The Fame Factor. Polly Courtney

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      Zoë glanced across at Kate. They’d been in the studio since nine o’clock this morning and it was beginning to get dark.

      ‘That’s it,’ declared the man, scratching his neatly-trimmed goatee.

      ‘HALLELUJAH!’ came the familiar sound of Shannon’s voice, booming through one of the mikes.

      Clive Berry gasped and swivelled back to the button marked Comms. ‘Don’t touch that!’

      Zoë, Ellie and Kate, like meerkats, leapt up from their seats to see what Shannon had done wrong.

      ‘WHAT, THE MIKE?’ Shannon’s voice boomed again.

      ‘Yes!’ cried the producer, irate. ‘The mike that we’ve spent all afternoon positioning to give you the perfect sound…Don’t touch it.’

      Zoë was beginning to understand how the man made such impressive records. If he was this particular about the setup, she could only imagine what he was like with the mixing.

      Finally, after the long-haired engineer had made the necessary adjustments to the microphone and skulked off again, Shannon was permitted to give it another go and the whole process started again.

      Clive Berry was a man of few words. Or perhaps he just didn’t have much to say to the members of Dirty Money. Zoë got the impression he wasn’t particularly enjoying his day’s work. Maybe he resented their manager for lumbering such novices on him for so many hours – or weeks, as it was looking likely to be. It was unbelievable how slowly and carefully everything had to happen.

      Having spent most of the day squashed up behind the producer in the small, sterile booth, Zoë had had plenty of time to marvel at the pine-floored studio with its carpeted walls and faux-natural lighting. Expensive guitars stood on stands about the place and an array of gold discs hung at eye-level around the room.

      Clive’s fingers flitted about the gigantic control panel as though it were the simplest instrument in the world. Zoë was used to watching the engineers at gigs during sound-checks, and of course she’d seen Sleazebag Simon at work, but those mixing desks looked like Fisher Price toys in comparison. This setup looked like something from Starship Enterprise.

      The door squeaked open and a rotund face poked round.

      ‘How’re we doing, guys?’

      It was Louis.

      Zoë, Ellie and Kate straightened up. The man, as of six hours ago, was now their manager. The demo recording was being made at his expense, so it didn’t do to look bored or ungrateful.

      ‘Getting there,’ said Clive, without looking up.

      ‘Mind if I…’ Louis moved the rest of his sizeable self into the room and pulled up a chair next to Clive. Zoë sensed that the producer would have preferred to be left alone, but as the supplier in the relationship, he didn’t have much say in the matter.

      ‘OK, try that again,’ Clive barked.

      For what seemed like the hundredth time, Shannon bashed out the opening sequence of ‘Sensible Lies’, stopping at exactly the point Clive held up his hand.

      ‘That’s great. I think we’ve got it.’ The producer nodded, playing something back in his headphones.

      ‘WHADDAYA MEAN?’ Shannon’s voice filled the small room. ‘WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE SONG?’

      Clive looked at her through the glass. ‘We’ll loop it. You don’t need to play the whole thing. Yup, we’ve got the ending too. You can come back this side.’

      Shannon didn’t move from her seat. She looked confused. Zoë glanced at Ellie, then at Kate. She too was surprised to hear that they wouldn’t need to record the whole percussion track – that the hours spent positioning mikes and testing beats had all been for thirty seconds of capture – but that was clearly the way things worked.

      ‘Maybe someone could go and get her?’ suggested Louis, nodding his head at the crestfallen drummer, who was still on her stool, staring incredulously at Clive.

      Zoë hopped off her seat and pushed through the double-sealed door.

      ‘Why aren’t they doing the whole song?’ hissed Shannon as Zoë prised her away from her beloved kit. ‘Idiots!’

      Zoë cringed at Kate through the glass. Clearly Shannon had forgotten that the studio was filled with microphones.

      ‘It may seem idiotic,’ Clive said calmly as they returned. ‘But it gives a much cleaner beat.’

      Shannon looked at her shoes, clearly not in the mood for apologising.

      Suddenly, the tiny room became filled with the sound of the ‘Sensible Lies’ introduction. It was loud, throbbing and slightly hypnotic. The beat went on, and on, and on. There was something intriguing – addictive, almost – about hearing exactly the same bar, repeated over and over again. Zoë could feel herself being drawn in.

      ‘Bass line?’ Clive suggested, swivelling round.

      Kate rose to her feet and reached for her guitar. Her hands were trembling, Zoë noticed.

      There were further adjustments of microphones and appearances from the engineer, who crept in and out of the studio like a nocturnal mammal on a hunt for food. The headphones turned out to be too big for Kate’s head, so the lank-haired young man had to improvise, fixing them around the bassist’s forehead with a rubber band.

      The first take was aborted when the rubber band snapped, pinging across the room and leaving the broken headphones to slither down onto Kate’s guitar. The second take, performed with the engineer standing behind her, lightly clamping the headphones to her ears, was note-perfect.

      ‘Nice,’ said Clive, beckoning for Kate to come back to their side.

      Ellie, as expected, rattled through her part in a single take. There was a bit of a discussion afterwards between Louis and Clive about whether her short instrumental, which was undeniably impressive but which had veered away from the metronomic click-track, would have to be rerecorded to fit with the click, but Zoë eventually convinced them that nobody else would be playing at that point, so it didn’t matter whether there was a bit of ‘rall’, as the producer insisted on calling it. It was incredible, the care and attention lavished on each microsecond of sound.

      ‘Was it OK?’ asked Ellie, re-entering the cramped room, her guitar still around her neck.

      The producer nodded without looking up. ‘Very good.’

      ‘Very, very good,’ Louis added. ‘There are not many people who can lay down a track like that so quickly, huh?’ He looked at Clive for approval.

      Clive nodded again, still fiddling with his dials. He clearly wasn’t one for lavish praise.

      Zoë felt a rush of pride, mingled with nerves. Even though the producer wouldn’t admit it, she could tell that her band members were nailing it. Most artists, she imagined, would take hours to record a single track. She hoped she’d live up to their standards.

      ‘Vocals?’

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