The four were all quite amazed and enthralled as they listened avidly to Dale as he talked about the way the rooms each came to be as they are today
and how everything had to be sound proofed and perfectly balanced for recording. Including the fact that some of the walls of The Farm are up to four feet thick in size and that the builders had used a product called Lignacite which is a concrete masonry block made up of saw dust, sand and cement to reinforce the walls within the old cow shed.
Dale talks about construction (Photo Credit, Mark Kenyon - Editor)
Dale took the tour through the current control room, whilst Nick and his assistant Tom, got to work. The tour continued through to a room that had a patch bay within it so that Mike could for example plug in a guitar direct to the mixing console.
Clearly visible on top of the Steinway grand piano were two guitars; one that appeared to be a black fender Stratocaster and the other, an older more prominent guitar with lots of history - this was the twin neck Microfret used on the Trick Of The Tail Tour.
Dale confessed that this Microfret had been in the barn for some time, and it was recently looked at and found not to be working. He said they were trying to rectify it, with much delight.
Was this guitar a prototype of the one featured on the 2007 tour?
The tour continued into the Drum booth which is lined with Cotswold stone. Dale explained the various acoustics in the room and how to go about achieving different desired acoustic effects. The tour did "an about" turn and they ended up in the original control room, which contained lots of DAT tapes amongst items that had been used for the soundtrack to the picture gallery on the "Way We Walk" DVD.
Some of the tour stopped to take photographs, and then they proceeded back into the lounge, at this point Dale asked everyone if they fancied a tour of the equipment barn, in a rather supersonic manner back came the reply ‘yes please’.
The tour then left the control room and they followed Dale into the equipment barn.
Upon walking into the equipment barn Dale explained what the mixing desk and guitars were for, his solo projects in his part of The Farm complex called “ The Scrapyard 2 “.
The party of five continued into the barn with there guide Dale, at this point the lucky winners were greeted by flight cases belonging to Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford, with an odd few ones from Phil Collins and a couple of Mike and the Mechanics ones.
Within the barn, for all of those keyboard fans out there, there were four Prophet 5 synthesisers, and an infamous white Hammond organ. The mere sight of these items aroused various questions of a possible reunion with the members of Genesis using their old instruments.
Dale did not respond to any questions about any possible reunion except to say look on the official websites for news about the band, what Dale did say is that Tony Bank’s home studio had been revamped and refurbished hence the keyboards coming back to The Farm.
Dale told the lucky winners about the original equipment barn, and what had happened when the band had decided to sell the old farm house. It was at this point Dale recruited four temporary crew to assist him in the movement of a king size bed mattress as this needed to be lifted on to a mezzanine floor.
After a few more questions Dale took the party back through the scrap yard, and he generously gave away copies of his 2003 album Cubed to all of the lucky winners.
Dale and the crew struggle to lift a king size matress (Photo Credit, Mark Kenyon - Editor)