Mike Rutherford Smallcreep's Day equipment

Smallcreep's Day is Mike Rutherford's debut solo album, released in February 1980 on Charisma Records.

Work on the album was largely done in 1979 during a brief hiatus for Genesis. The hiatus was arranged earlier in the year so that singer & drummer Phil Collins was able to rescue his marriage, and this gave Tony Banks and Mike time to develop their own songs for solo albums. Other than writing, Mike also took the new responsibilities of selecting musicians to perform the music and explaining their parts to them, which was something new to him (having never done so before in Genesis) and took an "unbelievable amount of work". Recording was done at Polar Studios in Stockholm, Sweden and mixed at Maison Rouge Studios in London.

Music-wise, this album saw Mike rely heavily on the Roland guitar synthesizer, which allowed him to work out keyboard/synth parts on guitar while writing. He plays all the guitar and bass parts on the album, while Simon Phillips does the drums and former Genesis member and Mike's longtime friend Anthony Phillips plays keyboards. Finding the right vocalist difficult, but Mike settled with Noel McCalla, who was once considered as a replacement singer for Genesis according to the album's press release.

Production-wise, little is known about the microphone setups employed by engineer/producer David Hentschel.

Mike Rutherford

 * Alvarez 12-string
 * Fender Stratocaster
 * Gibson Les Paul
 * Ibanez 2622 Steve Miller Artist
 * Kramer DMZ-3000
 * Ovation 6-string
 * Shergold double neck - bass section only
 * Roland GR-500 guitar synthesizer

Sources:
 * Musicians Only, 1 March 1980
 * International Musician And Recording World, May 1980

Microphones
Virtually no first-hand information is available on the microphone setups used on Smallcreep's Day, but based on some available information the following microphones were identified. Including a comment about tom-tom mikes in a Recording Engineer/Producer forum discussion by Wyn Davis, owner of Total Access Studios where David Hentschel worked on Brand X's Manifest Destiny album in 1996.
 * AKG C34: reportedly a favourite at Polar Studios for drum overheads, stereo piano & vocals
 * Neumann U87 or U67: possibly used for tom-toms

Mixing consoles

 * Harrison 4032 (Polar Studios, heavily modified)
 * Helios 32/24 at Maison Rouge /w Allison 65k programmer (final mixes at Maison Rouge)

Tape machines

 * MCI JH-24 24-track (Polar Studios)
 * Studer A80 24-track (Maison Rouge)
 * Studer A80 2-track (Maison Rouge)

Outboard gear
At Maison Rouge Studios:
 * Allison Research Kepex noise gates
 * Audio & Design compressors/limiters (x2)
 * EMT plate reverbs
 * Eventide 1745M Digital Delay
 * Eventide H910 Harmonizer
 * Eventide FL201 Instant Flanger
 * Klark Teknik graphic EQ's
 * Lexicon digital delay
 * Marshall Time Modulator
 * MICMIX reverb
 * UREI Graphic Equalisers
 * UREI 1176LN peak limiters (x4)

Studio monitoring

 * Tannoy in Lockwood cabinets, driven by Crown DC-300A - Maison Rouge studios