Andy Steele has been writing music since starting his first band, The Snakeskins, in the late eighties. In the early nineties, Andy joined forces with ex Long Ryder, writer and broadcaster Sid Griffin and played piano in his newly UK based group The Coal Porters. Andy spent the majority of the nineties doing session work and played keyboards for many years with the Liverpool group China Crisis.

A classically trained pianist and an accomplished guitar player, Andy also plays Cittern and the Uilleann Pipes.

Andy plays Mossman Texas Plains, Gibson Chet Atkins and Martin acoustic guitars.He has an eighties Fender Esquire customised with EMG tele pickups played through a HiWatt Custom 20, THE nicest amplifier in the world. He plays Fylde Citterns and his flat set of uilleann pipes were made by Alan Ginsberg. Andy uses a Technics P50 stage piano with a Korg M1, and for software instruments favours the Native Instruments Akoustik Piano, the IKMultimedia Miroslav Philharmonic and the Lounge Lizard Rhodes and Wurlitzers.

Recording the New Record.

Night Fishing is being recorded outside the studio on this occasion, on a Mac running ProTools 7.3 through a Digi002. Since it's being recorded at 96KHz 24bit, and ProTools Digi002 only allows two tracks at a time down the lightpipe at this sample rate, tracking is taking place using Logic 8 Pro.

A Fireface400 is at the front end doing the clocking, and is attached via lightpipe to a Focusrite 428 (fitted with optional AD card) and the Digi002 box. The four ISA preamps are pretty much all that's required for us and they are stunning, designed by Rupert Neve, but the two extra fireface mic pres and converters are excellent too if more preamps are required for drums etc.

A stereo pair of Neumann KM184s, an AKG C-414 B-XL II and a Coles 4038 ribbon microphone are the mics of choice. Wherever possible, no compression or EQ is applied at the recording stages, mainly because we don't have anything decent....and you don't need em messing up the sound of those mics.