Product Code Database
Hugh Charles Padgham (born 15 February 1955) is an English record producer and audio engineer. He has won four Grammy Awards, for Producer of the Year and Album of the Year for 1985, Record of the Year for 1990, and Engineer of the Year for 1993. Padgham's co-productions include hits by Phil Collins, XTC, Genesis, the Human League, Sting, and the Police. He pioneered (with Peter Gabriel and producer Steve Lillywhite) the "gated reverb" drum sound used most famously in Collins' song "In the Air Tonight".
Padgham's previous work with Gabriel and Collins led to a collaboration with Genesis and Phil Collins in the 1980s, which produced the albums: Face Value, Abacab, Hello, I Must Be Going!, Genesis, No Jacket Required, Invisible Touch, and ...But Seriously. In addition to his work with Genesis and XTC, Padgham co-produced two albums with the Police: Ghost in the Machine and Synchronicity, as well as some of Police frontman Sting's solo work. He also worked on Paul McCartney's Press to Play and the Human League's Hysteria.
In the 2000s, Padgham worked with Sting as well as McFly. He had four UK number one hits in 2005 and 2006 with McFly, as well as a number of other Top Ten Singles. In 2002, Padgham produced the Tragically Hip album In Violet Light.
In 2019, Padgham was honoured in London with the MPG Award for Outstanding Contribution to UK Music.
Padgham is one of the owners of the indie label Gearbox Records.
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 gain threshold. The result is the arresting 'gated reverb' effect, in which the reverberation cuts off abruptly, rather than fading away.
In a 2006 interview, Padgham revealed how the effect was first engineered:
The whole thing came through the famous "listen mic" on the SSL console. The SSL had put this massive compressor on it because the whole idea was to hang one mic in the middle of the studio and hear somebody talking on the other side. And it just so happened that we turned it on one day when Phil Collins was playing his drums. And then I had the idea of feeding that back into the console and putting the noise gate on, so when he stopped playing it sucked the big sound of the room into nothing.
| 1984 | Synchronicity (The Police) | Album of the Year (shared with The Police) | ||
| "Every Breath You Take" (The Police) | Record of the Year (shared with The Police) | |||
| 1986 | No Jacket Required (Phil Collins) | Album of the Year (shared with Phil Collins) | ||
| Producer of the Year (Non-Classical) (shared with Phil Collins) | ||||
| 1991 | ...But Seriously (Phil Collins) | Album of the Year (shared with Phil Collins) | ||
| Producer of the Year (Non-Classical) (shared with Phil Collins) | ||||
| Best Engineered Recording – Non-Classical | ||||
| "Another Day in Paradise" (Phil Collins) | Record of the Year (shared with Phil Collins) | |||
| 1994 | Ten Summoner's Tales (Sting) | Album of the Year (shared with Sting) | ||
| Producer of the Year (Non-Classical) | ||||
| Best Engineered Recording – Non-Classical | ||||
| "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You" (Sting) | Record of the Year (shared with Sting) | |||
| 1997 | Mercury Falling (Sting) | Best Pop Album (shared with Sting) |
| 1986 | No Jacket Required (Phil Collins) | British Producer | ||
| 1987 | Invisible Touch (Genesis) |
| + !Year Awarded !Nominee !Category !Result !Ref. | ||||
| 2009 | Himself | Gold Badge Award | Won | [2] |
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