skills and hard work. Offord would become a key figure in the band's history in the 1970s as their producer and live sound mixer. The group continued to follow their early musical direction of performing original material and rearranged cover versions of songs by pop, jazz, and folk artists. They followed the same format as Yes: an album of eight tracks with two covers. A discussion amongst Squire, Anderson, and Colton during the writing process led to the decision of incorporating orchestral arrangements into some of their new songs. Anderson wished to use an orchestra as their new ideas needed additional sounds. He observed that Banks and Kaye had not worked together to create a strong sound that their new arrangements required. To attempt to solve this, the group discussed using a Mellotron and tested one out, but the idea fell through. Instead, a brass section of session players and a string section formed of students from the Royal College of Music were hired to perform arrangements written and conducted by Tony Cox. Time and a Word was met with "Yes-style controversy", as described by band biographer and reporter Chris Welch. Banks became the most outspoken member over his issues surrounding the album which began the strain on his relationship with the rest of the group. He did not support the idea of an orchestra and thought it merely followed what rock bands Deep Purple and the Nice had already done. He argued it merely played parts originally written for the guitar or organ, leaving his active participation to the album a minimum or his guitar buried into the album's mix. Banks also disagreed with the decision to have Colton produce the album and claimed that Colton lacked the experience and personally disliked Banks and his playing. Colton's ability was also questioned by Squire, who recalled one incident during the mixing of "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed", by which time Banks' replacement Steve Howe had joined and attended; Colton mixed the song using "a crappy pair of cans that did not reproduce bass", rather than using the studio's monitoring equipment. Colton asked for more bass, but Squire and Howe noticed that the bass levels on the monitors were already high. In 1995, Offord said that he too thought Colton had not been the right person to produce the band at that time. The album's six original tracks are credited