Hugh Padgham
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Hugh Padgham is a record producer and audio engineer. Although he makes no claims to having any musical talent, he has become one of the world's most successful and influential producers. He has won a string of awards for his production and a 1992 poll in Mix magazine voted him one of the world's Top Ten Most Influential Producers.
Padgham started out as a tape-operator at Advision Studios, working in recording sessions for Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. From there he went to Landsowne Studios and moved from tape-operator/assistant engineer to head engineer. In 1978, Padgham got a job at The Townhouse, where he engineered and/or produced acts including XTC, Peter Gabriel, and Phil Collins.
Padgham is credited with creating the 'gated' drum sound used so prominently on Phil Collins' single In The Air Tonight, and which became the template for much of the of recorded pop drum sound of the 1980s. The effect is believed to have first been used on the 1980 third self-titled solo album by Peter Gabriel, which Padgham engineered and on which Collins played. At this time, Padgham was working regularly as the recording engineer for noted UK producer Steve Lillywhite, and they collaborated on many well-known albums and singles in the early 1980s.
Padgham's 'gated drum' effect is created by adding a large amount of heavily compressed room ambience to the original drum sound, and then feeding that reverb signal through an electronic device known as a noise gate. This unit can be programmed to cut off any signal fed through it, either after a specified time interval (in this case, some tens of milliseconds), or when the incoming signal falls below a preset volume threshold. The result is the arresting 'gated reverb' effect, in which the reverberation cuts off abruptly, rather than fading away.
Padgham's previous work with Gabriel and Collins led to a long and enormously successful collaboration with Genesis in the 1980s, which produced a string of hit albums and singles including Genesis and Invisible Touch.
Artists for whom Padgham has produced or engineered include:
- The Volts
- The Bee Gees
- David Bowie
- Toni Childs
- Clannad
- Phil Collins
- Julian Cope
- Sheryl Crow
- Melissa Etheridge
- Frida
- Genesis
- Peter Gabriel (engineer, 1980)
- Hall & Oates
- The Human League
- Elton John
- Paul McCartney
- Mike & the Mechanics
- Youssou N'Dour
- The Police
- Psychedelic Furs
- Split Enz
- Sting
- The Tragically Hip
- Brian Wilson
- XTC (engineer, 1979, 1980, 1982)
- McFly
- 311
Padgham would sometimes appear in videos by some of these artists. Many of these artists held him in high regard.
