I don't disagree that Tim Edey is a fantastic musician - I was very impressed with his playing. I also don't doubt that he's a good producer (although I've not heard anything he's recorded).

But he was totally unprepared for the workshop. He turned up late, didn't have the gear he needed, and was hung-over. The tracks he was going to use to demonstrate, he didn't have prepared, so we sat around a bit longer while he tried to find them. He spent an awful lot of time discussing high-end studio equipment (like microphones) with a couple of guys in the audience - this workshop was supposed to be aimed at beginners, so this was irrelevant and should have been saved for later (or at least cut shorter). There was a 10-minute diversion into how to play a rapid down-up-down strum on a guitar, which should have been knocked on the head (some guy in the audience asked, and the correct answer is either "practise and it'll come" or "I'll show you in the break").

I wasn't the only one thinking this either - me and four others went outside at the break, and all of us agreed that this was not being a productive workshop. I skipped out at the break, so maybe he taught some great stuff in the second half - I wouldn't know, because I decided I'd got better things to do than sit through another hour of that.

From the hour I sat through, I learnt that it's useful to use two microphones to record with, to give more depth to the sound. There was some discussion of where to put mics on a guitar, which after a quarter of an hour boiled down to "try it and see". And we learnt that he likes compression. Aside from that, I learnt nothing.

Graham.