Dan Grech

Daniel James Grech-Marguerat (born 11 July 1981 in Bedford), is an English-Maltese recording engineer, record producer and mixer.

Grech has worked with Lana Del Rey, Keane, and Moby.

Biography

Dan Grech started working at RAK Studios in St John's Wood, London as an assistant recording engineer. He worked with record producer Nigel Godrich for two years, participating in records with Charlotte Gainsbourg, The Divine Comedy, Beck and Radiohead. He won a Grammy Award for his work with Godrich in 2009 for his work on Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' which picked up 'Best Alternative Album 2009'.

In 2006 he mixed the Scissor Sisters second album ''Ta-Dah'' , including the single ''I Don't Feel Like Dancin''', co-written by Elton John, which went to number one in 8 countries, and top 10 in 20 countries. Later that year, Grech mixed the debut record for the band Dragonette, starting a long-term relationship with the band.

In 2007, Grech produced two tracks for the Radio 1 Established 1967 anniversary album, one for The Kooks and one for The Kaiser Chiefs. Following on from this he went on to produce several tracks for The Kooks second album ''Konk''. He also mixed the Moby album '' 'Last Night''

In 2010, Grech produced the debut album for The Vaccines, ''What Did You Expect from The Vaccines?''.

In May 2012, Keane released their 4th studio album '' 'Strangeland''', which Grech both produced and mixed.

In 2013, Grech produced ''Long Way Down'', the debut record for Tom Odell, winner of the BRITs Critics Choice Award. In 2013 Grech also produced ''The Brink'', the second album for the Australian band The Jezabels.

In 2014, Grech worked with Liverpool-based guitar band Circa Waves. He produced and mixed their debut album which entered the UK charts at number 10 in April 2015. Singles from the album included ''Fossils'' and ''T-Shirt Weather''.

In 2015, he produced and mixed the Birdy and Rhodes duet ''Let It All Go''.

At the start of 2016, Grech worked with Mumford & Sons. He recorded the ''Johannesburg EP'' in South Africa with the band.

Grech's releases in 2017 included Liam Gallagher's debut solo album '' As You Were'', he produced 8 of the 12 tracks including the single ''For What It's Worth''. On working with Grech, Gallagher said, “I’ll play him a tune very badly and he’ll go, ‘Yeah, I get where you’re coming from’ and get the acoustics down and away we go.” The album was released on 6 October.

In 2018, Grech mixed ''Staying at Tamara's'', George Ezra's second album. In the same year, he also mixed releases for Rae Morris, Mikky Ekko, and Tom Grennan.

Grech has additional production and live credits on 2021's Rag'n'Bone man and Pink single '' Anywhere Away From Here''. He contributed additional production and mixing for the radio single and worked with the NHS choir on the live performance at the Brit Awards.

Grech won UK Mixer of the Year 2021 at the Music Producers’ Guild Awards.

In 2021, Grech began working with Sam Ryder, mixing Sam's debut EP ''Sun’s Gonna Rise''. Grech mixed and produced the UK Eurovision entry song for 2022, Sam Ryder's ''There's Nothing but Space, Man!''.

Notable work

George Ezra

Grech opted for a simple, streamlined mixing process when working on George Ezra's ''Paradise''. In the ''Paradise'' session, Grech used 73 tracks, containing additional elements such as kick sample tracks and a snare track. Several auxiliary tracks were included, adding delays and reverbs. Grech condensed individual instrument parts such as bass, guitar, synth, and piano into single stereo tracks. The backing vocals initially spread over approximately 20 tracks, were consolidated into six.

Grech divided the lead vocal track into two segments to apply varying treatments to the pre-chorus sections. Despite the simplified layout, the session included hundreds of plug-ins, heavily concentrated on the Akai MPC loop, bass, guitar, and vocal tracks. Grech used colour coding to organise the session.

Grech uses busses sparingly, claiming that the desired sound should be realised with no more than 10 inserts per Pro Tools. At the time, Grech's go-to audio plug-ins were the UAD API compressor and the Waves Audio's RCompressor to achieve specific effects and control frequencies across the tracks. He frequently uses a high pass filter to manage low-end frequencies and prefers plug-ins with graphical interfaces.

Grech has a particular stance on handling vocals, where he usually prefers to remove pre-existing audio plug-ins to shape the vocal sound from scratch, except in instances where a unique effect that adds value to the track is present.

Scissor Sisters

Grech played a significant role in producing the Scissor Sisters' first album. Trained at RAK studios in London and having worked with producer Nigel Godrich, Grech initially joined the project to assist with recording live instruments but eventually took on a larger role, including mixing.

For the Scissor Sisters' first album, the goal was to build upon the existing electronic essence by integrating a richer depth and warmth by adding live instruments. Grech-Marguerat recommended Sear Sound for recording, citing its quality equipment, including vintage microphones and a desk created by Rupert Neve, which expanded the band's sound.

However, the decision to retain the entire project in Apple's Logic Pro, a software they used for ongoing writing and recording, presented a significant challenge. Grech-Marguerat would have preferred transferring the programming to Pro Tools, a platform he found more user-friendly for mixing and audio editing. Grech circumvented this issue by creating a parallel G5/Logic setup. Although this required the cumbersome process of reinstalling and licensing numerous plugins and virtual instruments.

Despite initial difficulties, the setup eventually proved effective, allowing for a fruitful collaboration with band member Scott Hoffman.

Recording sessions were conducted at Sear Sounds Studio A, with the inputs channelled through two MOTU 24 I/O audio interfaces. To accommodate the recording needs, they expanded the system to have 48 inputs and outputs, facilitating intricate recordings such as dedicating 12 inputs solely for drums.

Discography

References

External links

Official website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grech-Marguerat, Dan
1978 births
Living people
English record producers
English audio engineers
Grammy Award winners