In our exhaustive series on Britain's Christian music business, Tony Cummings looks at the part recording studios have played in Britain's music scene.

"You've got to have a heart for this work...otherwise it can sometimes drive you crazy! Doing Christian custom work can mean working with artists who have a long way to go in developing their abilities and skills. But that's true in all budget-line recording. If there's a genuine ministry I think it's worthwhile even if it isn't too clever musically. And sometimes the very process of recording can make a huge difference to sharpening up an artist. I did the first recording of Phil Overton. He'd be dreadfully embarrassed If he hears it today. But it was a help to his development."

Brook began Soundtree in 1976 with an 8-track studio in Biggin Hill. The first people to use his pretty primitive facility were Indian singer/evangelist Ken Gnanakan and Kingsway Music who recorded the very first volume of 'Songs Of Fellowship'. By 1980 Brook had clocked up 25 albums. "I did four for Rob Newey And The Reapers, three for Rob And Julie Hawkins and many more. The problem in those days, and it's still with us, is that it was not a good market place. If the record company lay down a policy which says they can afford to spend 50p for every unit sold and they expect to sell 1,000 copies of an album it doesn't take a genius to realise that it's going to be a very quick cheap and cheerful recording. This creates its own vicious circle. Because the albums aren't very good, they don't sell very many and the record companies keep their budgets trimmed to the bone." In 1981 Brook moved Soundtree to Bolton. The church Brook and his wife joined was linked to the Restoration umbrella of house churches headed by Bryn Jones which at that time were keen to develop a music catalogue through their marketing arm Harvestime. "I did lots of work with Harvestime, lots of stuff with David Hadden (Harvestime's leading praise and worship songwriter). I went 16-track in '83 to record Tony Morton's 'South And West Bible Week'. For four years I was continually making praise and worship tapes for Harvestime. But it got creatively very depressing. There was a staleness in the music that was coming out. In 1987 our church broke away from Bryn and co and I was pretty relieved!"

Brook is unhappy that Restoration/Har-vestime and Brook Trickett are still linked together in some people's minds. "Soundtree has been lumped in with them and that connection, which isn't there today, has had several unfortunate repercussions."

In the mid 80s a technological revolution hit the world's recording studios. Midi systems and drum computers swept all before them and as these new systems were mass produced and prices for them plummeted the days of the 4-track demo studio became numbered and the competition among master studios became increasingly fearsome. Engineer Kevin Edwards explained: "Until the mid 80s everyone knew what an 'expensive' sound was as far as studios went. That particular Phil Collins' snare sound or the classy sounding reverbs on the guitar. But thanks to the silicon chip, suddenly there was mass produced equipment that you didn't need to be a mega star studio to afford. Soon you could get a lot of the sounds once only state-of-the-art studios could get. Midi systems revolutionised recording. A lot of demo studios went to the wall as bands found they could buy equipment to make pretty decent sounding demos in their front room. And suddenly the chasm between expensive 1,000 a day master studios and cheap 200 a day studios was being bridged."

By the late 80s ICC had regained its credibility. It had also spread out to the surrounding buildings of its complex to offer a 24-track for cutting masters (now often taking a month or more to record and mix rather than three to four days of the old cheapo cheapo days); a 16-track facility where it could offer Christian bands without a record deal a chance to get their music on tape; and a studio for radio production. But in the parlance of Arthur Daley ICC's 'nice little earner' was cassette duplication. ICC were one of the first companies to provide an on location recording service for conferences, events and Bible weeks and to copy the resulting tapes, spoken word or congregational worship, into any quantity required. By 1988 Helmut had negotiated the building of a custom designed professional duplicator affectionately called "Arnold". The home-base cassette department with its loop-bin duplicator for bulk cassette manufacturing was soon turning out top quality cassettes by the thousand. The whole operation saw astonishing growth. Today ICC handle all the cassette manufacture for Kingsway, Harvestime, the National Society For The Blind, Spring Harvest and many more and today manufacture a staggering million cassettes annually.

The money the cassette duplication kept bringing into ICC enabled it to continually upgrade its equipment and attract a stream of pop names to the complex. In 1989 it upgraded Studio 1's mixing console and in 1991 entered the top end of the mid-price market installing a 24-track Dolby SR and acquiring Lexicon 480L digital reverb.

ICC is a huge success story. But Helmut Kaufman is only too aware of the danger in its financial success obscuring the vision on which it was based.

"We have a big dilemma Studio 1 is a facility which is outside the budget of quite a lot of the Christian music albums being recorded in Britain at the moment. In British Christian music everything is done on a shoestring."

One new move by ICC to keep in touch with grassroots Christian music ministry is the launch of a label identity marketing Christian music like albums by Johnny Markin, Ralph Ward's Zero Option, Jazz Praise and the big sellers - the praise and worship albums associated with the Spring Harvest weeks. But Helmut Kaufman is anxious not to be called a record company.

"We're not really a record company, we don't develop artists. We're just helping carefully selected ministries to go a step further than only selling their albums at their concerts. In addition to selling cassettes themselves we're helping them by putting albums into Christian bookshops, though we'd be the first to admit that with contemporary music like Johnny Markin that's not really the best place to put it. At the moment there's a huge need for creative thinking in how to get contemporary Christian music albums to the public."

Not all Christian musicians record in Christian studios of course. One particular genre of music where it is felt a specialist studio and engineer is needed is heavy metal music. Although the White Rabbit studios in Bridgnorth, Shropshire have recorded a wide range of music, its reputation has been built on heavy metal. In the last two years chief engineer Paul Hodson (who also sports a growing string of album production credits to his name) has recorded Christian metal and thrash bands like Seventh Angel, Detritus, Stairway and Lazarus at White Rabbit. He has positive views about the standard of Christian metal.

"I've been very impressed with the Christian bands I've worked with. They compare very favourably with bands in the mainstream."

Paul is convinced that less money is being spent on recording than a few years ago. "Big budget albums are gone. Everybody is suffering from the recession."

Paul was reticent about what the minimum a band might have to spend to get an issuable master tape. "It's a bit like asking how long is a piece of string. But If it was a band and you weren't bringing in session men (their charges, particularly If they're Musician's Union members, can be crippling) and if the band had worked very, very hard in rehearsal prior to coming into the studio it should be possible to get something half decent for 3,500."