked with same studio or you ran our own studio. So I composed music and did my own mixes.
Earlier there use to be Sound Recordist' today how does a role of Sound Engineer differs from the two in scope (specially with time)
Sound Recordist is what they were called earlier. Mainly film production mixer or re-recording people were called that. Today a Sound Engineer does many jobs as a sound technician-broadcast, TV, tracking, mixing, mastering, post etc. So in a sense any person doing a technical job in sound is called a sound engineer.
Your views and preferences on Natural Sound vs. technically Generated Sound with any specific example of a song.
I am from the old school of a band playing and trying to capture that energy (for e.g. recorded Kandisa of Indian Ocean like that, or singers sing their duet song together like we had Suresh Wadkar, Hariharan, KK and Vinod standing in one line and singing Chodh aye hum) having said that I am maybe one of the early converts to sampling and sound design. Bought my first MIDI sequencer in 1987 (Textures by Roger Powell on a 286PC) and subsequently the Akai S950 sampler. So I enjoy doing a mix-n-match of both. I think it depends upon personal taste and aesthetics. You can manage to achieve a large degree of realism with today's samples and technology and push the barrier further by making a hybrid of a sound that has never been heard before. Still no one can beat the expression of an instrument player.
Do you design interludes how does an interlude gets synched with the scene specially the timing and does the sound design gets butchered in the hands of Editor (post production) any example?
No. not really. unless specifically asked for. I have done that, on Vishal's prodding. Some background pieces might have a shade of an interlude that might come to my mind. Or chord changes or a bass line. For. E.g. in Maachis the chase sequence, where Chandrachur is running behind Kanwaljit, it's on a percussion, which I programmed. And that was the only percussion sound in the whole movie by the way!
And there are moments that sound design work may get lost in the final mix. But then that is part and parcel of the game. You have to leave your ego at the door when you go to mix a film. Whatever works for the emotional content of the film, at that moment in time, is what needs to remain. For that reason it is important to have e Sound Supervisor, who has an overall objective view of the sound of the film. Then there is a very less chance of this so called 'butchering' to happen
A sound engineer is an artist or a technician?
Good sound engineers are artists as much as technicians. The mixers' console and now the software plug-ins is their palette: they have an infinite number of choices for sculpting and blending sounds. Their tools can be used in expressive ways.
How are sound designers treated in the industry and what are your take on the technical awards where the winners are not even given a single minute to give a speech and hence are neglected each time every time. You won an award for Omkara. How do you feel about that?
The technicians per se, in this country are not treated with much respect. And that is sad. I really wish that the working conditions, the faith in them and their talent and the pay, all get better so that our work can also be up there for the world to see. This does not mean that it is not already out there but I think it can improve a whole lot if the technicians are given the respect that they so rightly deserve.
As for awards, one normally does not do work thinking I will do this to win an award. Neverthless awards are supposedly there to acknowledge your work. Just to get nominated is an amazing reward that you have been measured with so many others and found to be worthy in your work. But the euphoria lasts only for that few minutes. In fact your work demand goes down as people think now he must be charging much more and will be tough to work with. In Hollywood, the moment a technician is nominated for an award his price goes up and more so after winning one. None of that happens here. Up until recently there was only the Zee Technical award but now others have followed suit.
The way sound is recorded, post produced and mixed has changed dramatically over the last few years but our award committees, for some strange reason have not given it any thought. Even in the National awards, which I got for Omkara, the category is still Audiography! The sound team today has a production mixer (sync sound recordist), a sound editor, a sound supervisor and or a sound designer, then a re-recording engineer if dubs happen, an effects team and then finally a final mixing engineer. Each is a separate job and demands an equal input to make the sound for a film happen. Today it is a huge team effort and I think Omkara having three people sharing a best sound award is a pointer at that.
And awards today are slave to the television. So obviously technicians are the scapegoats, though in my opinion, some of the technicians, whose speeches are edited out, are far more eloquent than some so called 'stars'. If ever I get another award, I shall make it a point to tell them that if they mess with sound people by editing out their speeches, next time around the very same 'stars' whose speeches are left in might find their 'voice' missing from critical scenes!!! Haha!
How is the money for sound designers? Do they take multiple projects to burn their choohla (gas) or they prefer to work on one project at a time?
Not what I think it should be. And I am sure they do take multiple, overlapping projects to survive. I mean who would like to kill themselves by working long extra hours? The stars are the ones who need to work on single projects after charging obscene amounts to burn their very big 'choohla' :-)
In India, producers do not get much of recognition and there isn't really Music Producer scene in India? What do you feel about that? Also we lack pop/band culture is it due to lack of producers or Bollywood?
When a top rated professional music company puts my Producer credit as Production Controller, in Kandisa, then what can I say about recognition! The awareness is increasing and bands/artists are feeling the need for them. People like Leslie Lewis, Ram Sampath have led the way in Mumbai. The Internet has exposed artists to the need to have good music producers, who are mainly bouncing boards for artists and bring in their experience in putting music together.
We had a small wave of pop culture in India in the 90's but it died a swift death. And I think to a large extent Bollywood and later FM Radio, is responsible for that. IT is all-pervasive. You look at any TV or radio music channel and tell me how much of non-film music is getting played? Or which one sounds, looks different from the other? The sub-culture of non-film music is kicking and alive thanks to some bars, clubs, lounges etc. But I think it is a matter of time before one artist breaks through and makes it really big in the world. Then people will sit up and take notice of this genre as well.
Can you tell us about the beautiful ' Jahaan Tum Le Chalo'
I was only there for some of the dubbing sessions, as I used to come from Delhi, just for doing Vishal's work. I remember recording it in Spectral Harmony, Santa Cruz. The song- Dekho toh aasman- it is unusual to hear Suresh Wadkar sing it. But Vishal encouraged him, especially those high scatting parts towards the end of the song. Everyone thought it was KK. Also I think it was Rekha Bhardwaj's first film song. Atthani si zindagi was a frothy, funk song, made more funky by the fast brass lines by Jackie Vanjari and the swing beat done by Bharat Ghosher. Hariharan lent that slight jazz edge to it's vocals. Of course Tushar Parte and his guitar were the core essence of all of Vishal's song then. The whole album had that sweet bass sound of Panchamda's bass player Tony Vaz. A huge tribute to Panchamda can be heard in Shauk Khwab Ka by Lataji.
Black Friday and Paanch - both albums are favorite amongst all PFCreaders and authors. So could you tell us something about the albums that we don't know? Was anything done differently to record or arrange the
songs?
For Black Friday director Anurag Kashyap chose to work with Delhi band Indian Ocean, whose Kandisa album I had produced and engineered in 1999. Now the way the band works is that they look at the film and then start to generate ideas on instruments and once an idea is sufficiently developed they see how long do they need it to fit the scene in hand. And if the scene got edited further then God help the producer of the film! So they do not have a programmed, computer-based machine guiding them. They almost play together for that scene and then some overdubs. So its very organic way of composing music, which you can hear in the score.
Anurag's Paanch on the other hand was more of Vishal experimenting with rock music and re-living his college time. It had its share of live guitars etc. but was still programmed to a large extent. I am credited with one remix song of that film by Sunidhi Chauhan.
You have worked with great composers of today Vishal Bhardwaj and A R Rahman? How was it working with them? They both come from a complete different school of music, so how do you adjust yourself when recording film songs?
I have been really fortunate to start my film career with people like Vishal, Gulzar Saab, Hariharan, Sureshji etc. These people have become like family to me. And subsequently got the opportunity to work with Ismail Durbar, Nadeem-Shravan, Jagjit Singh and finally AR Rahman.
As a sound engineer your job is to record the sound to the best of your ability on available equipment and reproduce that emotion for others to hear, capturing that bit for posterity. So I take that approach to whomsoever I work for. I give my collective best; from whatever I have learnt, in music, in production or in engineering.
Both Vishal and AR are composers who invite suggestions and are open to incorporating them, if it really suits the music. In fact that is the reason that AR works with very few outside engineers. He does not want someone who will just move faders. There has to be the artistic input as well. Contrary to popular belief he works all through the day! There is some work or the other going on in various studios of his and he walks in and out to check how things are going. It's only when he is composing that he needs his solitude. So he can be calling you at any point of time to start work and that is something you have to be able to do. With him the music is never finished till it has been sent in for replication! So small changes, tweaks, additions are all part of his mix process.
apart from the acoustics, how much is the emphasis is on the sound of the 'words' (the biggest difference to me in approach of Vishal and ARR towards a song)'any instance?
Again coming from the old school of music making, I personally lay a lot of importance to the lyrics, if it is a song and the dialogue, if it is a film.
Vishal, himself writes and is immersed in Hindi literature. His sensibilities are very tuned into the lyrical content of a song. And that is evident from Chodh Aye Hum to Beedi Jalaylee. I do not know AR that well to comment on him but I can say that his Tamil songs always sounded far better than the hindi translations of the same till he did a movie with Gulzar saab-Dil Se. And then RDB with Prasoon and Guru with Gulzar Saab again. AR is also a master at the sound texture and arrangement so it seems he is less tuned-in to the lyrical part but I don't think that is so. He has worked with the best of Tamil poets from Mr.Valli to Mr.Vairamutthu.
What is the scope of innovation/improvisation/degree of freedom to a sound engineer over a composition of music director?
I think that totally depends on the relationship between the music director and his sound engineer. There is plenty of scope to play around with textures and sounds during a mix. The music director has to have full faith in his engineer and it can be seen in works of Jagjit Singh with Daman Sood, AR Rahman with H. Sridhar and also to some extent with Vishal and me. I have made changes to bass lines, the sounds of keyboard parts etc. to a few songs, during the mix. The music directors have to be really secure in their art to allow this to happen. But today it is the reverse. Most engineers are given tracks and expected to make creative changes to make the song stand out since hardly any thought has been given to the arrangement or tracks before that. Please do not mistake that for a healthy relationship
Is there any role of lyricist (specially Gulzar saab) in sound design..
As a lyricist he may suggest something, which sticks, in his mind but then it is the music directors job to incorporate that.
The only time he gets very specific in sound design is when he IS also the director in his movies like in Hututu I remember a song..Bandobast hai. I had given him a shooting mix with a different reverb tail for the end of the song. And in the final mix when he heard the changed reverb tail he came to me and said that I had changed something which now did not work for him. I was shocked at his sensitivity and promptly proceeded to make the required changes till he was happy.
Your forthcoming work: Soul Fusion - a new band - you have worked with? Is it a rock-fusion band? And also you are producing Harshdeep. Could you tell us a bit more about it?
Soul Fusion is not a rock-fusion band. It is more like Bollywood meets pop with some re-arranged popular bollywood songs. The band has large dollop of SOUL. They are one of the first ever band to have been invited to perform at the NAMM, in USA and created quite a stir. Just as Sir George Martin was the 'fifth' Beatle, I am the 'third' Soul Fusion :-)
I have been giving suggestions, encouraging them, and mixed their new album. I am also starting an independent music label branch of my company and they are my first band. I have great hopes for this band.
As for Harshdeep, she is indeed a very talented singer and I have produced and engineered her rendition of the Japji Sahib, a small portion of which she did for AR Rahman for the film RDB. I am planning on releasing her also through my new label. Furthermore I have done a few songs for her, which shall be in an album after this Japji release. I think today it is very important to look at the bigger picture- not only the artist's talent but also how they are to be projected. People don't want to just hear the music anymore. They want images that go with it, they want some association with the artist, some connection. I want to be able to look into all that, right from spotting to developing talent, to producing, designing their look and presentation, so that they have a long innings in this industry.
