BOB CLEARMOUNTAIN: Mixing David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”, designing Power Station, why he prefers digital

Speaker 1 (00:00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal Levi. Welcome to the URM Podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we're now on our fifth year, but it's true, and it's only because of you, the listeners, and if you'd like to see us stick around for another five years, there are a few simple things that you can do that would really, really help us out, and I would be endlessly appreciative. Number one, share our episodes with your friends. If you get something out of these episodes, I'm sure they will too. So please share us with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me and our guests too. My Instagram is at al Levi urm audio, and let me just let you know that we love seeing ourselves tagged in these posts.

(00:00:57):

Who knows, we might even respond. And number three, leave us reviews and five stars please anywhere you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, I want to thank you all for the years and years of loyalty. I just want you to know that we will never, ever charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way possible. All I ask in return is a share post and a tag. Now, let's get on with it. Hello everybody. My guest today is the one and only Bob Clearmountain, who's a producer, engineer, mixer, and musician that defies the need for introduction, but I'm going to give you one anyways. Bob's got two Grammys, six nominations, and an innumerable amount of billboard hits. He operates out of mix. This studios in LA and he's active to this day. It would probably be easier to list bands that he hasn't worked with, but in case you've been living under a rock, here's just some of them. Guns N Roses, David Bowie, Brian Adams, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Bon Jovi, nine Inch Nails, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you Bob Clearmountain. Bob Clearmountain, welcome to the URM Podcast. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 2 (00:02:24):

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:02:25):

My pleasure. I have a opening question for you, something that I've wondered about a lot because I've done about 270 of these now, and there's a common thread that I've noticed no matter what era, most of the producers who come on come from the common bond tends to be that they started by playing music and for some reason it didn't grab them enough, not the way that audio did for whatever reason. And I know that you started as a musician. What was it that made you want to go down the production path rather than the musician path?

Speaker 2 (00:03:03):

Yeah. Well, I did start as a musician. I was a bass player, but the biggest problem was that I kind of sucked as a bass player. I was in a bunch of bands as a teenager, and the last band that I was in, I thought, oh, well, this band really has a shot at doing something. And then it split up because of personality differences in the band. And I just thought, okay, I've had it with trying to keep a bunch of crazy musicians together. I was always really interested in the recording side. I was the guy with the tape recorder that would record the gigs and the rehearsals, so I was already well into that end of it, and I was intrigued by recording, and I always wanted to see what the inside of a recording studio looked like, and my last band was doing a demo at a studio called Media Sound, and I thought, well, I could just live in this place. I love this. And the other thing was that I have a bit of stage fright. I just didn't really like being on stage and performing in front of people. I didn't feel comfortable doing that. I really was more interested in being sort of behind the scenes kind of person.

Speaker 1 (00:04:10):

I think it's a certain personality type that's wired for the stage. Yeah, no kidding. What's actually interesting about doing these podcasts and the type of stuff I do with the online education is that producers are generally not into being in the spotlight as opposed to the musicians. So I've actually found it one of the biggest challenges has been to be able to get people to talk because it's a pretty common thing for producers to kind of take the Wizard of Oz role rather than the star role.

Speaker 2 (00:04:43):

Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, there's a few that crossover that do both. I think it's more often that a musician who is also more of an arranger and say writer will tend to become a producer, you know what I mean, than the other way around. Usually start out as a producer and then become a musician.

Speaker 1 (00:05:06):

I haven't actually heard of that happening. You said that you didn't like the drama of having to basically herd cats or a bunch of crazy musicians. Isn't that part of the production process too, having to deal with the personalities of everybody involved?

Speaker 2 (00:05:22):

Well, you bring up a very good point there and which is why I don't produce records.

Speaker 1 (00:05:27):

Okay, alright. Then

Speaker 2 (00:05:28):

I did produce, I produced like 25 records back in the eighties and I hated it. I mean, I finally realized why am I doing this? I don't like doing it. The only part that I really like was the rough mix. At the end of the day, it was difficult for me to, the psychology of dealing with musicians and trying to get them to do a certain thing. It was just uncomfortable for me, and so hence I'm a mixer. And so Exactly. You've just totally brought up that point.

Speaker 1 (00:06:00):

Well, I mean the cliche about a producer having to be a parent and a psychiatrist and a coach and band leader and fifth member, and I mean, it's pretty true. So I think if you're not that kind of person, it might not be your bag, really.

Speaker 2 (00:06:16):

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I never had my own kids. I have step kids, but that was just another thing. I never wanted to be a father really. Same here. Even though actually I love all my step kids, it turns out that I really do love my stepchildren. Yeah. I'm just not that personality. I'm more of a technical, I like being alone and just give me some faders and some knobs to twiddle. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (00:06:41):

That brings up a couple things, got my mind spinning because I think from what I've seen, and obviously your experience is completely different than mine that most mixers. Well, yeah. You start as a producer, they start as producers and then almost like that's the coveted spot. They work their way up to where they can be a mixer, but usually that takes quite a bit of time and it's the hardest part of the whole process in my opinion. As far as technical skills go. How did you figure out that that was your calling?

Speaker 2 (00:07:15):

So I started out as an engineer, really as a recording engineer, and then worked my way up to being a producer, which is what all my engineer friends said, this is what you're supposed to do. And then after that I realized the only part I liked about it was the mixing part, and that's what it was, just that every time I do a mix, I enjoyed it. And in the eighties it was the first time people were seeking me out just for mixing and I was producing. I said, well, this is interesting. Why are people just asking me to mix records besides producing? And I said, well, that works out just fine. My favorite part. And so that's kind of how that worked.

Speaker 1 (00:07:55):

Did you have any sort of mentor that helped yours, this something that you figured out by doing? Basically?

Speaker 2 (00:08:02):

I mostly figured it out. I mean, I should say at the studio where I started Media Sound, there were some guys there that I observed. I mean, it was like an apprenticeship back then. I was an assistant engineer. There was Tony Bon Jovi, who is of course John Bon Jovi's cousin, and he was an engineer and very unorthodox style, but he was a very good mixer and he knew about how to mix a hit record, and I used to just watch him. I mean, he never told me anything very much. I don't think. There was Michael Ug who was really responsible for hiring me there at Media Sound, and so he would kind of clue me in on a few things. There's another guy named Jeffrey Lesser who I credit a lot because we became really good friends. He was a really great engineer and a producer and sort of took me under his wing a little bit on a lot of the sessions.

(00:08:51):

I mean, I was a staff assistant, so they could just, oh, I like this guy. Can you put him on my session? That kind of thing. I really liked him because he was always into experimenting with new gear and things like that instead of just being happy with normal way of doing things. He pushed the envelope a little bit, which is what I enjoyed, but nobody really taught me. I think back at Media Sound, I mean we called it a band, but really it was a studio workshop. We called ourselves the Bats. It was me and three or four other assistants and engineers, and we come in on the weekends. Luckily the studio was mostly busy during the week, and they let us use the studio at nights and on the weekends sometimes, and we would just record ourselves. I mean, I'm the worst songwriter in the world, and so we wrote terrible songs. I mean, the stuff we did was awful, but the thing was it was great for us. We could do anything. We tried every mic on every instrument. The studio had a lot of instruments. We did most of the music for Sesame Street there, and so they had ponies and xylophones,

Speaker 3 (00:09:56):

Such fun,

Speaker 2 (00:09:56):

Glock and Fields sounds fun, and all this stuff besides a bunch of guitar amps and all kinds of stuff. And we would just try everything. We would use every instrument, and so we would learn and we could make mistakes. We could erase stuff by accident or whatever and do crazy stuff and figured out what worked and didn't. That's why we have a studio at Apogee now called the Apogee Studio, and I encourage the people at Apogee that are into recording because they design and built, use the equipment and sell it. I said, well come in and use the studio once in a while and get some experience, because that's how I learned. I was very lucky that we were able to do that.

Speaker 1 (00:10:38):

The era of the big studio in some ways is kind of over, but do you feel like maybe that environment is missing from a lot of young producers, upbringing, just the ability to have someone incredible to watch and toys to play with basically?

Speaker 2 (00:10:57):

Absolutely. No, I really do. And it was nice. A lot of the guys nowadays, if they're lucky enough to hook up with a great producer or a great engineer, but it's usually just the one person that they're learning from, and so they get focused on a certain specific way of doing things and they don't realize that there might be other ways. I was so lucky because there were several different engineers at that studio, and they all did things differently. There was one guy that was just into doing jingles. He was very good at what he did. He was brilliant actually, but he didn't really mind about what he let me pick whatever Mike I wanted. He wasn't concerned about that part.

Speaker 1 (00:11:37):

And he would still make it work.

Speaker 2 (00:11:38):

Yeah, he would say he would just trust me. I'd ask him. He goes, figure it out yourself. What do you think? And that was fantastic for me because every session, even though I wasn't engineering, I could try different mics. He

Speaker 1 (00:11:52):

Must have really trusted you.

Speaker 2 (00:11:54):

Yeah, I wasn't an idiot. What was he even

Speaker 1 (00:11:55):

Thinking? So would it be kind of like during the week you'd be working with these incredible engineers, kind of fly on the wall or doing what they needed, and then on the weekends you'd get together with the other assistants and almost try all those tricks out for yourself and whatever you could come up with?

Speaker 2 (00:12:15):

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And then once I started, they were great because they saw that I was taken to it really quickly and they would give me the COD sessions, just the real cheap, the clients that couldn't afford much money. And so they put me on those sessions and I just learned because I got to actually do sessions. I mean, she's the first session I ever did. The first full recording basic track session was with Kool and the Gang because the engineer, Tony Bonjovi once again, didn't show up. I got to record, well, two hit songs actually. Funky stuff in Hollywood swinging. How lucky was that?

Speaker 1 (00:12:50):

That's very lucky. But you know what, I hear that story a lot that so many people's opportunities come from somebody else not showing up or getting sick or something like that. They work at a certain place or in a certain environment as an underling, long enough, build trust long enough to where the main guy or the person originally hired, I don't know, his kid breaks a leg at soccer practice and he can't go to the session that day. I guess their skills happen to have developed to a point to where they can take the session over and then end up impressing who ever asked They save,

Speaker 2 (00:13:29):

Basically. Yeah, right. No, it happens. A lot of very talented people get their start that way, and I hope that it doesn't stop happening.

Speaker 1 (00:13:40):

I don't think it does. But I do think that you're right that one of the big differences now is that people will work under one person and just basically take on that person's one style after cooling the gang. How did it progress from there?

Speaker 2 (00:13:54):

Well, I was still an assistant engineer, so they would put me on as an assistant. Sometimes they'd give me sessions of my own, and after about two or three years, I wasn't really assisting much anymore. I was starting to actually gain some of my own clients, and we were doing a lot of RB records in those days, and I used to do some jingle sessions too, and went from there. And then when I finally gave notice, when Tony came along and said, oh, I'm going to build a new studio, which ended up being the power station in New York. It was after about five years I think I worked from, let's see, I was there 72 to 77, and in the summer of 77, I gave notice and they were really upset, and I had a couple clients really angry at me because I was leaving and they didn't want to, for whatever reason, I don't know, they didn't want to change studios. So that's how that happened. I mean, I didn't do any probably real big records. I mean, cooling Gang was pretty big. There was a Sister Sledge thing, there was a few other things. Benny King and then Power Station started, and then I helped Tony design it, and then that became the sort of focal point of recording in New York or on the entire East Coast. I think for a long time it's still there, which is really nice.

Speaker 1 (00:15:11):

How many years was it between when you first went to the studio with your own band and decided this is not for me being in a band part to opening Power Station? Five

Speaker 2 (00:15:26):

Years, five and a half years.

Speaker 1 (00:15:27):

Okay, got it. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:15:29):

It was 72 when the band split up. It was the winter of 72. I started working there in September of 72. I started, they hired me as a delivery boy, as a runner. I kept bugging 'em. I kept coming in and saying, look, you should hire me. You should hire me. So yeah, okay, well stop bugging us and come back in September because some of the interns will be leaving and you can work here as a runner. Great. Fantastic. So I come in, I do one delivery or two deliveries, I think in the morning I come back and the receptionist goes, Hey, are you that Clear Mountain kid? And I said, yeah, yeah, man, they're looking for you. You better get upstairs. They've been looking for you. You go, oh, great. I've been here an hour.

Speaker 1 (00:16:09):

This is ominous,

Speaker 2 (00:16:10):

And now I'm going to get fired. I've done something terribly wrong and I don't even know what it is. I go upstairs to, where have you been? I said, oh, I went out in a delivery. Oh, we don't need delivery boys. We need an assistant engineer. So get down to Studio A you, you're on a session with Joe in studio. Okay, yeah, fine. I walk in and it's Duke Ellington session just like that. Yeah, my first day. And so then it just went

Speaker 1 (00:16:33):

On from there. That doesn't sound scary at all. No, right, exactly. On the topic of it being scary, I think a lot of people would've frozen in that scenario. How did it feel trying to get this gig for a while thinking you're about to get fired, and then you walk in and you're on a legends session?

Speaker 2 (00:16:51):

Well, first of all, I wasn't the main. There was already another assistant, so I didn't really have to know much. I was just following him around and he was telling me what to do, like plug in those headphones or move that ashtray or get coffee or something like that. So it wasn't too nerve wracking. It was surprising. The biggest shock to me was Duke was overdubbing horns on a track they had previously recorded, and he had a horn section there, and he's screaming at the trumpet player, and he's like cursing at him. He's swearing at him up and down, and turns out the trumpet player showed up drunk. Whoops. And what was shocking to me, 19-year-old white kid from Greenwich, Connecticut was Wow, famous people swear. And so that's how naive I was. I had no clue, basically. And they also show up to sessions drunk, right? Who would do that? Who would think of that? But I was so impressed because Duke, I don't know if the younger audience knows who that is, but he's certainly legendary jazz musician and arranger.

Speaker 1 (00:17:58):

Yeah, absolutely. That's a pretty high standard to be basically initiated into.

Speaker 2 (00:18:04):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:18:04):

Did it kind sustain at that level or, I mean, you were talking about some of the COD clients, so was Duke Ellington or people at his level the norm that you were learning on?

Speaker 2 (00:18:17):

No, it was mostly people you wouldn't have heard of. I mean, the biggest was probably cooling the gang at the time because they were actually making hit records. There was some other sort of minor r and b artists. There was a guy named, was a guy from a band called The Main Ingredient, Tony, somebody rather, and he became a producer, and the main ingredient had two or three big r and b hits in the seventies. In the early seventies, he became one of my clients. Nothing that huge. I was just working away. And the only rock band I actually got to work with was a band called The Climax Blues Band, which had a little bit of fame in the seventies, British band. That's about it. There was probably

Speaker 1 (00:19:02):

More that I can't remember. I mean, five years is a stretch. Something interesting that you just said is that when you put in your notice decided you're going to go do the power station thing, a lot of the clients got mad and didn't go with you. It's surprising to hear that. I think nowadays bands will just follow producer wherever they want to go, that people switch studios all the time. Why do you think it was that they were not into leaving that place?

Speaker 2 (00:19:35):

Yeah, that's a difficult question to answer because it involves some of the personalities that were involved with the Power Station. I think that,

Speaker 1 (00:19:44):

Okay,

Speaker 2 (00:19:45):

Well, it was one client in particular. It wasn't like a bunch of 'em, but there was one or two. There were people involved in the Power Station that they didn't want to have anything to do with, wasn't Tony, people like Tony who was somebody else that I won't even talk about.

Speaker 1 (00:19:59):

Fair enough. We want you to go there.

Speaker 2 (00:20:01):

And I think that was part of it. And people just liked that studio. They liked the vibe of it, and they just didn't want to change. They didn't know what this new studio is going to be and whatever. I don't know, to be honest. I don't really know. I'm just guessing. And so don't anybody quote me, please.

Speaker 1 (00:20:20):

Okay, fair enough. No quoting. So then when Power Station was built and you're underway well into that, did any of those old clients end up eventually following you or was it basically all new clients, new Path, new Life, basically?

Speaker 2 (00:20:36):

It was pretty much new because when we designed it, I said to Tony, I mean, Tony was the main designer, of course, was his studio. I said, look, could we make it a rock studio? We had been doing nothing but RB records pretty much at media, and Tony was a king of the RB of disco music, and I said, could we do rock music? And he said, look, we could make it any kind of studio you want as long as people come. I don't care who it is, as long as they come and book it and pay for studio time. And I said, great. I kind of pushed the design in that direction. I was into Led Zeppelin and people like that and British Rock. I grew up listening to that kind of stuff, and so I wanted a big drum sound and that kind of thing, and so we sort of pushed it so we could do that.

(00:21:22):

So we could do both, actually. I mean, it was such a versatile studio. You could do really tight RB records, though our first client was Cheek and Sister Sledge and records like that. So there were RB records, and so it could do that, but it could also do Springsteen and Ian Hunter from Monte Hubble, which were more of a rock thing. We did a bunch of punk bands who did a punk band called Tough Darts, which was a favorite of mine from CBGB days. There was another Scottish band called The Zillows, which Tony and I produced, and another guy named Lance Quinn produced those two bands, and it was another band called Johnny's Dance Band. It was a rock band from Philadelphia. So yeah, it was all pretty much new. There weren't a lot of people that actually came from Media Sound in the later, the Stone and Springsteen, and that went on from there. Brian Adams,

Speaker 1 (00:22:12):

When you say you wanted to make it more of a rock studio, what was different? Was it a bigger drum room? But what were some of the specific things that you did in order to make it more palatable, I guess, to rock bands?

Speaker 2 (00:22:26):

That's a good question. I mean, having a big more of an ambient type room mainly. I always had Led Zeppelin. I always had to, wasn't Levee brake in my head? Geez, if I could just get something like that, that sounds like a rock record to me back then, and it still does, I think.

Speaker 1 (00:22:46):

Oh yeah,

Speaker 2 (00:22:46):

Totally. So I said, Tony, can we have the main room of studio A? Can it be somewhat ambient? And he said, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And what was so great is that it had that big ambient room, and then it had a semi ambient room that we called the keyboard rooms, like the piano's usually in there. And then the RB room, which was a real dead room, and they all had these sliding glass mall doors so you could separate 'em all off or make it all one big room. In the RB room, we actually had a plywood floor so we could nail the drums down to the floor. Sometimes when a drummer's really hitting the kick drum hard and it starts to move, well, we solved that problem by Big Nails.

Speaker 1 (00:23:30):

I mean, whatever works, right?

Speaker 2 (00:23:32):

And then it had another ISO booth next to the control room, so it had all these different areas so we could record a big live rock band and get really good isolation at the same time and an ambient sound, which even though the Rock studios like record plant, you couldn't do that. And record Plant was like recording in a closet was just completely dead, which is why Bruce Springsteen worked at Record Plant and then he came over to Power Station for the river and he went, wow, this is amazing. We got a drum sound in 20 minutes that would've taken us two weeks to get at Wrecker Plant, and we still wouldn't have gotten this

Speaker 1 (00:24:08):

Just because the room and the environment was that

Speaker 2 (00:24:11):

Good. Yeah, yeah. It was dead easy to get any kind of sound you wanted. You weren't fighting the room, and you had different choices of different types of rooms. So take your pick.

Speaker 1 (00:24:23):

I think a lot of people don't, or let's just say they underestimate the power of the room when it comes to drums.

Speaker 2 (00:24:30):

Yeah, no, I think so mean sometimes you do want a really dead tight sound. You don't always want that big ambient sound, but it's nice to have the choice.

Speaker 1 (00:24:41):

Yeah, absolutely. How did the word start to get out to where you could attract someone like Springsteen? It's not a small thing.

Speaker 2 (00:24:49):

Well, that's an interesting story because I was really interested in this band called The Tough Darts. It was a punk band, and so we got to produce them, the Sire record signed them, and they were interested in having Tony Produce bands for Sire. And Tony knew that I really liked these guys, and he said, here co-produce them with me. So we produced that album, but they were friends with a guy named Ian Hunter who had a English rock band called Mata Huble before that. The very early seventies. Late, yeah, well, early seventies. So Ian came over and helped them out on a couple of songs, did some overdubs and loved the studio, just fell in love with it. Back then it was only Studio A, we didn't have any other rooms yet. The rest of it was the building was kind of vacant, and he just loved it, and I think he liked working with me.

(00:25:42):

And so he went to do his solo album, which was called You're Never Alone With The Schizophrenic, and he hired some of the E Street band members. I like that name as his backup band. He had Danny Federici playing Oregon. Ian played piano, so he didn't need Roy and then Gary Talent playing Bass and Max Weinberg on drums. And so they just flipped when they came in and said, we got drum sounds, literally 20 minutes. They just loved it. So Bruce is about to start the river after that. And so they went to back to Bruce and they said, you just check the studio out. It's really good. I think you'll like it. So Bruce came over and we did the first couple songs in the river, and that was that. He stayed at Power Station and did the whole album there.

Speaker 1 (00:26:27):

Was he already huge at this

Speaker 2 (00:26:28):

Point? He was pretty big. This is after Born to Run and all that, and after The Darkness album. Yeah, this is the next album after the Darkness album. So yeah, he was pretty big. Everybody knew who he was.

Speaker 1 (00:26:42):

What's so interesting about that is doesn't change ever. I think that this is universally true across eras. I really, really believe that producers and studios mixers, they get gigs through word of mouth always. It's always because someone had a good experience and they knew somebody else who then talked about it to somebody else. And before you know it, somebody important is through the door. But it's amazing to me how that to this day hasn't changed that method of getting work.

Speaker 2 (00:27:14):

I think you're so right. I mean, it happened to me so many times because our first client at Power Station was Chic, obviously an RB disco band, and we got along great and we made some huge records and they were on Atlantic Records and the Rolling Stones were on Atlantic Records, and they had just recorded a song called Miss You, and they wanted a dance mix. They thought, oh, well, everything's into dance clubs and disco now, and we could probably do, maybe somebody could do a dance mix of this, an extended 12 inch dance mix. So they asked someone in Atlantic and they said, well, this guy, clear Mountain, has been doing some pretty great things with Chic. That's his thing, r and b, which of course my thing is really rock, so ironic. And so they let me do a dance mix. And then Mick loved that and he had me do the single mix as well. And so yeah, this is the same thing. It's just you do one thing and then somebody finds out about it and Oh, well, you should try this guy.

Speaker 1 (00:28:18):

Yeah, very interesting thing here is that you were recommended for doing the dance stuff, but really you're a rock guy. I think that getting, at least in the early days, I think that getting to work on genres or with artists that you actually are really into is the luxury. I feel like that's something that happens. You graduate to that point almost. I think that if people get too choosy early on in their career, they're seriously going to hamper their efforts because I don't know, I feel like you should take the opportunity where it comes, make the best of it, and then hopefully that leads into what you were actually going after yourself and rock and getting paid and getting

Speaker 2 (00:29:04):

Paid. Yeah, I still do that. I mean, I do records that, I mean, if it's something I hate, I won't do it. It's something if I hear something, I go, oh, geez, man, these lyrics are really revolting. Just won't. There's a lot of records that I would never think to buy. I do a whole lot of stuff, a lot of French records that are all French speaking. I've done some Spanish things too, and I'm pretty big in France, to be honest, and I would never think to buy one of those records. I did eight Johnny Holiday records Think, and I loved the guy well, until he passed away, unfortunately. But I loved working with him. I loved everybody involved, the a and r guy for most of those projects and for most of this French stuff, guy named Bertran. Lambo is one of the best a and r guys I've ever worked with. I mean, he's just brilliant. He's just really a good guy. He's become one of my best friends, but it isn't music that I would ever choose to listen to. I don't speak French.

Speaker 1 (00:30:09):

Would you have even thought of that as being a part of your career? French music?

Speaker 2 (00:30:14):

No. I never would've thought of it, but these guys call me up and they said, look, we think you could do a good job with our music. Johnny in particular, I think he was friends with Brian Adams, and so that's probably how that happened. And he was just a big rock fan, and so he was a fan of a lot of the records that I've done, like the Stones and Springsteen and whatever. But no, but I just really enjoyed making those records and mixing them. They were incredibly well produced and great musicians. I mean, they don't just use French, and the French musicians are amazing, but some English guys, some American people, and so yeah, it's crazy to sit there and wait for something that you like,

Speaker 1 (00:30:55):

Man. You never know where the opportunity's going to come from. I'm blanking on this dude's name producer that I can't believe I'm blanking on his name. But anyways, point being, this guy is a total hardcore metal dude. That's all he listens to. That's what he looks like covered in tattoos, just metal and hardcore to the bone. But he's got four Latin Grammys for Latin dance music.

Speaker 2 (00:31:21):

Really?

Speaker 1 (00:31:22):

He does not listen to that stuff at all, but for some reason there's something in his brain wiring that makes him very, very good at that kind of music. And if he had just said, I only want to do metal and hardcore, I don't think he'd have Grammys right now because honestly, his metal mixings kind of crappy, but his Latin dance stuff is incredible.

Speaker 2 (00:31:47):

Yeah, yeah. Well, there you go. I mean, I have a Grammy for Ricky Martin. Ricky Martin. That was far from anything. I far from Rocky, but the producer has become one of my best friends, Tommy Torres, who produced it and also was part of the video and one of the musicians, I do a lot of records for him. He's from Puerto Rico, part of the whole Miami Latin music group and just is amazing. He's just an amazing musician, amazing engineer too. I mean, the stuff that he records is incredible and a really good guy and just, I do records for him whenever I can.

Speaker 1 (00:32:26):

When something like that comes up, like a Ricky Martin who is like, we're saying You're a rock dude, that is the furthest thing from it. What kind of mental process do you go through to get into it? Is it the love of the craft? That stuff is always engineered, incredibly well written, incredibly well. Is it more you find something to tune into that you can make yourself love about it?

Speaker 2 (00:32:52):

That's it, exactly. I mean, I love the process. I really just love mixing, and it almost doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's fairly well thought out, and if it's a good arrangement, I don't know. I just like the process. You stop thinking about it. I mean, even work with somebody that I'm a fan of, say once you get over the fact that Mick Jagger just walked into the room, then he could be any client. He could be anybody that you're working with, and if he's professional and if he knows what he's doing and he doesn't particularly give you a hard time and you kind of get where he is going, he or she, I should say, it doesn't matter. You know what I mean? It doesn't matter if you don't particularly like the music or understand the music or even understand the language.

(00:33:37):

It's just becomes mixing and you just do the best you can. Hopefully you get to the point where you know what it should sound like. So there's a lot of talking to the sussing out, the artist or the producer or whoever it is you're working with to try to get into their heads as to what they want. I mean, a lot of these projects, I end up doing things that I wouldn't normally do, but I understand where the artist or the producer is coming from, and so that I kind of focus on that instead of anything that I would specifically want to do.

Speaker 1 (00:34:10):

What's your process for sussing that out, especially in a case like say The Stones where you know them as a rock band, you love them as a rock band, you're a rock dude, but they're coming to you for something that's kind of out of left field for them, and that's just one example, but how do you figure out that you're on the same page?

Speaker 2 (00:34:32):

Well, I kind of like to live in the left field, to be honest. I like it over there, and so throw me something that's different and that's when I get really excited. And so if it's not just a regular rock song or if it's more of an RB thing or if it's whatever, if some kind of combination of styles that just gets me more excited than anything. I mean, you can mix the same record over the same type of record and okay, I know exactly what to do with this, but that could be maybe just a little bit boring if it's always the same and everything's recorded perfectly well, sometimes my favorite things are things that are recorded badly because I can do more with it. I can really work on it and turn it around and make it sound like something else, something better.

Speaker 1 (00:35:21):

There's a lot more room for transformation that way.

Speaker 2 (00:35:24):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (00:35:25):

I think you're right. I guess I refer to Metal a lot. The world I come from. That's what I know. I can't talk about country. I don't come from that world, but one thing that happens with metal productions a lot is that they get very samey and a lot of dudes will start to burn out because there is a lot of variety in the styles, but there's some elements to it that are just very homogenous, and you kind of do the same thing, record after record after record. I know that that tends to wear on people after a while, like 11 months straight of doing bands of the same genre. They start to check out mentally, basically.

Speaker 2 (00:36:02):

Yeah. Well, I could see where that could happen, and I'm so lucky I get to mix on so many different projects. I mean, I just went from a Springsteen, it's funny because you're going to think it's, oh, well, it's the same thing because Springsteen and then it's Steve Van Zant, but they're totally different. I mean, they couldn't really be, their styles of music couldn't really be more different when they're on their own, when Steve's on its own. So that was really interesting. And then, God, I'm just so lucky I get to do lots of different styles of things, and it really helps. It keeps you not bored,

Speaker 1 (00:36:38):

And I think that that's so key. It's interesting though, because back to what we were saying earlier, you can't really be choosy, especially at the beginning. You got to go where the opportunity is, but at the same time, I think you need to protect yourself from getting bored. If you get bored, you're not going to do the work required to get as good as you could or to do right by the artists. So I think it's a fine balance of going with the opportunity, but also trying to place yourself to where the opportunities will be interesting to you.

Speaker 2 (00:37:12):

Yeah, would agree with that.

Speaker 1 (00:37:14):

Okay, so speaking about the left field thing, I understand what you mean by that. You like to live out there, but how do you know that your idea of left field is the same as the artist's idea?

Speaker 2 (00:37:24):

Well, I have to figure out what the artist is because the artist's idea of the left or whatever field he's in is far more important than mine. So I first try to figure out what that is and then try to relate my idea of what that is to theirs. But theirs has to be the dominant field, you know what I mean? It's their record. I'm providing a service. It's not my thing. It's not my mix. It's their

Speaker 1 (00:37:55):

Mix really. How do you figure it out? I mean, do they give you references or is it through conversation or

Speaker 2 (00:38:02):

Sometimes they do. Sometimes

Speaker 1 (00:38:03):

They'll play

Speaker 2 (00:38:04):

Something and say, oh, this is the kind of thing I'm looking for. Sometimes I'll ask them if I don't know them, if it's a new client. What records of mine were you listening to when you decided, oh, I want that guy. So that'll give me some idea of what direction to go in. And that will help quite often because usually it's something that I've done that they say, yeah, we like that. We want that kind of thing. Otherwise it's just, tell me something about this music. What do you feel about it? What's important? What's the thing going on here?

Speaker 1 (00:38:36):

Bob Rock said something really interesting after the Metallica Black album that every band wanted that sound for the next 15 years. Every band that would come in would want that, even though they sounded nothing like Metallica. There's nothing in common with them, but they just wanted the black album sound, and I know lots of people that happens to, usually when a producer or a mixer is kind of responsible for a change, like an evolution of a genre or something along those lines or is kind of spearheading of musical movement. There will be lots and lots of artists who then go to them for that sound, but sometimes they have nothing in common with what they're going after. So do you ever get it where someone will point out records that you did that couldn't be further away from what they do?

Speaker 2 (00:39:33):

Yeah, yeah. Or other records?

Speaker 1 (00:39:35):

So how do you reconcile that?

Speaker 2 (00:39:37):

Well, I don't know. I mean, just made me think of one example. Did you want to hear a little?

Speaker 1 (00:39:43):

I'd love to.

Speaker 2 (00:39:44):

Well, this one band, this guy comes in and plays me an ACD C record, which sounds fantastic. It was back in Black or something like that. And I mean, they're so straightforward rock band, and I just love that music and I get that, and then I put the faders up on this thing that he wants me to mix, and these guys sounded like they just graduated from jazz school. There was not a beat in the bar that wasn't accented. These fills were just flying around the room and symbols and all kinds of crazy stuff in a high hat. The guitar player just noodling away like crazy, like a million notes. The furthest thing from AC CDC, I know I looked at the guy said what all I could do is like, look, there's just no possible, there's a snowballs chance of this ever sounding anything even close to AC CDC, no matter what I do. You'd have to start over, and I would just be honest and tell them that if that's what you want, you're in the wrong place, man, and there's nothing I can do to get you there. I had another interesting experience that taught me a big lesson that's a little different. It's going off the track a little bit from what you asked, but

Speaker 1 (00:41:01):

That's okay.

Speaker 2 (00:41:02):

It's kind of a similar vibe where I had just finished mixing Avalon for Roxy Music, which is this big expansive, it's sort of a lush record and it's beautiful and wide and lots of big reverbs and delays and things like that. And so I'm mixing a band by an Australian band called The Vinyls, and so I got that in my head. I've just finished mixing that and I'm making it real sort of big and wide and Hi-Fi, these people are not happy. I could tell they're just not smiling and

Speaker 1 (00:41:37):

Just not feeling it.

Speaker 2 (00:41:38):

Well, we're mixing. And finally they said, listen, we need to talk to you. It is just not really working. You got to understand that we're not big and wide. We're like a little spiky ball. We're like a little like this, really uncomfortable. We're not big. We're very small and intense and rough and not refined in any sort of way. And I just went back and I listened to what I was doing. I was going, oh my God, they're so right. I got this so completely wrong. I had mixed two songs. I just threw it all out and it just started totally from scratch and totally got into exactly what they were saying, but the Little spiky ball, I thought that was a really good illustration of what this band was supposed to sound like. And then we got along great, and then the album came out great and they loved it and everything was really good, but they really put me in my place. And at the time I thought, okay, I'm the big guy. I just mixed these big records. I did Chic and Rolling Stones and Roxy Music, and I was really feeling full of myself and these two kids from Australia put me right in my place. It was great. It was the best thing that could have happened to me.

Speaker 1 (00:42:48):

Always serves as a reminder of what you said earlier, that performing a service for the artist that their vision is the most important thing.

Speaker 2 (00:42:56):

That's exactly right. And I try to make their vision. My vision is what thought is there?

Speaker 1 (00:43:01):

So what does Spiky Ball translate into when you're sitting there mixing? How do you translate the visual of a spiky ball into audio?

Speaker 2 (00:43:13):

Well, just rough sounding nasty. Not trying to dip out annoying frequencies like accentuating the annoying frequencies, and maybe you don't hear everything all at once. Maybe it turns into a, I'm always into this thing where, oh, you should hear all the instruments really clearly and separate. Well, then maybe they shouldn't be all clear and separate. Maybe they should all be kind of bunched together. It's just like a noise and don't make anything. I think, you know what I'm saying? I do. If you're into metal music, I'm sure you understand where I'm going.

Speaker 1 (00:43:48):

Yeah, the more raw sounding records where things step on other things and you get nastiness and the high end of the guitars and the symbols, and that's kind what came to mind for me.

Speaker 2 (00:44:02):

Yeah, harsh sounding, not pleasant sounding, right?

Speaker 1 (00:44:05):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:44:06):

And Bruce Springs seems like that too. I'll mix something that sounds too good, and he'll go, no, no, it should be rougher. It should be nastier. And more kind of, the guitar should be harsher or he won't even get that specific he he'll just describe it in some sort of a metaphor. That happens a lot with him.

Speaker 1 (00:44:27):

Do you find it refreshing when artists have that clear of a vision?

Speaker 2 (00:44:32):

Yeah. Well, I do. Absolutely. No, I hope they do, and it is better when they don't do it in any sort of technical way that they'll say, oh, you should add more 5K to the guitar, or something like that. I'd rather they just,

Speaker 1 (00:44:47):

That's your job.

Speaker 2 (00:44:48):

Yeah, exactly. I'd rather they give me an overall, some sort of metaphor or what they envision it sounding like. Not in specific technical terms, but yeah, you're right. That's my job. Let me interpret that into the mix.

Speaker 1 (00:45:03):

Does that happen now more than before, that you get backseat mixers basically, because I think it's pretty much true that in every single band in the world now, somebody has pro tools or cubase or something and makes their own recordings, and so probably think they know something about mixing. Do you find that you get a lot more of that ad 5K to the guitars, please, than you used to?

Speaker 2 (00:45:29):

No. No, I don't. I very rarely get that.

Speaker 1 (00:45:31):

No, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (00:45:33):

Yeah, I mean, it's really unusual. Most of the people that I work with, they're not like that unless I ask them specifically, but no, no. Usually they're pretty good. They'll just, they ceds that will just go more backing vocals and more horns, and that's usually

Speaker 1 (00:45:51):

Easy enough. And what about when an artist doesn't have a clearly defined vision? Is it then, in your opinion, your job to figure out what it might be or create it for them?

Speaker 2 (00:46:05):

I'll try to figure it out, and maybe I'll give 'em a couple different versions. I'll say, well, is this the kind of thing you're thinking? How does this feel? And if they go, oh, well, that's really not it. I'll try something else. Let's just try some different things until they either go, yeah, that's it. Or they fire me

Speaker 1 (00:46:21):

One or the other.

Speaker 2 (00:46:23):

Yeah, which happens.

Speaker 1 (00:46:24):

I mean, at what point do you realize, I guess maybe I'm not the right fit for this?

Speaker 2 (00:46:30):

Yeah. Well, I tell you, there was one person I was working with who I won't mention who it is. I tried to mix two or three of his songs and he just kept going back to his rough mixes. He had done everything in the box. He had done his rough mixes as he was recording, and he'd go, no, well listen to what I did on my rough. If you get it more like that. And then he kept doing it no matter what I did, no matter what I tried to do to make it better, he said, well, no, no. I think the kind of thing I was doing was I think that that's more the direction I want to be in. And I finally said, look, you've already mixed this record. You don't need me. Obviously, you're quite happy and I'm just trying to duplicate what you did and why would you pay me to do that when you've already done it? So we stopped.

Speaker 1 (00:47:20):

That's actually what I meant. Not exactly as please give it more 5K, but that scenario I have heard about and experience happening a lot because I think sometimes artists will spend way too long on their roughs and their demos and get way too attached and then kind of basically tank any potential that has for going further.

Speaker 2 (00:47:45):

That's right. That's what happens. They get really used to hearing it a particular way, and that's the weird thing about computers now recording in a computer where you can do that and you can just keep adding. You're really mixing as you're recording. A lot of times the way people do it, instead of just treating it as a tape machine mixing out a console and every time you bring it up, it's still a little bit different. Once you're kind of locked into this kind of mix that you have with a trillion plugins, and then somebody comes along and gets rid of all it like me, that turns all that stuff off and starts from scratch again. They go, oh, well, that doesn't sound like what I had. Yeah, okay, well, hopefully this will be better. Sometimes it's not. I don't know. I think it's better, of course, but

Speaker 1 (00:48:34):

Sometimes demo,

Speaker 2 (00:48:36):

It's a serious issue. Well, it's always occurred. I mean, people always did lock into their rough mixes even in the old days, but now it's even more so every time they bring up their session, it's the same exact mix, and then they just keep adding to that. They get really locked into it, and it's hard to avoid it,

Speaker 1 (00:48:54):

Really. Yeah, I was going to say, how do you get around that? I guess there's still some producers who like it to sound as close to done as possible, just faders up with nothing on. But I think that that is becoming increasingly more rare with as many musicians that can record themselves now.

Speaker 2 (00:49:15):

Yeah. I come across a whole lot of musicians that the first thing I'll say, look, man, I tried to mix this, but I can't get it to sound like anything and no matter what, so they're so happy to hand it over to somebody who can give them a fresh perspective on the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (00:49:32):

Man, that's how I would be. I used to play in a band and put out records and all that stuff, even though I could mix, I always took the budgets and used them to get somebody that I thought was better than me because why not? I always felt like there was somewhere that I couldn't reach on my own stuff, and when somebody else would mix it, I felt like it was doing the music justice to me. It was always a relief.

Speaker 2 (00:49:59):

Yeah, I bet.

Speaker 1 (00:50:00):

Yeah, because hard to see

Speaker 2 (00:50:01):

The forest for the trees when you're listening

Speaker 1 (00:50:03):

To absolutely

Speaker 2 (00:50:05):

Every single note that's on your recording, you want somebody to go through and go, no, this is no good. No. Turn this one up and turn that one down.

Speaker 1 (00:50:13):

And you get emotionally attached to things that kind of don't matter.

Speaker 2 (00:50:18):

That's exactly right. It

Speaker 1 (00:50:20):

Happens a lot. How do you deal with that when you have an artist that's very, very into ideas that don't really, really propel the mix forward, but are very, very strong headed about it, or actually potentially making the mix worse?

Speaker 2 (00:50:36):

I really have to default to what they want.

Speaker 1 (00:50:39):

Fair enough.

Speaker 2 (00:50:40):

I mean, I do. I could suggest things. I will suggest, well, what about this? And if they go, no, I don't like that. I like this particular thing up and that thing down. Okay, well, let's make that work, and I just figure out a way to make it work. That's all you have to think like they do basically is what I kind of said before, but I got to be a chameleon and turn what I want into what they want, not the other way around.

Speaker 1 (00:51:04):

Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast, then you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, URM Academy's mission is to create the next generation of audio professionals by giving them the inspiration and information to hone their craft and build a career doing what they love. You've probably heard me talk about Nail the Mix before, and if you're a member, you already know how amazing it is. The beginning of the month, nail the mix members, get the raw multi-tracks to a new song by artists like Lama, God Angels and Airwaves. Knock Loose OPEC shuga, bring Me the Horizon. Gaira asking Alexandria Machine Head and Papa Roach among many, many others over 60 at this point. Then at the end of the month, the producer who mixed it comes on and does a live streaming walkthrough of exactly how they mix the song on the album and takes your questions live on air.

(00:51:56):

And these are guys like TLA, Will Putney, Yen's Borin, Dan Lancaster to Madson, Andrew Wade, and many, many more. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, which is our collection of dozens of bite-sized mixing tutorials that cover all the basics as well as Portfolio Builder, which is a library of pro quality multitrack cleared for use in your portfolio. So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those of you who really want to step up their game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhanced, which includes everything I already told you about, and access to our massive library of fast tracks, which are deep, super detailed courses on intermediate and advanced topics like game staging, mastering low end and so forth. It's over 500 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed.

(00:52:50):

Enhanced members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes and fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills in your audio career, head over to URM Academy to find out more. It's something that you said earlier that I meant to inquire more about, but you're talking about Jagger coming in the room, and then once you get over the fact that it's Mick Jagger, then it's just another client. You're just doing work. Almost like in the military, when they say that when combat starts, the training just takes over. You're not thinking about it anymore. You're doing that thing that you do. I do think that it takes a certain type of person to not get freaked out by, I guess a star or someone that they really, really respect mostly they don't want to fuck up in front of them. Did you have those kinds of fears when these superstars started coming in?

Speaker 2 (00:53:57):

Well, at first you do. It's hard to not. I mean, I've worked with Paul McCarty, who when I was a kid, I used to have dreams about meeting Lenon and McCarty. They changed my life. This guy is responsible to literally changing my life and my haircut, and here I am sitting in the same room with him, talking to him. He's my client. And yeah, first you're kind of like, holy crap,

Speaker 1 (00:54:23):

This actually happening.

Speaker 2 (00:54:25):

But then you start talking about the music and you start discussing what he wants and what he wants to do and what he wants me to do, and then he gets to be like, he could be anybody. Really. You just forget about that. It's a client and every bit as important as every other client who is every bit as important as him. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (00:54:45):

Once that wears off, you're just doing the job.

Speaker 2 (00:54:49):

You're just doing the job. Yeah. Yeah. And it does. It wears off. It wears off really quickly. I find,

Speaker 1 (00:54:55):

Think that's probably part of what sets you apart. I think it wouldn't wear off that quickly for a lot of people. Understandably so. People, Paul McCartney are Titans. What was it like working with him? I have to ask, because he changed my life too. I used to have dreams about those guys as well.

Speaker 2 (00:55:15):

Right. He was really nice. I mean, he was incredibly nice to me. The thing was, it was a live album and so to be honest, he wasn't all that involved. He would just come over once a week basically just to listen to what I was doing, and it was just always nice. He'd come over and bring some of his friends and we'd listen to stuff and he was very appreciative of what I was doing. He was more concerned with, he would tell jokes between songs on the live shows, but there were 80 live shows that we picked from that. His engineer actually whittled it down to four or five performances of each songs, of which I would go through and pick what I thought was the best. But between each song during the show, he would kind of tell a little joke, and I remember there was one time, there was one joke that I didn't realize was a joke because the audience didn't react and he said, I thought he was just off the, that said something, and so I took it out of the running order and he went and listened. He goes, well, what happened to my joke? I told a joke there. I said, you did? Oh, the joke, it's, I go, okay, I'll put that back. But it was the same joke every time. Turns out I finally realized going back and listening to it, several different takes. Oh, I see. He told the same thing, right, that nobody reacted to. Okay, well I'll put it back in. And so I thought that was funny. That was interesting thing.

Speaker 1 (00:56:45):

It is.

Speaker 2 (00:56:45):

I don't think he does that anymore, to be honest. I've seen him. Back then the shows were pretty regimented and he didn't seem to, wasn't very loose. He had a certain thing that he always said, but I went to see him recently, just his last tour when he played here in LA and he's gotten way better to be honest, and it was very loose and it just very kind of really related to the audience and he was really funny. He doesn't stop. Yeah. No, he doesn't stop. He's just incredible. I mean, he really is. It's just a brilliant artist. I think one of the best bass players ever to walk the face of the earth as far as I would put his drummer. At the time, the tour that I did, his drummer was, he was okay. He wasn't great. He'd be singing and you'd solo his bass and the bass drum and it was like the same guy was playing the bass drum and the bass. It was absolutely locked. It was just amazing. And he would play all those melodies and things on his bass that forget it.

Speaker 1 (00:57:47):

Yeah. That's the thing that gets me about his bass playing is the way that he weaves melody in without it making it sound nly or out of place. Right, exactly. Because sometimes bass players, they'll just ruin things when they start doing that, but it always works when he does. It always

Speaker 2 (00:58:06):

Works, and sometimes it's like the main melody in some songs that you remember.

Speaker 1 (00:58:12):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:58:13):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:58:14):

If you had to analyze this, is there anything that you find that's common between all these mega star musicians? Like some trait that they all tend to share that you notice maybe other people don't have?

Speaker 2 (00:58:29):

Yeah, I don't know what a personality trait you mean?

Speaker 1 (00:58:32):

Yeah, maybe like a level of focus or,

Speaker 2 (00:58:35):

Well, yeah, there's that. Once you get to a certain point, it's a level of professionality. I don't really like that word very much, but what I'm getting at is that they basically know what they want, but they are open to ideas as well. So instead of just dictating everything like this is how it's got to be, okay, this is what I want. What's your idea? You know what I mean? They'll let me, or they'll let others suggest things and try to augment what the production or whatever it is, but they're still very clear about, okay, well I like that idea. Let's use that, but look over here. This is what I want to do and this is what we're going to do. So they'll be very firm about certain things, but still open

Speaker 1 (00:59:17):

To making it be as good as it could be.

Speaker 2 (00:59:21):

And everyone I work with, Bruce and Jagger and McCartney or whoever, it's Brian Adams, Brian Ferry, all these guys, Chrissy Hy, let's say. I don't know, I could go on well from the eighties of course because I'm old. But yeah, I think they're all like that. They're professional and open to ideas, but know what they want.

Speaker 1 (00:59:48):

Makes sense. So earlier you were talking about in the box versus out of the box. I feel like we should cover that a little bit because you're known as an analog guy. I mean, you had the plugin that came out. You do use Pro tools. Where in your mind, what role does the digital stuff play now in your workflow and in the big picture?

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):

Well, in my workflow, it's a combination of digital on an analog. I mean the, the Clear Mountains domain plugin is really a reflection of what I do mostly on the SSL using digital effects. The thing was that I realized to try to do a mix in the box using that signal flow that I use, which is a combination of reverbs, a bunch of different reverbs delays, harmonizers distortion, EQs to try to do all that in the box. It's very difficult. It's very easy to do the way I do it in the analog world. So we thought, well, maybe we could create a plugin where it makes it much easier if you're actually mixing something in the box to do all that stuff. My former assistant, Sergio Ellis mixes in the box and mixes in logic and pro tools, and he said to me, I tried to duplicate what you do, and it was really hard. I really liked the kind of effects you come up with and I just can't do it or I can, but it's just too difficult and too hard to do, and so that's why we did the plugin.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):

Some of the praise that I've heard from it from a lot of producers is that it's described as refreshingly simple for the high level of quality and the complexity of the chains that you can get going. It typically, those plugins that do a lot of different things tend to not always be wonderful. I've noticed. Typically plugins will do one thing well,

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):

Right,

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):

And then the more things you start adding, the less good they tend to get, sometimes, not always. The thing that I've heard the most about this one is that it kind of does everything well and it's super simple to use.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):

Oh, great. Well, that's nice to hear.

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):

Yeah, which is interesting because saying that to normally do that kind of stuff would be complex in the box. What is it about just if you were doing those chains scratch in the box, that would be hard. Would it be like the delay compensation or

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):

Yeah, well, just getting delays to feed into say Harmonizers or feed into each other so that you get that ping pong kind of thing, and to be able to control it easily and then feed those things into various reverbs with different amounts. Just being able to do all that easily. I mean, I don't really mix in the box, so I didn't know. I just thought, oh, well, why should that be difficult? I mean, it's a computer. You should be able to do that easily, and I went to try to do it and I gave myself a really bad headache and I went, oh, fuck this man who wants to go through this? This is like being in hell. I couldn't. I said, well, compared to what I do here, and just push some things up on some faders and twiddle some knobs there and oh, there you go.

(01:03:12):

It's simple. What do you mean? I worked really hard on, I kept adding stuff and taking stuff out and no, this has to feed here and this button's got to be really obvious what this button does. It's got to be really obvious what this little fader is for, and it had to be easy to get lots of different sounds. The presets, everybody talks about the presets, but I didn't really spend as much time on the presets as I should have. They should have been a little more extensive and hopefully the next version, I'll spend more time on the presets. My main thought, I don't really use presets normally of anything that I use. I very rarely use a preset in an even tied box, let's say. I'll just go in and fiddle around with it until I get this thing that I want. I wanted people to have something that they could be creative with, so I gave 'em presets so they had something to start with. My advice is, okay, start with a preset, but go in there and fool around with it and change it and turn it into your own thing. Be creative with it. It should be a creative tool. Shouldn't be something that you just slap on. No, no, my mix sounds better because I stuck this preset on it on my mix, and don't do that and start with that and then nest with it and come up with your own thing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):

Yeah, I think that that's one of the downfalls of modern mixing is the tendency to go towards presets, but I think if people do it the way you set it where it's just a starting point, it can actually be a really useful thing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):

Mixings fun. It should be fun. It shouldn't be torture. Here's the tool that now you can have some fun with it and you can come up with really bizarre sounds. Some things that probably won't work, but you keep playing with it and you'll find something, oh, well, this is actually adding a nice thing to this mix. I'm trying to put some creativity back in the mixing basically for just the normal person.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):

Speaking of starting from scratch, is there anything in your rig that is basically the same every time? Like certain routings to certain outboard, or are you literally going from zero total zero every time?

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):

Well, when I start a mix, a new mix, I normal at the desk first off, so there's really nothing, some routing things, I have some sends for vocal effects that I always have there, but they're not sending to anything until I start the mix. Some things like that that stay the same, my returns are pretty much coming back in the same place, but the only things that I usually start with, I usually do a parallel thing on the snare drum. If they're live drums, one side's going through this, it's actually a broken FET pull tech that I have here, EQP one a

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):

Broken in a good way.

Speaker 2 (01:06:03):

Well, yeah, I didn't know it was broken until they Apogee tried to model it and they said, Ooh, there's something wrong with one of the apps is defective in here. It's just broken, but it has a kind of sound to it, and so I use it on scenario drum. I like it's a little distortion, I guess 1178, half of 'em on 1178 and then into that thing on one channel, and then the other channel is just without that, and then I just EQ them. I actually use more EQ on the one that's not going through the pull tech and a parallel compression kind of thing, so that's one thing that I do a lot. Sometimes I just turn that off though if it doesn't work, I generally stick to piano through. I have this logic effects SSL compressor, which is just like the compressor in the console. Not always, but quite often the piano's going through that and a couple of Pul tech, EQP one A threes, and then the vocals are usually either going through an LA three A or 1178 acoustic guitars tend to put them through stressors. They seems like the best versatile compressor that

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):

It really is.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):

It's just amazing how you can, because hard to compress an acoustic guitar, especially if it's got some bottom end to it because they tend to fight compressors, tend to fight them. It seems like this is the only one I found there where you can mess with the attack and release and really tune into a specific type of sounding acoustic guitar where it actually makes it sound better without it sounding like it's fighting. You don't hear that sort of bouncing thing, but like I say, I don't do anything always. There's always situations where I won't do that. I'll listen to it. I go, Ooh, that's not really working, and I'll just turn it off.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):

So those are just some sometimes go-tos, but no rules really.

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):

Yeah. The base I usually have going through a knee 33 6 0 9 and see I have this Avalon 80, 20 55, which I just add a little bit of 72 cycles, just a tiny little bit. It does a thing, it adds some nice little bottom to it. Those are a couple things. That's about it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):

Do you have ideas for more plugins coming down the line?

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):

So it's becoming a thing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):

Yeah, there's some other things I want to do, some specific kind of patches that I do though I'll just combine them and turn it into one plugin. We haven't really done it yet, so I'm not going to talk about it too much.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):

Yeah, yeah, that's fine.

Speaker 2 (01:08:34):

We have this thing called Clear Mountain Spaces coming out, which is really just three of the reverbs and it's got a deser, so you can DS the input and it's going to be real cheap and I think it's going to be bundled with some other Apogee Apogee stuff. I mean all the reverbs are impulse responses that we captured ourselves. I mean, one of them is my live chambers here at my studio. One of them is the Apogee Studio, and then the other one is a NACO chamber that belongs to a friend of ours who is gracious enough to let us sample it or getting an impulse response.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):

So when you're coming up with a plugin idea, is it kind of like you have a feature list, I want it to be able to do this, this, and this, and then you'll work with the developer to make it happen, or will you model something and then try to get that to work in the context of a plugin? Where does the idea start for you?

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):

A lot of these things I actually don't think of it's other people. My assistant might say that's a pretty cool little thing that you're doing with the snare drum or whatever. That could actually be a plugin just on its own. I have some old pieces of gear here that I don't think anybody's modeled yet, which I'm not talking about because I don't want anybody to do it before I do, and some things like that. Maybe some settings on some reverb unit that I can try to model. I don't know. We are really just starting, obviously it's all through Apogee. It's my wife's company,

Speaker 1 (01:10:10):

Huge Apogee fan, by the way.

Speaker 2 (01:10:12):

Oh, great. Thank you. I'm talking in an Apogee mic, an Apogee hype mic right now, actually.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):

Well, I don't own any Apogee, but I've got a symphony, a duet quartet, and a one.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):

Wow, nice.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):

Whole range there

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):

Pretty much. I wasn't kidding when I said I was a fan. So it sounds like it's basically ideas that are kind of unique to your style that nobody else would really think of or pieces of gear that probably not many people own or really tweak the way that you do put into plugin form basically.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):

Yeah, and we'll see. So far I've only done the domain thing and we haven't done these other things. I mean obviously Apogee modeled my EC EQP 180 threes, which you can get now. I mean, they call it the one A because people like the look of the one A, they're identical. The one A three and the one A electronically are the same, but they actually used my Tex. It was funny because while they were doing that, I would come in and I'd go, Hey, what happened? What happened in that pole text? It used to be in my rack, and sure enough, it was over at Apogee. They were modeling it, and so I had to go without some pole techs for a month or so, a couple months actually. They took me a long time.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):

I mean, again, it takes a while to make plugins.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):

There's so much to it, and Apogee is their fanatics, so it had to be exactly perfect. Plus the fact that the guy that builds Pol text now, a guy named Steve Jackson at Pulse Techniques, we did it with him and they had to be, he had to approve of it because Apogee is the only one that can actually use the name EC on a plugin legally, although other companies do it, and Apogee is the only authorized Pol Tech plugins,

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):

So he's got to prove it. You've got to be happy with it, and Apogee has got to be happy with it. That's

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):

Right. Yeah, and we're all fanatics.

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):

Yeah, that's quite the panel,

Speaker 2 (01:12:06):

So it It's really got to be top notch and they are.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):

Well, I'm looking forward to checking out whatever comes out down the line. I don't want to take up too much more of your day. I do have a few questions from listeners. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of them?

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):

Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:12:21):

People were very stoked that you were coming on.

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):

Oh, nice. Thank you. People.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):

Here's one from Ted Swan. Do you continue to use the drum samples that you made and released almost 30 years ago? I sure do. They're awesome, especially the basketball. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):

Really, basketball, great. Occasionally. Yeah, I do once in a while. I mean, to be honest, I try to avoid snare samples because unless I really have to, unless there's a real problem with a snare drum, I will not do that. I'll just try to compress it or EQ it or do things to it. Bass drum, sometimes I use a couple of those bass drums. I have a bunch of other samples that I use too that I've created myself, sort of my own private collection once in a while. I do. There's some pretty good things in there. The symbols I use quite often when we have to add symbols to something, things like that, tambourine, some the percussion,

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):

So even 30 years later, there's still relevant to your workflow at times?

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):

At times, yeah. I mean, not real often, but yeah, I mean, I'll use those before I'll use anybody else's, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:13:31):

Fair enough. Here's one from Alex Estrada. He actually has two. Number one is what was it like working on Let's Dance by David Bowie?

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):

Oh, man, that was so much fun. I can't even tell you. First of all, NAL Rogers, just working with NAL was always fun. One of the funniest people I've ever met I've ever worked with, and just a great guy and an incredible producer. Bowie was just probably the best singer I've ever worked with. Don't tell Mick or Paul, don't

Speaker 1 (01:13:59):

Tell any of the other singers

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):

Or Brian Adams or Brian Ferry or Darrell Hall. Don't tell any of them. I said that he was remarkable. I mean, he definitely liked the man who Fell to Earth. Where did this guy come from?

Speaker 1 (01:14:13):

Oh, he was a phenom.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):

Yeah, he was really an amazing talent. I mean, I can't say enough about the respect I have for that man, and the thing is the whole record took three weeks to record and mix, which is pretty amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:14:29):

That is fast.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):

Yeah. Well, he had booked three weeks, not even weekends, just weekdays. I went a power station. I looked in the book, I said three weeks to do a whole record, and so I put two more weeks on hold, which we never used. We finished it in three weeks. It was unbelievable. First takes that guy just first take for everything. It was great.

Speaker 1 (01:14:53):

Do you think that it's just because of the level of ability and vision that it was possible to get done that quickly?

Speaker 2 (01:15:00):

Yeah, well, between those two guys and the musicians were just top notch as well, and so you had Omar Hakeem and Tony Thompson and Carmine Rojas and Bass, and these guys are just unbelievable, and I'm probably leaving people out, which I feel bad about. I don't mean to, they know you love them, but yeah, they were all brilliant and the arrangements were just so good now, such an incredible arranger. The songs were great, obviously, and not only that, but when it came to the mix, they pretty much let me do whatever I wanted, which was nice, so it was really fun to mix that record really quick.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):

Speaking of arrangements, do you think that a great mix is dependent on a great arrangement?

Speaker 2 (01:15:47):

Oh, yeah. I absolutely do. I've tried to mix records that were poorly arranged and I've been very frustrated if the arrangements isn't halfway decent, I mean, there's certain things you can do. If something's over arranged, you can take things out, but if it's just badly arranged, things are conflicting with each other. If there's newly the too many, sometimes there's the too many melody things, like you'll have a guitarist doing one thing and a keyboard doing something, and then you have a vocal melody on top trying to be on top of all that, and it just won't work. Sometimes it can work, but it's hard to make that kind of thing work where you have too many things going on, and so yeah, in a nutshell, you're right.

Speaker 1 (01:16:32):

Something I've noticed that I think is interesting when you take a mixer consistently does incredible work that people are fans of, and then something will come out that they do and it's just not on par with everything else that they did. People will be like, did they lose it? Typically what I've noticed is I'll listen and I'll notice the arrangement is fucked up, and it's probably a miracle that they got it to sound as good as they did in the first place.

Speaker 2 (01:16:59):

Yeah, right, exactly. That can happen.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):

You never know what the mixer has been given to work with.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):

That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):

Alex Estrada's, second question is, what tasks from the past have you been happy to wave goodbye to with the developments in technology over the years?

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):

I think editing multi-track tape with a razor blade, I'm glad that I don't have to do that anymore. It was really hard to do. In fact, I enjoyed doing it when we had to do it, but it was destructive, and so if you didn't like the way it came out, you had to put pieces back. You were dependent on this little piece of splicing tape to sometimes it would come apart. I remember with Brian Adams, we'd have drum fills on pieces of two inch tape stuck up on the walls with some kind of little description written in white China marker on the thing, and then we'd have to assemble all that and Brian Adams would do this thing, which I really loved, where he'd have an idea for some sort of edit and I'd spend two hours editing this thing together, a multi-track, and I'd be like two minutes away from playing it and he'd go, no, no, I got a better idea. Let's just put all that back the way we had it, and then I guess I got completely different idea and I go, oh, Craig. Yeah, thanks, man. So I'm glad that went away.

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):

Just out of curiosity, back in those days when you would have the fills stuck on the walls, were you thinking hopefully one day there's a better method or doing this?

Speaker 2 (01:18:32):

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:33):

Sometimes when you're living in an era, none of us are psychic. We don't know what's coming next, so we just accept things for what they are, the technology for what it is. But even then you were thinking, man, I hope this improves.

Speaker 2 (01:18:47):

Yeah, I did. Not only that, but just the analog tape, I mean, there's going to be a lot of people that violently disagree with me, but analog tape, I mean, I remember times when I'd be, especially with Chic and some of these other Brian Adams, people like that where I'd be the only one in the control room and the whole band would be out in the studio recording a basic track, and I'm sitting there in the control room thinking, man, this sounds fantastic. This is the best thing I've ever heard, and then we'd play it back and it still sounded pretty good, but it was kind of like not as good, not quite as good, not quite as present, and a little bit just ever so slightly kind of behind the speakers as when they were playing it and I was listening directly through the desk.

(01:19:30):

It was in front of the speakers, and I always thought, Jesus, it's a shame that there isn't a way to record something that sounds like that. When I play it back, it sounds like what I heard when they were playing it because it was always a bit distant and then digital came along. At first, digital sounded kind of harsh, but it was kind of better in some ways, but it was a little bit gritty sounding, and then Apogee came along and figured out why that was happening and fixed that problem. I just think digital just sounds better, and I think analog tape, as much as there's been an incredibly great piano music recorded on analog tape, I think compared to digital, it's the worst thing. Analog's the worst thing you can do to a great piano sound.

Speaker 1 (01:20:16):

I think that a lot of people don't realize that with analog, a lot of the greatness was despite the analog tape, not because of the analog tape.

Speaker 2 (01:20:27):

Yeah, absolutely. People, oh, I like that warm bottom. Well, you know what that warm bottom was? It was the leakage between the tracks.

(01:20:36):

There was all this bottom end that would migrate between the tracks, so you have a base next to a tambourine. Well, all that bottom is really coming from the tambourine track and it built up over a 24 track tape, or it wasn't as bad as on 16 track. Actually, you didn't get as much of that, but on 24 Track, you would get this sort of bottom end buildup and it would make the bottom end muddy, which a lot of people like. I didn't like it because to me, I could never get a clear enough bass sound until I started to record digitally and being a bass player was important.

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):

It sounds to me like you want the low end that's there to be the low end that you want to be there, not a low end that's there by accident.

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):

Well, I don't want the recording medium making decisions about what it's going to sound like. I want to be the one making those decisions

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):

Makes perfect sense to me. Okay. This one's from Pedroza, Mayo Garcia. Hello, Bob. First of all, let me tell you, thank you for all that you've given to music through the years. Your work is really inspiring, unique. Well, thank you for saying that. In Excess Kick redefine the spirit and feel of the band. Was that something that came out during the mixing process or was it built into the production delivered to you? In any case, what was the main goal that you and the band had established for that record? What was your vision and did you feel that the album was going to be so relevant to music history?

Speaker 2 (01:21:59):

Well, first of all, I'd love to take all the credit for that record, but I can't mean it was produced by a brilliant guy named Chris Thomas who did a brilliant job of it, and they were an incredible band. I was lucky enough to be the guy that mixed it, to be honest. I think it would've been a great record no matter who mixed it, but I think I might've helped a little bit, at least to realize the band's vision and Chris's vision and sort of take it up a notch. At least. I like to think that, but that was just a great record. I mean, that was the peak of that band. Michael Hutchins was just an amazing singer and a really smart guy too. They were all brilliant people, just great musicians and just a fun band to watch too, if you ever went to see them. They were just really good performers. It all came together for them on that record, and I mean, I was glad to be part of, it

Speaker 1 (01:22:52):

Sounds like one of those scenarios where everybody involved in the project is just in the right frame of mind and the right level of development of their skills with the right compatibility with everybody else that they're working with that allows magic to happen basically.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):

Yeah, I think so. I was a big fan of Chris Thomas because he worked with the Sex Pistols and the Pretenders, and he had made some amazing records. I mean, it was just a brilliant producer. It was so much fun for me to work with him, and I was a big fan of In Excess before that, and so the whole thing was just a fun thing for me to do.

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):

What level of involvement would you have with a producer back in those days, or even now when you have basically a genius producer with a genius band and a very important record? Is this something where you're interfacing with the producer a lot or are you left to your own devices, or is there no real set way that it goes down?

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):

There's no set way. I don't think it's always different. Of course, Chris Thomas and I were lovers. I mean, no, just kidding. Just a joke, but no, I mean, sometimes you have stronger relationships with some artists and producers and sometimes not, and sometimes some artists I never even meet. There's a lot of the French artists that I've never actually met. I've just mixed their records. That happens quite often. It's nice when artists actually come here. It doesn't happen as much anymore. Mostly everything's online.

Speaker 1 (01:24:25):

So you actually attended mixes?

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):

Oh yeah, I do. Yeah, because I like to get, the more feedback I can get from the artists, the better I feel about when I'm doing, it steers me in a certain direction, which I like that with Springsteen. He's in New Jersey and I'm in California, and we do it all online, but we do it on FaceTime and I stream to him live, and so it's almost like he's just sitting next to me, which is great, and I've obviously known Bruce since the late seventies, and so we have a pretty good relationship

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):

From Russ. Mueller says, this question is about desing. Bob, thank you so much for taking the time to share your knowledge with us and for your many contributions to music and the art of mixing. I wanted to know your philosophy behind Desing. I've read interviews where you talk about duplicating the vocal to a second channel on the SSL in order to process it and feed it to the dynamic side chain on the main vocal. That seems straightforward enough, but I noticed that on your domain plugin, you've got DSRs in all kinds of places in the effects chains. Can you talk a little bit about the evolution of your approach and how you apply Desing these days?

Speaker 2 (01:25:32):

Alright, well, as far as in the plugin, something happened years ago. I was working on a Brian Adams record. He always liked to hear, it was either a quarter note triplet or a dotted eighth or something like that on his voice. He kind of liked that and I liked it too. It worked really well on his particular voice and then this one song we were doing, we noticed, he noticed actually that he was hearing the yeses come back. It was a rock song and you didn't really hear the delay that much, it just blended in, but that s whatever hit E was sibilant. Whenever it was a sibilant phrase or word, you'd hear that come back in the delay, and it was annoying because it was kind of not really in time and it was kind of distracting really. And I said, oh, geez. Well, I know how to fix that.

(01:26:23):

I'll just stick a DSR on the center of the delay and fixed it. So I thought, well, this is really good for long delays. I'm just going to do that from now on. And so it just became part of my chain there for my delay sense, and I thought, well, when I did this plugin, let me just add the deser so that you can do it or not. You can turn it on it or off. You don't need to use it. If it's for a guitar solo, you wouldn't need a deser. Obviously, it gives you a little more space in your mix if you're using delays, if you're using long delays. The delay should be subtle. It shouldn't really be something that jumps way out normally, and that sort of sibilant sound can be an annoying part of it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:04):

Absolutely. Jack Hartley says, Bob, your snares are gargantuan. Could you explain what the process of triggering samples and reinforcing drums was like before digital audio made it so simple and did you encounter resistance to it from

Speaker 2 (01:27:20):

Artists? It's funny because in early on Reckless album, I guess for Brian Adams, it was a certain sound we wanted to get for snare drum. We were into the snare drum back, that was the big thing in the eighties, and so I remember we drove to White Plains because there was a Sam Ash. I called all these different music stores and they actually had one of the last Ludwig, black Beauty six and a half inch snare drums in stock. That's

Speaker 1 (01:27:43):

A great snare.

Speaker 2 (01:27:44):

The two of us drove to White Plains from Manhattan and bought the snare drum and brought it back and used it, and then I used it on almost every record. It was just the perfect sound. So that was one thing, and I would always tune in the Let's Dance album. That was one of the frustrations for the Let's Dance album for Bowie is that normally when you do a take and then the band will come in and listen and then figure out what they're doing wrong and then go out and do another take, and while they come in and listen, I'd run out and touch up the tuning and the drums

Speaker 3 (01:28:13):

Because

Speaker 2 (01:28:13):

I always tune the drums Power Station. I bought all the drums. They're all Ludwig kits. I would tune them and I'd replace the heads. I'm not a drummer. I was just into the drum sounds. I taught myself how to tune them.

Speaker 1 (01:28:25):

That was my next question, how did you learn?

Speaker 2 (01:28:27):

I just taught myself how to do it, messed around with it. Oh, well, this works, and that doesn't just mixing, but the thing was that that album, there were mostly first takes, and so I was really frustrated with the drum sounds I was getting, so I ended up overprocessing most of the drums on that. It worked out anyway, it sounded pretty good. I think I was just really into just recording the drums properly and getting 'em tuned, so that was the main thing, and then later on we started to have sampling. That kind of helped too and got into, I had all kinds of different techniques for doing it. Back in the old days before digital workstations, that could be a bit tedious, but at work,

Speaker 1 (01:29:11):

I guess the reason he was asking if you encountered a resistance to is because nowadays oftentimes, especially in heavy music, you will get bands who come into a recording saying no samples on the drums.

Speaker 2 (01:29:23):

I mixed the Guns N Roses album, and they got really upset when they found out I was using samples and they were really pissed off at me, and I was like, what? Really? So the resistance isn't new? No, it's not new at all. In fact, there's a lot less resistance nowadays with people that I work with. In fact, people tell me, oh, why don't you put a sample on that thing? It was funny with that Guns N Roses record because the drummer, he could hear it that there were samples. He goes, whoa, nice sample, and you got in a snare drum. That's great. That really made it better, and yet Axel Rose samples. What do you mean samples?

Speaker 1 (01:30:00):

Not feeling

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):

It? You can't put samples on our music. All right. Whatever. Sorry, man.

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):

Axel wins.

Speaker 2 (01:30:07):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:30:08):

Yeah, so it seems to be how things go. Okay, two more questions. This one is from Nicholas Ky. First off, thanks for mixing three of my favorite records. Out of all your work, what are you most proud of and what was your favorite thing to work on? That's kind of a tough one.

Speaker 2 (01:30:29):

Yeah, it's really hard too. I've got so many favorites. Amy Mann's first solo record called Whatever was one of my favorites. It was so unique sounding and the songs were really good. The crowd of House Records, all three of 'em were really good. I thought I was really happy with those. Avalon for Roxy music. That was pretty special for me. Of course, born in the USA was just, it was a great record, and working with Bruce is always fantastic. I always learn a lot from working with him, and it sold 20 million, so that was pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (01:31:01):

Yeah, I can't argue with that.

Speaker 2 (01:31:03):

Right. What else did Brian Adams records? I mean, Brian became, he's one of my best friends. I mean, we worked together before anyone knew who he was. We kind of developed a relationship, and I always enjoyed those records. I felt I was a big part of them, of the sound. He kind of let me do what I wanted with the sounds, so some of those records, especially the third one I did with him, which was called Into the Fire, was my favorite as far as just the way it came out, just the way it ended up sounding.

Speaker 1 (01:31:34):

That must be a really good feeling, being friends with an artist, working with them when they're unknown, and then experiencing them experienced true success through the work you did together.

Speaker 2 (01:31:48):

It really was. We're still good friends, even though I still think he's an asshole, but we're still good friends in spite of it. I'm sure he thinks the same of me.

Speaker 1 (01:31:58):

I was about to say, I know plenty of people I'm friends with who know I'm an asshole, so it happens. Alright, last question from Cody Blakely. What would you say separates amateur mixes from professional mixes, in your opinion?

Speaker 2 (01:32:12):

Of course, it all depends on what the music is, but I'd have to say things getting in the way of the vocal of the lyric of the song or what the song's about. If the vocals too crowded with other stuff and you get distracted from what the song is about, that's not a good thing. I think one of the other things, just a pet peeve of mine, which, and this isn't really that thing about the vocal, I think it's important for a pop record, something that's based around the vocal or around the song, that the song actually comes through and it's not distracted by the instrumentation, but a pet peeve of mine is when you hear a rhythm track that's like bone dry and then the vocal is in the Grand Canyon. You know what I mean? It's like the vocals in this place that's got a ton of reverb and delays on it. Okay, well what is this picture? Where is this place where the band is right up front, but the vocal is way the back and some kind of crazy cave? To me that doesn't work. It just bothers me when I hear a record that sounds like that, but that's just my own opinion. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I just don't like records that sound like that.

Speaker 1 (01:33:25):

So you feel like it has to have a cohesive kind of sound to it,

Speaker 2 (01:33:28):

Some kind of cohesion? Yeah. The vocals have to somehow relate to the music in an audio way, and they got to be in context with each other. It's got to make sense. I won't go in and say, okay, that's a perfect sound on the guitar, but if it doesn't work in the rest of the mix, then I got to change it. Everything relates to each other in a good professional mix. Each sound can't sound good just on their own in solo mode. They got to sound good together. It's got to work somehow together. That makes sense.

Speaker 1 (01:34:02):

Yeah. I think what's interesting about your answer is sometimes when people talk about this idea here, they'll give technical things, which I think is kind of weird because the technical details will change from mix to mix song to song. But what you said really resonates with me because really ultimately what matters more than the message of the song and the intent of the song getting through, I don't think anything matters more than that.

Speaker 2 (01:34:31):

That's right. Yeah. It's not really a technical thing. It's a conceptual thing and a perception known thing, the way you perceive a piece of music.

Speaker 1 (01:34:40):

Well, Bob Clearmountain, thank you so, so much for taking the time to talk to me and sharing your insight.

Speaker 2 (01:34:48):

Alright, my pleasure. Great questions, and thank you for the other people that wrote in some questions and I appreciate all those as well.

Speaker 1 (01:34:56):

They're very, very, like I said, very, very stoked that you came on as was I.

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):

Great.

Speaker 1 (01:35:01):

Well, this is fun. I agree. Thank you very much. Okay. Then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends as well as post them to your Facebook, Instagram, or any social media you use. Please tag me at Eyal Levi URM audio, and of course, please tag my guests as well. Till next time, happy mixing. You've been listening to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. To ask us questions, make suggestions and interact, visit URM Academy and press the podcast link today.