Ben Hillier - Engineer And Producer

Music producer Ben Hillier reflects on his journey from orchestral percussionist to studio producer, from assisting on recordings to working with Elbow, Blur, Depeche Mode and Nadine Shah, sharing insights on feel, creativity and making records from his distinctive straw-built studio. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 02:36 - The Studio Design 03:56 - Recording Orchestras 08:51 - From College to Assisting 16:03 - Being A Good Engineer 20:08 - Recording Elbow 28:40 - Working With Blur 35:19 - Encouraging Creativity 40:35 - Engineering Depeche Mode 43:36 - Getting Feel Into Electronic Music 50:12 - Collaborating With Nadine Shah 57:46 - Being A Good Producer 59:20 - Creating A Good Studio Environment 1:01:13 - Choosing Which Projects To Work On 1:07:34 - Preferred Tools And Workflows Ben Hillier Biog Ben Hillier has been working in the recording industry for nearly 40 years. He spent the 90’s engineering and programming for various producers including Steve Osborne, Steven Street, Gil Norton and Nelly Hooper around London and internationally. In the 2000’s he moved into production making albums with bands like Elbow, Doves, Blur and three albums with Depeche Mode. In 2010’s he also began writing music, co-writing and producing five albums with Nadine Shah. In 2007 he set-up The Pool Studios with Nick Young at Miloco and was a partner in that studio for about 17 years. Ben continues to write and produce, most recently producing The Howling Bells, Sandhouse, Highschool and Dominie Hooper and writing with Shadowman, Storm Franklin and Nuha Ruby Ra. He currently lives near Brighton, UK, and has a studio (Agricultural Audio) made out of straw bales on working farm. Instagram: @agriculturalaudio Kevin Paul Biog Kevin Paul started his career as a DJ but quickly found his passion was sound engineering. His first audio job was at Soho Studios in 1991, moving to Konk Studios six months later, where he worked alongside successful producers and engineers such as Bob Clearmountain, Adam Mosley, Pascal Gabriel and Gil Norton, as well as bands such as The Kinks, Galliano, Terrorvision, UFO and Elastica. After working on archiving the Depeche Mode back catalogue in 1994, he was offered an engineering role at Mute Records’ in-house studio, which eventually lead to a position as Head Engineer, which gave him access to the entire Mute Records roster. Highlights include mixing Goldfrapp’s 'Felt Mountain', David Bowie’s 'Hours' and Nick Cave’s 'No More Shall We Part'. He also worked in 5:1, mixing Moby’s 'Hotel', Goldfrapp’s 'Black Cherry' and more for DVD. In 2004 Kevin went freelance and re-mixed the entire Depeche Mode and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds back catalogues for SACD/DVD. Since 2008, Kevin Paul has been in charge of mixing and remixing performances at the iTunes Festivals in the UK and Germany. He has mixed over 100 artists to date, including Adele, Ed Sheeran, Alicia Keys, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The XX, Calvin Harris, Foo Fighters, Jack White, Linkin Park, Florence & The Machine, Deadmau5, David Guetta, Jessie J., Norah Jones, Oasis, Mumford & Sons, N.E.R.D., Lykke Li, James Blunt, KT Tunstall, Hot Chip, Paul Weller and many more. He continues to record, engineer, produce and mix many projects in music and film, runs the mixing and surround mixing modules for the Masters Degree course at UK’s Westminster University and divides his time between London and Berlin. Recent works include the International selling new album by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and mixing the latest album of Denmark’s “Dúné” with the first single premiering at the Danish Music Awards, plus the latest iTunes Music Festival. Catch more shows on our other podcast channels:

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Ben Hillier - Engineer And Producer is an episode from People & Music Industry by Sound On Sound Ltd.

This episode is 73:42 long.

This episode was published on Apr 17, 2026.

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