Bob Clearmountain (Mix Engineer and Producer): Breaking into the Music Business

all right so my name is Darren if you guys don't know me I am the course director for advanced session recording and we have a crazy honor today too you know Bob hates it when I say that but the you know pretty much the Godfather a mixing I mean he is by far who most professional mix engineers have analyzed tried to figure out what he did listen to and and just you know we're in awe and so you know I could sit here and read out some some credits of what he's done you know we can pick on the big ones like Bruce Springsteen the Rolling Stones you know stuff like that but I figured I'd do a little trick that Bob doesn't know we're going to do here and I need a little a couple of you guys as an assistant so if a few two guys can kind of come right here on the end and what I want you to do is you're gonna grab just that very top edge right there and kind of hold your hand out flat this is what we're doing here it's very slowly very gently cuz this is a so we're gonna keep going here yeah actually might need some support in the middle here if you guys can kind of we're gonna keep going no we're gonna keep going here I thought we were gonna be done now we're gonna keep going so Bob didn't know I was gonna do this I'm still going Bob just so you know okay so when I tell you guys what an honor you guys have to have somebody like Bob Claire Mountain here to talk to you and if anybody wants to just anywheres on that list read out a big name they start back all the way back you know with you know chic Sister Sledge all the way up through you know Nick Acosta we're gonna talk about a little bit today it is everything between INXS you know the list is endless of stuff so with no further ado and you guys can kind of keep that as party favors and I'm going to bring up Bob clear mountain and Sergio his apprentice [Applause] hi everyone is that double spaced or single spaced I thought you'd like that's funny that's really funny so what we're gonna do is we're gonna I'm gonna kind of take you guys through a little journey with Bob we're gonna go right back to the beginning work our way through obviously with this much of a body of work it's gonna be a pot we would I mean I would love to be here and I'm sure a lot of you guys would love to be here and go over all these records but we're gonna kind of hit some key points of songs we're gonna talk about you know what the business was like then what the business is like now we're gonna go all the way up to what he's doing now his studio we're gonna see Sergio here is been with Bob for five years and I'm gonna call Sergio an apprentice versus an assistant and I kind of want to talk to sergio a bit about how you know you know what does it like to work with with Bob first off and his interaction Bob and Sergio both have a very strong affiliation with the apogee studios so we'll talk about the relationship with that and apogee gear overall so if you guys are ready I'm gonna ask Bob his first question where did it all start okay well I was I was a bass player kind of not a great bass player meat kind of mediocre and in a band just as a teenager and we were recording a demo and his studio called media sound in New York and the lead singer was friends with the diss engineer named Michael Dell OGG at that studio and so he was kind of producing our demo and that these two guys were out songs together so in the middle of recording of doing the demo after a couple of sessions the band split up because the hate to say this but the guitar player was messing around with the lead singers girlfriend nobody's ever heard of that rock bands and I thought enough of uh I love musicians but I'm not gonna depend on them for my my livelihood so anyway I started hanging around the studio and got to know everybody there Michel de lug was became a good friend and I kept coming back every couple of weeks and said you know you guys should hire me because I I think I'll be good at this I was always the guy in the band recording the rehearsals and the gigs on my little stereo reel-to-reel and so finally I said okay come back in September well we're gonna need somebody then and you can start in the shipping department as a runner great fantastic so I come back I report to the shipping department and they they send me off on a delivery okay cool this is cold September and New York is having a great time I'm gonna learn about the city I'll probably do this for two three years I come back and the receptionist is uh hey are you that clear Mountain kid yeah you better get up the office they're looking for you you know they're looking all over for you I go well my first day I've been here an hour and I'm gonna get fired I go up there and they they said where have you been I said I went out in the delivery get down a studio a we don't need any delivery boys we need an assistant because they had interns during the summer and one of the interns was an assistant and he left to go back to school and I was quick so uh I was 19 and so I walk in a studio a and the my first session as an assistant engineer is Duke Ellington which I know how many people know people remember Ellington is today we're gonna know you and I had never met anyone famous at 19 years old in my life you know and so I was like wow this is scary and not only that but so the Duke is doing he's doing horn overdubs he's got it as low just a horn section and he's yelling at the trumpet player like oh wow what's going on the cello flyer showed up drunk to the session so Duke is pissed off and any swearing at the guy and I thought some nineteen years old it's a fret I didn't know this is how naive I was and how times have changed I didn't know famous people swore because on television no you never saw that you'd ever heard it you know these guys now so the studio that you were at there the room was a very almost like Church views kind of yeah big lives yeah one of them yeah yes yeah so maybe explain a little bit about you know the assistants job back then what were like what was your real I mean were you setting up mics all the time were you you know how much were you involved with the session yeah well you'd set up the whole thing the engineers rarely even went into the studio you just set up all the mics all the headphones and the music stands and and everything I mean the the more progressive engineers would kind of help you in a little bit and say oh this is how I want stuff but that studio is mostly jingles and and we did all the music most of the music for Sesame Street and but I tell you what you learn because you got to work really fast and you got to set everything up and you know half hour and so so it was good and the the jingle guys they were just into impressing the clients they would put a ton of reverb on on everything in the everybody be really happy and I could actually I could actually see put my own mics up because they didn't we weren't usually concerned about the mics and I try mics on different instruments they might even sometimes recommend eq's to the engineers and they would maybe tell them a little bit about them just not just that but learning when you guys had you know you were telling me earlier this this story about the instruments just being around and what you guys did to try and figure out recording the general well we because because they did all this commercial stuff there was a ton of instruments or Tiffany's and xylophones and glockenspiels and you name it every kind of instrument clarinets Fender Rhodes Hammond b3 everything but so me and some of the other guys in the studio the assistants and engineers we kind of formed a little band that we actually called the bats it was really really just a studio workshop and we never played any place because we because we sucked to be honest but so we'd go in on the weekends and we record we try every mic on every instrument and record our terrible songs and it was a dress just a great way to learn and that's why I really enjoyed the little tour I got here this morning and so saw how hands-on Phil sale is because that's the important thing that everybody gets to get their hands in there and try everything themselves because you can just get so much from listening to somebody lecture you and and and watching other people do it it's great when you could actually love the way you do it so that's kind of most of the the beginning of the sheet as with most progressions of mix engineers is there's a period of time where you're you know assistant engineer and then when did it move on to that recording process where you were going to be the engineer for the sessions well it went back and forth they would sometimes early on give me the sort of co D sessions where there weren't to concern there weren't regular clients but what really happened with me is that uh about six months after working there I was booked on a session with a band called Colma gang and as the assistant the engineer was guy named Tony Bon Jovi who yes is actually John's cousin and we'll bring him up in a little while as much as John would like to not be related to him I think but uh but so he didn't show up for the session I set it all up it was a full band the full rhythm section I set it all up and there's no engineer and I had never actually recorded a full band yet in the studio and so I just sat down said well somebody's got to do it and I'll just start doing it and Ron Bell from colon gang who's the main brains behind the band just the night incredible human I think you know really talented and great arranger and just a really fantastic guy he comes in and listens to what he says let me hear what you got going he goes yeah great that sounds good okay let's go you know and you know other clients might have said well where's my engineer who are you no give me my give me the guy I asked for you know so and then and that was a pretty long relationship with those guys as well did ya I did a bunch of Records to them and you know we look at that she that's a very common theme with your career is your relationships with the artists that you work with I mean you know it'll go all the way forward from you know you work with the stones you know starting starting way back there so you're you're recording now you're an engineer if you will when is that really sink in and what is the feeling of like okay I'm so busy I'm driving the ship you know what do i do where do I go you know it you know New York is picking up at this point in time I would assume as well musically well I'm just saying like when what do you know can you kind of do you remember when you knew you were the engineer you were the guy that people were coming after because that's a huge chunk that beginning of your career it's it's funny because back then the studio's supplied the engineer it's just really different than it is now everybody's got their own guy and in the few big studios that are still around but yeah and so I just figured all just booked on these sessions and and it's it's the day job kind of you know it's a really great day job but uh there was one day after actually left media and went to a studio called power station I was mixing something and I asked the guy that I was making the producer was there and I said oh where you from it was I'm from California you know so were you in town for just happened to be in town because no I came here to mix with you and I went wow you flew all the way here just to mix with me and that was that was like that was like a shock to me he's like I can't believe this guy did this you know I didn't I couldn't believe I was that that important did you I mean back in the day obviously there was the recording and mixing was more of a unified thing you know a lot of the fans weren't you know sending off to a separate mix you know person at that point that was the late 70s and early 80s was where that really became a profession in its own is that about the time you felt like you were like moving more towards mixing and less tracking yeah and that was your desire if you will I mean was that where your passion was was in that that process of it well when I when I first started a tracking was the thing that intrigued me because I liked working with the musicians and it was exciting to actually hear the creation of a recording but then that I discovered mixing actually was it had to do with good automation I think as almost that I realized you didn't need I didn't need any like for other people to push faders but back in the old days when there was no automation you had to do it in real time and you had to need a lot of help but the automation meant that I could just do it myself and I could actually listen to what I was mixing while I was mixing it instead of just remembering moves and so so that had a lot to do with it and also and I thought this is the thing for me this is I can be more creative doing this record exists interesting but you had to be a producer to make it really interesting I mean I loved the early days of recording getting drum sounds and but some of it recording a synthesizer really it's just it's just a record button and when vocals are interesting but but you had to be a producer and and so I became a producer because I thought that's what I had to do and then after producing about 25 records I realized I hate doing this I didn't like trying to get performances out of people and and I I was always the guy I was always like at the end of the session anybody wanted rough mix because that's the part that I liked and so and also as a mixer I work for so many producers that were so much better than I was at producing you know people like Don was and Tony Berg and I could it's just a whole bunch of people that it's like wow these guys really know what they're doing and who well Who am I kidding well let's so we're gonna maybe hit good times you know here's a record been called chic they were very big sort of disco band in the they were the the first first client said uh at a new studio that we built called power station in New York before you plays let's talk a little bit about that because you were integral in what became for two decades you know probably you know one of the premier studios in the world definitely on the East Coast and you know that you were a huge hand even the construction the the rooms and all of that and you know and Tony was obviously you know was part of that so maybe kind of taking them down the power stage now for you guys that don't know which you probably don't there's a studio in New York that was called avatar for years as recently closed down and Berkeley has now purchased that and is historically renovating and I think is that they reopening it for a while and then they're gonna do a major renovation in about six or eight months it'll probably take a year and so maybe just go back to the beginning and then tell us you know the cool little trivia thing about being the first one in the new space as well yeah well Sheik was our first project in fact it was so early on the studio wasn't done yet and we started at Electric Lady studios downtown in the village and so let me think okay so they've finally got a window in the ISO booth next to the control room and we finished their first album called let's see a firm name of the album but it was it was a big apple and and then the studio progressed that record came out it's huge hit there was a song called everybody dance was the first song that I mixed off that album and then it was so funny because these guys were kind of real these poor kids and they had I remember seeing their they'd sweat shirts with holes in them and you know and then the next album of course they were wearing these Armani suits disco was really big at this point in time and they were doing really well and and so we did this album called she recorded good times as well as mixed it or I recorded everything a couple albums then later on I got busy with other things and some other guys took over but uh so okay this is a song called good times which you might remember [Music] let's kind of go back in time because the other thing you guys are used to how many tracks and ProTools do you guys have available to you unlimited right horsepower now so how many tracks did you guys have to do this well that would have been 24 track yeah and that's it though so maybe talk them through a little bit of that you know when you know you know you have a song and a band and you know you have big backgrounds you have a lot of instrumentation horn sections live horn sections in this book point in time so how how do you kind of plan for that how was you know and maybe I don't if you remember you know do you have one you know a bunch of people on mics and comp Fogle's did you put you know five people on a my you know what was the you know first of all you wouldn't have every on the the drum kit you wouldn't have every drum on a separate track like you wouldn't nowadays or every mic you'd actually while you're recording mix mix the drums down to four tracks that's a usually and then let's see the the backing vocals were there were four of them singing and one of them mean Luther Vandross and they yeah it kind of record them on a stereo pair really just combining so you're kind of combining as you're going when you're doing something like that and then you can bounce tracks of course to the sound I mean that's that's yeah you know something that even us now start to you lose a little bit of sight of that because we can you know have 80 tracks of vocals and then reap lend whenever we feel like it and do stems and you know so you know when you listen to these records and you know the background vocals and that stuck out to me as you know there's definitely a lot of people on a mic which meant your singers were on maybe talk a little bit about musicianship well that's all it was for weed for mics but two and two facing each other in a in a big ambient room a lot of people like to put gobos around singers and I always like to get the sound of the room in the mics and if you listen to those records there's very little reverb if any actually on the the vocalist it's mainly the the ambience of the room that's getting in you know in the compression you get a bit more the more you compress and I always like that and luckily everybody else liked it too turns into a thing so this is around that same time where you start moving into you know actually it was probably pre this when you start your relationship with Rolling Stones so maybe kind of tell us a little bit about how that transpired and what was kind of going on at that time well first of all I grew up listening to rock music you know so the arm be stuff I learned from media sound because we did a lot of R&B records there and so it was my my old training was a combination of rock and R&B which I think turned out to be a good thing for me and but because of sheek shiek was on Atlantic Records and there were a couple of like dance we used to do dance mixes which extended what they used to call him 12-inch mixes because it was on a 12-inch disc and for dance clubs and there'd be like seven or eight minutes long and so the there was people at Atlantic that all I know they the stones had a song called miss you and they thought it was sort of a danceable type song and they they wanted to get a like a dance remix of it and so they suggested me because because of Sheikh and Sheik were selling billions of records and so they sent me this song miss you and I did a did a dance mix Jagger really liked it and so then he came over a few days later he said let's let's do a single version and so that's first time I got to meet meet Mick and and then it went on for there so I did the single version and the 12-inch mix of Dan of miss you the one that's on the album their producer Chris Kim's he did which is also really a great mix so the relationship with them continues and you know we'll kind of jump forward and backwards with the stones stuff but this continued for decades most announcing those but a lot of the stone stuff is live stuff yeah and so one of the things I do want to kind of talk to to everybody about is is the integration between you know being a studio engineer and then going out and and and not doing live sounds per se like a PA but us recording and mixing and replicating a concert through speakers if you can all right yeah I mean it's it's not that much different than studio stuff really except there's usually not as many instruments because there's not there's no overdubs the big difference of course is the audience and that's a tricky thing to learn how to deal with because because it's a fine line you want to get as much audience reaction and sound of the hall as possible without getting a too muddy and I've had a bunch of problems with video directors for some of the Stones concert videos and they just want to hear the audience louder than anything you know there's more audience more audience and of course you just turn up the audience so much sometimes they're not making any sound I mean you go to a rock concert and the audience isn't always cheering all the way through every song but video directors seem to think that's true and so you turn up so much and all you get is the PA mix you know so sometimes you have to add awning so you'll take did you ever do the tape loop in the no no I never did that but what we'll do is we'll take we'll find a section usually between the just before the Encore where the audience is just going for it without any music or anything and we'll take sections of that swells and different bits and we'll just plug them in and in between songs or if there there's supposed to be an audience reaction to a solo or something like that and you just kind of creep a bit of that in there here and there and career-wise I mean you know when these guys are leaving here you know not everybody's gonna work in a studio obviously with the record sales industry being challenged at this point in time you know in bands spending more time touring and more time doing you know this this live content I mean do you think this is is something that is a valid career path to go down and doing this live stuff I think probably more so than doing studio records because there's less and less I mean nobody has any money for but but people are touring more and more I mean there's certainly more I think more touring now than there ever has been because because nobody can make any money off their records and so they go out and play live it so that's it that's a better focus I think for people doing doing live life stuff I'm really lucky because I have some legacy artists that continually come back and and can afford to to pay me I mean it's not even they can't pay what we used to get back in the 80s it was a little obscene in the 80s I think now it's about what it should be probably right and so I want to circle back to that whole live thing because I do want to talk about when you're recording something live I definitely want to hit on you know converters and how we interact with you know the weather it's a mobile truck or whether you're coming in and right now they're taking Dante or Maddie or whatever you know and taking feeds so I didn't want to circle back to that but career-wise let's kind of go back to that time where this guy named Bruce Springsteen starts to come into your into your life right okay what happened there was I did an album with a guy named Ian Hunter it was an English rock band called Mott the Hoople and that came from working with a punk band called tough darts because they were friends and he came and helped them and then he came in to do his album he hired three guys in the E Street Band Danny Federici Garry tallent and and Max Weinberg to be his backup and and of course the E Street Band and Bruce were used to working at a place called the record plant in New York which is like recording in a closet it was just this really dead studio such a famous studio - is crazy yeah I mean it's a great studio don't get me wrong but it was that old style of everything's got to be really dead and isolated and they would spend two weeks China get a drum sound because it was the drums didn't resonate nothing resonated and so they came in at our station and we spent maybe half an hour on the drum sound I mean it was just you just push up the faders it was such a big open room it's this big high ceiling and I put some room mics up in fact we hung room room mics from the ceiling on a winch so that you could raise him up in town and they just flipped so they went back to Bruce's about to start his album the river and he said look you got to come over and try this studio out so he came over and we we recorded and mixed the first song which is a song called roulette and we did that two days and finished it mixed it and of course he never put that one on the album for whatever reason I don't know why but then then they went on to to do the rest of the river there I handed it off to to Neil Dorfsman it was a one of the other engineers and and a good friend because I was starting my my production career which was kind of their going to be the producer yeah yeah I thought that's what I was supposed to be doing and now it's a natural progression any people here they mix and then they produce and sometimes even go into label stuff from that point yeah and I don't want to discourage anyone from trying to be producers because it's a great thing to do you know if you have that that talent I asked that I don't think I did but uh but yeah so then then they came back a few months later after after they had recorded the album and I mixed I think 11 or 12 songs only one of them they kept which is hungry heart which is their big single I'm not saying Sergio can pull this up real quick the interesting about the river is the record has a live energy a live feel to it you know and I mean part of its obviously part of the way they attracted their room how much did that do you think you guys had to add at the end versus that was just the energy of the Power Station at that point well I mean the only song I mixed was hungry heart I mean that kind of comes into play later with born in the USA which I did makes the whole album but it's a very live sounding studio and so so a lot of it is the sound of that studio of power station you know and he just gonna play a little bit of this [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we were both thinking executives I just said his voice sounded so different well the thing about that song is they very sped it like I think 5 DB or not AB DB but 5% 5% yeah yeah what are you talking about is on the analog tape machines and we would even have to do this sometimes on the two tracks for radio or whatever it may be to crunch this song but we literally speed up the song so it changes the pitch and moves the pitch up on the song so listening to that I mean I think we both kind of his at the same time like how radically different but sad also what about the like the the reverb and the delay on there is that the stairwell is that the well the drums that's that room that's power station that's the sound of sort of a bright and short ambience the reverb is a is a live chamber that was in the basement it was actually a bathroom that I found one day through nning through the basement of this big building and I just what is this and I cleaned it out and there was some chunks stored in there and I stuck a an old JBL 4311 speaker in there with a couple of a key G mics and so that's all the reverb on that it's also the reverb on another song we'll play in a little while but it's still a chamber there to this day I think they're gonna have to lose it when they do the renovations unfortunately so so I guess that also brings up the point of you know that drum sound not being processed not having to you know go crazy with it you know recording the correct sound the correct performance like that all plays into how mixing the record is done as well you know the work I mean a modern record and I'm just gonna pick on the modern record and say you know there's there's so much post work that's done versus back then it was the pre work it was the rehearsal it was the artists I mean we're where do you think we are from then to now and what are you kind of seeing I think it's changed quite a bit actually although I went back and mixed some of some of those early tracks recently and I kind of mixed them the way I did that and you know I didn't really add a lot I might have used a bass drum sample and just added add it in for a little more punch but that's about it you know later on when we mix born in the USA that album which a lot of the tracks came from these same sessions actually we started using samples on the on the snare drum so maybe we play a little something playlist I'm from born in USA we'll play that track [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the energy on the vocal is you know I mean obviously Bruges is very dynamic person but you know from being a mixer what you put on to that and was able to get that energy to come acrossed i think you know and maybe talk about that with with you know this record way different obviously than the other stuff like you said you can hear the snare sample stuff you can hear how you guys are moving and that was the industry the entire industry but you know talk about you know mix technique maybe on this a little bit see if I can time ago but that's the way he sings over there's some tape slap that's it you know I mean we were still we weren't using digital delays yet I don't think we're still using like a tape recorder for delay and Bruce was really into that I was always fighting with him because I I wanted to hear his voice without the effect and he wanted more effect and and then he wanted the snare drum I wouldn't have kind of gone over the top like that but he really wanted the snare drum to sound like God was playing in it so yeah and talk about talk about that relationship of the artists you're mixing the song and you know you know your space his space you know when you listen when do not listen when he goes to the bathroom or goes to have a drink what do you change you know maybe talk I don't really know the thing is my philosophy I think most mixers most of my cohorts you know which would say pretty much the same thing that that our job is to get into the the artists or the producers head wherever you're working with get into their head and find out what they're thinking I mean I'm performing a service for them it's not my record and if they're asking for a certain thing that sounds wrong to me alright think about why they're asking there's probably a reason they want that and and it's it should be their vision it's not my vision and every records going to be different it's going to be according to the the the artists their thing and and so okay you take what what they're saying and try to make that work I mean sometimes you can temper it a little bit and mix it with your own little thing but it should basically be be what they want and sometimes you can improve on their vision you might take their thing you do an account add some other stuff with it just see see what they like if they don't like it okay fine if they like it then then all the better and you're still doing Bruce stuff now what's that what's the last thing you did for Bruce it was just a couple years ago in his last studio album my next behalf so you were mixing at your place and is the ending to him so maybe maybe talk that's because this is something that's coming into our business more and more of us interacting with a client virtually as a mixer so I think this is something that you know it's probably a really good topic to kind of hit on a little bit while we're here right well ISDN is kind of a technology now but Bruce and I both have the same ISDN hookups and it's icings great cuz it's practically real time it's like 150 millisecond delay and I'm looking at him on FaceTime on my computer and the delayed kind of matches so he can actually cue me for certain things and he's in New Jersey I'm in Los Angeles and it's just a great way to work to be honest because he's got the same he's actually good same consoles I have in his studio and he's got the same speakers it's almost identical and so we can both sit between the speakers if he was in my room he'd be sitting between the speakers and I'd be off to the left someplace because the client rules Yeah right and so it's a great way to work plus the fact that Bruce likes to take tell stories which is fantastic but when you're trying to get trying to get stuff done it's it could go on he could go on a bit and and you don't want to interrupt them because the stories are just amazing I just saw him on Broadway by the way and unbelievably yeah and um but yeah I know you did it with Bruce are you finding that this is happening with other clients as well yeah well usually we just stream over the Internet and there's a there's a bunch of programs that do it we we use a thing called nice cast which just sits on our print rig and that works great unfortunately there's a there could be anywhere from four to like twelve second delay and so if you're talking to them on the phone it it's kind of you'll say okay just stop the you know stop it there and you stop it and it's plays for another in ten seconds I did a I done tones tons of Records Bryan Adams records I did a record with a band called bare naked ladies and they were all in Toronto at home and they they weren't even together they were no different differe homes so they all would log on and they'd be listening and then they type comments into iMessage or whatever it is yeah I think it was iMessage and so you're running interference while he's mixing basically translating well no I'm actually reading it right off my computer I'm just I'm just reading the comments and and they one of them commented that it was like typing mixing commands into their Bob clear mountain software you know because they type something in and I would do it I would change it that's great so we're bouncing around a little bit but so we go back to with with your relationship with Bruce and you know again this is a relationship like the stones that just went on for years and years and years and years what do you think is the bond you know cuz it's not just work obviously I mean obviously the quality of your work either way you hear things you know everybody in our industry already kind of has that established but what do you think is why people come to you I think as I was saying before I think it's the way I interpret what they want and a lot of times I guess because I've done it so much I mean I've been doing it for over forty years and 22 feet of it yeah right there you go I get to you know here is here a piece of music I'll put the tracks up and I'll kind of get the vibe of it pretty pretty quickly usually I mean there are times when when I'm completely wrong where the in fact there was one thing with a band called Tears for Fears were the the the guy that the writer and main guy Roland Orzabal came in and and it was a song called so in the seeds of love and I'm it worked on it for a couple of days and he said you know there's absolutely nothing in that mix that is worth anything to me I was like oh oh oh and what do you want to do could you point me in the right direction so he tried he wanted a little more reverb and this and that and so I worked on it for another couple hours and he goes no I don't think so I go alright well what do we do that am i fired there's no let's mix another song he was incredibly professional and it's just a great guy and you know not he didn't just kick me out of the control room which he could have he said let's try another song and then we mix two other songs in the album that he was quite happy with and so now it's like that whole concept of not meeting that clients expectation bothers you and I think maybe the commitment to to that and and I think that is one of the things that's kind of lost now I mean I mean everybody's trying to interject their own thing you know into everything you know even artists I mean every everybody's an independent artist everybody's their own boss and and there is a little bit of that that disconnect of you know what does the client want you know what is where's that at so let's move from Bruce I think it's one of the reasons I wasn't a good producer because opinion yeah you know I was just okay what do you guys want to do you know tell me what you want say we're looking for their direction yeah and maybe they could some of these bands could use direction more firm direction and I'm always like timid about well we talked a little bit about Hugh Padgham and you know him not being a musician and him like with Genesis and other things just being a part of that creative process and helping guide the band and do that but that's that's such a rare thing that a lot of these a lot of these bands are looking for for something more yeah so people like us that that really don't want to write their song or you know getting there and redo the arrangement you know it kind of leaves out that void it worked out with me and Brian Adams we produced four albums together and and that was great because I I was he liked the fact that I was mainly concerned with sounds and then every now and then I would interject something about the arrangement I would just say look don't you think this needs another section here or something something like that like there's a song called summer 69 which will play and if you I don't to play the whole thing but just gonna say there's one it's a really minor little arrangement thing and most people don't notice it but it was one of those things that I I actually got got in there that it's all the whole first part of this the lyric is about in summer 69 and you know what was that like and reminiscing and and these are the things you know Jody quit and somebody got married and I don't know and and then there's the the middle eight and then after that it's like more current day and so it's all it's all guitars and drums and bass for the first part of the song and then the current day part of course you were talking about early eighties that a synthesizer appeared which is before you guys were born we got that but yeah the synthesizer appears and so all of a sudden it it's more becomes a more modern sound and it kind of goes along with that I was like doing that and this is always something in the music that that cues off the lyric this this is a lot more produced record yeah you know you're getting into I know with your your sound is this is I mean are you how much time are you guys taking tim like this for this record how long did you guys been making a long time it's yeah a couple months yeah so we'll play actually gonna play quite a bit of this to hear thanks for the whole album not just that song yeah yeah a camera first real six-string boy at the five-and-dime later my fingers blade was a summer of 16 [Music] try [Music] Julie got married [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] soon your little since yeah so what's crazy is is that while I was listening that I was thinking about you know some of the stuff that that we teach about arrangement and and mixers have to bring this to the table as well but this song has to move there has to be new stuff introduced throughout about three minutes to keep people stuck so it's you know how could you kind of give them maybe some advice in that in the in the realm of the mix end not so much the recording am but a mix end of making a song move yeah well very often what what this happen happens to me all the time where you get something in all the instruments are in from the beginning and they just continue you know it throughout the thing and very often the best thing to do is like in the first verse take something out take a keyboard out or take a be an extra guitar or since it's something and you'll all of a sudden you go oh all of a sudden I get the song now because it all said you're more focused on the on the lyric so you it's it's really good to to create a focus by leaving things out it's it's really helpful then then the second okay now you've everybody's familiar with the the melody and the and the song now the second verse you can start bringing those things back in and then of course like that was that's a pretty good arrangement because the middle eight office uh Denise big guitars come in so it it goes up a notch and then the end something else happens and then the sometimes it's great after the after the solo in the middle eight to just take everything out you know I mean this hip-hop records do it all the time they create focus by all of a sudden that drums will drop out and you know that's that's a really common thing with hip-hop records and I love when they do that when all of a sudden it's like real star can just hear the voice you know yeah and then the whole track comes back here yeah the the thing I think is is unique about like even listening to that song is the focus of you know the power of the drums you know the tambourines on every off on that one but but the the focus of how powerful the track is but the vocal doesn't you don't lose it and I think that's a real tricky thing as a mix especially with now the track counts that we're getting into and you know the kitchen sinks in there but you know is there something you're doing to try and accommodate both of those I mean are you vocal first mixer are you track and then slide your vocals to it are you kind of putting everything up as quickly as you can this is something I was thinking about the other day I've done quite a number of interviews and one of the questions is always okay how do you build the mix how do you start building your mix and well I think about building and I think about like building a house you know or okay you start with a foundation which would be like the drums and then you put the walls on it which are like the guitars and the keyboards and then the roof which would be like the vocals let's say well like I don't I don't do that I don't actually build the mix I I just mix and so what I'll usually start with a rough mix so I'll put everything everything up of course that won't work for a house but it works really great for for mixing music I just start with a rough mix I'll just put everything up vocal loud first of all listen to the lyric listen to what the singers doing sometimes I'll even start with getting an effector or EQ in the voice just to kind of guide the rest of the mix because because pop and rock records are mainly based around the vocal I won't start with it once and while I start with the drums but it's really rare that I do that I'll usually kind of work on guitars and keyboards and work on panning even though Penny's not really that important but it kind of it's a good way to to organize everything in your head as far as what balance is out like okay put this guitar in the on the right and then let's see is there a keyboard or some other guitar that balances it balances it out on the left and it's it's a good way to familiarize especially if you haven't heard the song before to familiarize with all the ingredients I think of everything in that in the mix almost like like actors in a or characters in a play you know like a stage okay where does this guy come in and where does that guy come in and where does this go out and and it's just it's like a visual Mort of a visual thing to me and I've heard other mixers say is similar thing yeah I know absolutely do you feel like do you feel like your stereo field because that's another big mixer question is you know you'll hear some guys that are only left center and right you'll hear guys that are oh I want to be super symmetrical with my mix I want to be you know I don't want that guitar hanging out left and do you think there's a change in how you do it now with the huge influx of people listening to music on headphones because absolute left and right versus you know things bleeding over I think it's very different in how we perceive mix it sure I think it's all good you know I mean sometimes it's just left center or right depending on what the instruments are a lot of times if there's a lot of things that they'll be different you know kind of spread them out and won't be that stark and then sometimes like I'll do tricks like Oh like the the verse will I just make mono and then the chorus all of a sudden become stereo things like that depending on on how that song is arranged and providing you contrast so you're almost kind of creating contrast yeah and I mean I love stereo I just I must admit it was one of the things when I first started listening to records the first time I heard a stereo record I thought well have something different coming out of there then what's over there I just thought it was the coolest thing and I still I still think it's cool and but yeah it's like it's it's even if you end up with a mono mix in the end it helps to think think of the stereo so just what I'm thinking about this hearing protection monitoring levels like where you out on that kind of stuff well I rarely listen really loud I never use like large control room monitors I don't have any in my studio you'll see there's no big speakers there that's just the Yamahas and the and the BM 50 nays and is there stuff in the back there is a sub record your source around yeah to that yeah I don't use it for the stereo I know a lot of guys use that my friend chris lord-alge ii uses a Yamaha Swiss sub and I went into into his room what's and it was so funny because it's just this crazy amount of bass is coming out of the Yamaha something and wow what kind of Yamahas do you like to 11 and I don't listen loud because it you know the longer you listen loud that's shorter you can mix your there's that ear fatigue which I'm sure you've been told and you talked about but where do you feel like you can you guys have a conversation over the level you're mixing or you you just above conversation level where do you feel like you're at it's I change it all the time just constantly changed I've read an article and tape up this month about this guy says though you should mix always at 83 DB and because that's the the on the Fletcher Munson curve that's the ideal to learn about that and okay yeah fine except that a lot of people listen quietly a lot of people listen loud you can't ever predict not everybody's gonna listen at the ideal Fletcher months and curve point yeah it's so so I'm constantly turning it out but not only that but you get less ear fatigue that way you can listen for a longer period of time it's it should sound good at any level I have some different speakers I actually have it I have this a stereo Sony TV for for the SSL and I've actually plugged the stereo buss into those speakers so that's one of my pairs of speakers which I love actually they sound really good but it's very it's not very loud it's really quiet actually and and but it's a whole totally different perspective which is good do you find yourself more on the BM 15s the powered monitors and the NS tens is a science progressed her I usually start on the NS tens and I get to a certain point then I'll just switch back and forth you know so are you referencing at all ever in headphones occasionally I do I had some Sennheiser 650s I don't recommend beats even though Jimmy Iovine who started the company's a really close friend of mine he knows he knows that I would never use them but yeah probably I would think you would end up with no bass if you mixed on beats but uh well yeah I'm done thinking just more referencing wise you know because a lot of the clients now and that brings me to my next part is when the client wants it and they're not linked into the mix and you have to send them a file are you getting requests for hey just send me an mp3 to my phone so I can listen to it are you getting all the time yeah I know in fact I was mixing for a guy in England one time that that kept asking me to turn the bass down like okay I'll turn you don't want one less space to the point where I said dude I can't even hear the bass really but what are you listening on what kind of speakers just I'm listening on headphones and sure enough it was Beats headphones something yeah oh man let's start over and so let's get back to the career a little bit there's a you know this mid 80s starting to go into the 90s stuff I just was picking on journey raised on radio okay it's it's you know it just has that very slick feel and stuff so then we've kind of moved into that 90s where everything started become more organic this is you know was that something that you were you know after mixing so many records throughout the 80s and having such an influence on that where people come into you saying hey I want your old town or were they trying to get you to do the the newer more rock more kind of like back to natural sound I really thought about like a trend like that really it's just whatever it was you know and I just each project I look at individually I don't think of it as an overall oh this is the trend or this is the style you know I mean I think well I mean there are certain trends like the at one time there was everybody used a lot of reverb in the 80s then it got really dry the 90s actually got really dry nobody's using reverb and now it's back to like flooded with reverb so there's some of that and so you try you try to accommodate that I mean I still think that if something sounds like it should be dry it just should be dry fated the client that that they want the the big washy sound okay I have certain ideas about about reverb actually that my personal feeling and I'm not I'm not necessarily a you know the reference on this is but it's just how I feel that if you have a lot of reverb on the voice to have a dry rhythm track it doesn't make any sense to me because it just sounds like they're disconnected and in different in different places and a lot of there's a lot of records that you hear that I like that look at this big washy reverb and the drums are just dead dry you know and clothes that doesn't it always confuses me to to hear something like that so I think they should delay and stuff in the reverb to get the reverb away from sometimes yeah it depends sometimes not sometimes yeah yeah generally I'll put a little bit of pre delay in the verb so you moved from New York out to LA yeah about the early 90s yeah and did you do you didn't start with having your own place you were you were kind of working out of other commercial studios at that point no it's really funny because when I when I got married my friend Tony Burke was a amazing producer he gave a little speech at the wedding and because we've been friends for years and years and he said yeah back in in New York he asked me if I ever wanted to have a my own studio so I'd ever bother with my own studio would you ever wanted to get married don't want to get married ever want to have kids no you wouldn't never want to have kids would you ever live in California oh my god I would want to live in LA or California and then there it was living in California with a studio in my house getting married with with two stepkids [Laughter] it's amazing your life changes so you had already so when you meant to LA you kind of started this well I lived in apartments for a while and then I've met you know I knew my wife we were getting well we weren't married yet but we just thought we just go out on weekends looking at houses just for a fun because we were both in apartments and and then one day this thing turned up and we were looking for something with a guest house for a studio and this was actually the like a rec room down in the basement and it was the side of the house is open level to the ground cause in the canyon and so that it's a like a hill and I thought oh this is great this is big enough for a control room and then I went into the little room next door which is like a utility room well this is big enough for a machine room and then because back then we had a big tape machines and and then there was another little door that led to a long wine cellar and I thought this is great first of all I don't really drink much wine and I could make this to echo chambers and so we end up to acro chambers and if you get the out of herb plug in they actually have my my echo chambers in there as impulse responses and it's like a short and Motown kind of reverb you know really bright and splashy and it has a very I mean you guys if you go to mix this calm yeah and you can kind of you can kind of look it has a very open feel kind of opens up to that pool and has that you know comfort kind of homey feel to it which is you know when you got a big ssl in your house it's kind of you know you tend to lose a little bit of that but i feel like it you know really it does have that so let's talk a little bit about sergio so mentioned at the very beginning apprentice versus you know assistant yeah and I think there's a there's a difference of you know we and Bob and I were talking about us a little while ago with Sergio as well on you know things being handed down from generation generation I mean when we all came up we had mentors that you know whether it be a band whether it be a producer whether it be whatever we we kind of learned the ropes from somebody and moved on and moved on you know in those days are definitely becoming way different you know people like these guys are coming to school and then when they graduate you know expectations are on you know that that apprentice time so Sergio's been with Bob for five years you guys said so first off what made you pick him okay well Sergio originally used to say this why don't you talk about your own history give him give him your background of where you came from well I'm from Los Angeles I grew up there I was a musician I played guitar in bands in high school all the way through my early 20s I was in a couple touring bands one of my bands got signed to a big label and Bob ended up mixing that album for my band and then the label dropped us and then I started had to kind of look for a job and so I started working at an apple store and that turned into me working at Apogee because apogee was looking for a guitar player that new Apple computers that new logic that knew how to record and I kind of knew how to do all these things can you talk a little bit about Apogee and and how that studio is a little bit more unique than other places yeah well the Apogee studio is this to be it was like this big live room there's a stage and there's this old Neve 1868 console in there from the 70s from power station actually so when I walked in for my interview that was the first thing they showed me and I mean I you can imagine how I felt cuz I had little experience in big studios but this one was special so yeah they were looking for a sales guy and I didn't know what that meant you know like they wanted an Account Manager but they also wanted someone that played guitar I was a musician that recorded and so Jeremy was interviewing me he was like well you know I think we found the guy for the position but maybe we could leverage you for your guitar playing skills but it meant that I wasn't getting the job and I was like oh okay cool whatever and in the conference room Bob's some Bob's platinum records are in there and I'd said something and Jeremy was like oh that's Bob clear mountain you know that's that's a Betty's husband yeah and I was like yeah I know Bob makes my band's record last year and Jeremy was like wait what and so he went and got Betty the CEO she came in started my wife yeah this Bob's wife she started she asked me like two questions she's like okay you're on when can you start and Jeremy was just like uh oh okay well I guess we'll find something for you to do and and so that with it like the first week they were like can you go to AES can you go to New York cause it was like September and AES was coming up I was like oh sure okay I had never travelled for work I never had a full-time job at this point and so when I did the booth I did well I guess and I came back and they sent me out to different stores Apple stores and guitar centers and I would bring my guitar and apogee interfaces and I would show people how to make music well and with interfaces so that was kind of a cool job and then my band got signed again a different band same thing a different band we got signed and I had to make we had to make a record and so I asked him if I could use the Apogee studio and they were like of course so we had a producer and you know he kind of knew how to use the Neve and and so I watched him use the Neve and I kind of fell in love with it and he had a bail kind of halfway through the record so I kind of had to finish a lot of like the last overdubs and stuff like that just with a little bit that I knew and I was addicted to it and so like any opportunity I had I would out can use the studio crazy studio and and they kept saying yeah yeah and I would have different friends different bands different musicians from just from LA come in and I would practice and practice but and then I think Brandon whose box one resistance it was with me for this isn't before Sergio was with me for only eight years kind of Brandon Duncan and we actually built the studio together he helped wire it and design the you know helped design it but uh he so now I was looking for it he was moving on because he wanted to follow us on career of course and so we had to get an assistant and so Betty suggested that Sergio do it because he she knew that that he was really into the studio thing probably more so than working at Apogee and and everybody at Apogee thought you weren't you weren't any good night I thought yeah perfect perfect choice Sergio first of all he's a great guitar player and so he's gonna know music and he's gonna be able to edit and he's gonna and and he knows logic so I probably pick up Pro Tools pretty quick and sure enough he came in and picked up Pro Tools with in well within a week he was showing me I've been using Pro Tools since 91 yeah and and he's all of a sudden he was showing me all kinds of stuff that I never knew about Pro Tools you know like right off the bat so yeah we worked out really well it's really very very quick to I'm really slow at Pro Tools now they're fighting about who gets their custody yeah because when I'm not bore if I'm not I have nothing to mix he goes back to Apogee cuz they always have plenty of work for he does let other in-house videos for their website and for the does the advertising stuff and you know you see his face all over the website and and so the concept of the long-term you know that's why I said apprentice vs. assistant I mean I feel like assistant is you know maybe whatever it is maybe a year or two and then you try and you know move on to engineering or mixing or whatever and so so what keeps you I mean obviously it's Bob I got that but what keeps you you know as the assistant apprentice / everything you know I mean obviously even managing a lot of you know stuff that's happening and we had a lot of contact with you coming in you know forwarding for what Bob's needs were and all this other stuff and that's you know that's a you know what keeps you grounded to that and and makes you want to keep coming back every day well it's always a challenge I mean every project is a completely new experience and you know there's something really cool about that I mean there's always work it's just not something in my mind to just be like okay I'm out I'm done it's much more like I'm just following what feels right you know we're like whatever I have to do tomorrow okay that's what I have to do okay this will afternoon next week this is one of what's on the schedule next month and you know at the same time I'm like incorporating you know freelance on top of that right so I'm I am working like an excessive amount but I do fine an excessive amount for them okay well cuz they're coming and these guys are all you know whether they're they're just starting here in Folsom or you know they're getting ready to graduate you know this month or next month I mean your excessive amount maybe beyond what they're thinking so what yeah okay well let's see a typical day would be like I wake up at 8 sit in traffic for an hour you got a plan for traffic and then get to to Bob studio attend work we have breakfast which is amazing amazing amazing french toast it's insane it's it's always a good day when she does that and then so we work until about six or seven depending on the workload what we're working on if we're working on a life possibly about setting up the session oh sure yeah so I mean it depends on what we're working on but I'll set up a session but could be a hundred tracks or something that are completely disorganized or could something as simple as like a 24 track 32 track session with all labeled nicely and arranged it could be some some live video that has all these edits that weren't done to the multitrack and then I have to figure out how I'm gonna form and come form all that stuff later okay and sometimes a lot of times I'll get things that I have no idea I'm gonna do this like I've never done it before or but the only thing that has gotten me through it is just okay well I've figured it out thus far so I just kind of always have that like sense of confidence that okay whatever it is like I'm just going to figure it out I don't know how but just being in it you know you kind of figure things out 72 input SSL but we really have 60 channels work with because the rest of our returns and so he's got a if it's a hundred track session he's got to figure out some how to get it all you know dousset subgrouping and somehow some sort of logical creative subgrouping to get it to all come up on the desk do you have a like I know Chris has you know his kick drums always on the same Channel you know stuff I mean are you guys have a you know if there's ten kicks they go down to these two tracks or anything yeah the only thing that's that's actually consistent is that lead vocals always at 24 which is the center of the desk and I always like to have the vocal in the center and then the rest of it changes although drums are usually on the left percussions even farther to the left then bass guitars and then keyboards are usually to the right if their strings and horns and they down there to the right that's so he's mixing for you if there's if we need it right hopefully there were smaller sessions you don't have to but when he's sub mixing for you is is it I mean are you prepping everything sub mix and getting it all set on the console and you normally come in and you're good with the submix or do you have to like I mean is this is this a back and forth thing or if you kind of know where he's going yeah well I try to anticipate what like he's sitting at the desk like where everything is you know so I arrange things in a way just from watching him do it for so long what he might need or want and but I always leave it and I try to leave it in a way that he's going to be able to change it you know like if I do a sub mix of background vocals if I have to do it myself then I make sure to just that he knows that he he can adjust it right if the high harmonies too high at some point and it's right here you know yeah if it's if it's not right I make him wash my car so after you've you you kind of got your your six seven o'clock Bob day yeah where do you go from there so then I'll go I'll I try it pretty typical are just pretty typical for you to kind of that ten to six kind of time frame ten to seven ten to dinner yeah that's that which are not I'm gonna mix it 3:00 in the morning anymore yeah used to be at one time no one date my wife Betty said look why don't you just stop at dinner do you really have to mix until 11 o'clock at night yeah okay yeah just stop at dinner and nobody's complained it's been fine so you're done with Bob in after Bob's done work do you have I usually have to do deliverables and stuff but at first it took me a long time to get to this speed that I can do think I can do a lot of things at one time and I can be working on deliverables of stuff as I'm helping Bob as I'm doing it it's like I could get and doing the recall sheets and answering phones I don't know I can do kind of a lot of things all at once so I don't like 30 minutes an hour it just it totally depends on the session but typically like we're done mixing it shut everything down and then I go to Apogee if I have have another session and stuff which has been more frequent now I'll Drive to Apogee which is like a 10-15 minute drive to Santa Monica and then I'll be there till 2 a.m. just working on anything a week you doing it I try to keep it at 2 days sometimes 3 if I have energy at Apogee yeah 2 nights or 3 or 5 days a week yes I'm pretty much fun days and then sometimes on the weekend if it's like a good project and you know deadlines yeah some of these video projects so you know the longer and they they have deadlines mm-hmm but yeah that's kind of a typical the two to three night 16-hour days aren't uncommon in your world no I I would do it more except I have a family so I it's important for me to be home as well between the 3 a.m. and 8:00 yeah that's family time so let's talk a little bit about the studio in the setup because these guys have a kind of a cool setup and something that Bob does that I know from Tunde makes friends as well is not done that you're doing that we're all envious of you doing which is from a long time ago Bob every mix that Bob does he prints down and surround yeah yeah right mind-boggling to me but to think about all the stuff is you'd have to go back to do that bob has done already so maybe let's um if Adam or whoever in video can throw up the graphic of the layout of the the actual Pro Tools rigs and his ins and outs of the console and maybe talk about the surrounding a bit I think you had that on there I think we we have a graphic up there they'll throw it up in video game sack but let's talk about the the mixing in surround well you know you're doing full mixing in surround you're not just doing fold downs no not fold downs ever have I'm quite anti fold downs but unless absolutely necessary but it goes back to when surround what like 15 years ago I think it was a big thing for about a minute well it goes back to my wife said you should be mixing surround and like oh my god really what a pain one of those things he would never do yeah exactly one of the things I would never want kind of spoiled it for you yeah but then one night I woke up in the middle of the night said wait a minute I think I know how I could do this and I was thinking about the SSL and I could use the the the bus routing switches for buses and then I figured out a way to actually create a surround compressor because that's part of the thing the I used that buss compressor in the 4k for part of my sound really and how would I do that for six channels and so I figured out the the SSL actually has has four stereo extra VCAs with faders that you can just Pat their patchable VCAs so I figured out that I could slave them off the main stereo compressor and then I could just patch my surround buses just through there and it disconnects from the fader so so I can still use the faders as soft groups and so I still have like twelve groups and and it works perfectly they just follow because long as I have a stereo mix going through the stereo compressor the the surround compressor just mimics that it's just it does exactly the same thing our UVC a based automation are you well it's it's alternation but I don't use the moving faders okay so ultimate just so you guys know is the moving fader for SSL but pre that you would have automation but you wouldn't see the actual fader move itself yeah and so with the ultime ssin you can turn that the motors off and I don't I've always said if the faders going to move I wanted to be the one moving it and so I I know what I did so I don't have to see them it's actually moving and not only that but the on the alternation they they don't work very well that's the main thing about about a third of them barely work and so but the vc a's work perfectly but anyway yeah so that's that's sort of the lay out there the signal flow so what's what's kind of unique eye surgery I don't know whichever one he wants to talk kind of through it because you were on two Pro Tools rakes which is another unique thing - yeah you guys are doing I have a separate print rig which is always H H handles every pass because it's stereo and then six channels surround and so maybe I'll start the beginning food chain there you know because it came back sample rates are all different the projects that come in or I know it could be forty four one could be 48 88 - who knows but everything goes out at 96 and so and they're locked together with the Big Ben through video saying the the the print rig is locked with video sync the multitrack rig is locked with word clock off the big Apogee Big Ben so they're everything for everything like it's like it's one machine but dream Protosevich Sergio is prepped he's got all ready and that feeds into your SSL and then right you're then sending to all your monitors and coming back down to your output interfaces yeah and then that's feeding your separate print rate right did you already say what sample rate you were doing a print rig at 96 96 so your surrounding how often do you flip from your stereo mix to that surround to reference between the two well most of the mix I just do in stereo and so kind of as I'm going through I'll think oh this instrument might be good in the right rear well this might be good in the usually the vocals pretty much Center with a little bit in the left and right and so I'll kind of kind of assign those those speakers as I'm mixing the stereo and then at some point when I finally have the final stereo mix I'll go back and listen to it and then it might make some adjustments and the the small fader on the on the SSL is post main fader send to the the routing so that I can make little volume adjustments sometimes some of the stuff in the back should be a little louder because there's more there's less stuff back there and and then I have a four channel return echo return and the and the rear channels are actually like three DB more because for using surround reverbs yeah yeah Alta verb has a lot of surround reverbs good so after you guys get this done you're gonna then Bob's done mixing you're gonna print stuff down and then how has this stemming process because everybody now wants stems you know whether they're touring or want their backgrounds or whatever so you get the list of deliverables from the label of let's have it 55 ways I hate that I try not to you know I try to discourage you but me up more and more that that happens and so Sergio's basically in charge of talk them through that little bit about what you're getting from labels what are you seeing what's you know first we should say that the that every mix gets a vocal up a vocal down and you probably know this already a TV track with with backing vocals no lead vocal an instrumental no vocals of course and an acapella just vocals yeah they are a people you'll get that towards the end when you get closer to mastering we talk about all the deliverables and and that are you doing plus one DB plus two plus and minus a half on the vocals cool yeah that's it so he'll finish a mix and then I'll go back to the beginning of the mix set up the two rigs so that they sync up with each other so when I hit play on the SSL the multitrack starts playing Pro Tools multitrack starts playing and it triggers the ProTools to start recording at the exact same time code I'll give myself some a few seconds of pre-roll I'll slate it right just in case the audio file name gets lost you can listen to what mix it is right so if it's um a hungry heart makes five and then it starts recording a few seconds later and then I do the vocal up 1/2 DB the vocals down I have to be TV track instrumental acapella and and then I'll send a reference mix as well usually at a smaller resolution if it's 96 k print then I'll send a forty-eight K reference file sometimes an AAC if they have bad internet sometimes both or I'll upload it to our FTP so that people can download it that's pretty standard and then if they ask for stems which I try to discourage but some people insist on it especially the one English bands really insist on it seems like so then he'll just will do like a drum stem percussion stem yeah probably pace guitar no offline bounce I'm sure you would love that alright so what I like to do is I mean we could talk about records and gear and all that stuff all day long but I want to get to some questions from you guys so we're going to form a nice line of people that want to ask Bob or Sergio questions at the microphone and please remember to speak into the microphone yeah absolutely go for it I just wanted to ask when you got married how old were you when you got in there that's funny um let me think I think I was 40 yeah or 41 something like that yeah and also Sergio yeah I was wondering how old are you I'm 31 thanks man thank you thank you just a random question do you cut unnecessary frequencies with an EQ on every single track that you record no no not on every track okay I mean I usually have a high pass on vocals generally and then it just it just depends you know I mean a lot of it's interesting that you ask about that because I find a lot a lot of me and a lot of keyboards have extra bottom end you know gets sometimes guitars do and and I noticed mmm you'll hear the bass will sound muddy and it's like why is that bass on you solo well that sounds okay when I sold it I put it within the mix it sounds all muddy go through other instruments without the bass turning the base off find out there's probably mud coming from somewhere else and then yeah you stick in a high-pass and get rid of some of this stuff that's conflicting usually you don't need it as a vocalist often I struggle with people wanting me to sound different on their track softly do vocalists send you like a preset or an idea of how they want to be mixed for the vocals or is it just kind of up to you and they trust you some sometimes they do you usually not but yeah occasionally they'll send a like a like there'll be a reference track with the delay or something a couple times I got tracks with it there was a delay printed on the vocal track without an without an one that was clean and I've had to ask them to actually send a don't send it without the delay cuz it's really awkward to mix you know I'll duplicate whatever delay they had but in a way that's a little more manageable in the mix thank you hey I just wanted to ask a lot of times we live in a well we live in an age where a lot of times artists don't know exactly what their engineers do so how do you deal with those discrepancies between what the artist is asking for and what you actually do well then that's just the experience of mixing you know you kind of get to know when somebody asks for something a lot of times they don't they don't you're right you they don't necessarily understand the technology they don't know oh you know I want more know what 3d be more 10 K on a shelf you know but uh you know you kind of have to suss out and that just something comes with experience from doing it and and say no do you mean this and the oh no that's not what I'm talking about no way try different things until yeah yeah that's it that's it that sounds great you know and and the more you do that the more you'll learn when somebody asks for a certain kind of thing what to give them and it just comes after a while and and you don't always get it even I sometimes I get meant totally mystified by things that people are asking but I'm a little better at it than I was 30 years ago I hope hey how's it going good good I'm trying to ask a dumb question right in front of my teacher this man [Music] we're tracking a band this month and I just want to ask you what's your method on trying to get a performance out of them if they're kind of like struggling like they know the song really well but we need them to like get to that next level and I know it's not an easy question but I'm sure there's been a time where you have that scenario how did you handle it well this is one of the reasons I don't like producing because there are guys that are really good at that and I can tell you what not to do don't yell at them and tell them that they suck you know how because I worked for the producer that used to do that and that's definitely the wrong approach but uh encouraged to just get them to try different things I think and you know maybe if if there's a certain thing that you have in mind that's similar to a record that you know maybe pull it out and and play some examples they look a little but try to do don't go in this direction and see if I can I mean I've something back when I used to produce it there's been times where I've actually written the drum parts I've stood out there with the drummer and told them what beats to play now I hate doing that you know hopefully your drummer can suss that out you worked with you've worked with bryan adams brus and jagger i just you've worked with a lot of successful artists my question is what do what did all those artists have in common well made them different would they what did they haven't come an end what made them different your well what they had in common was it was an instinct I think for what they did and obviously the the talent that I had I mean those three people that you mentioned were they're incredible singers and they're incredibly insightful great writers what they what was different was they all have different temperaments they're all there were all really nice people and good people you know and and experienced and they wouldn't get mad about stupid things you know what I mean there's a lot people I think they're all they have a sense of security I think the the people that that are hard to work whether the ones that are insecure about what they do I think and those those people don't have gotten past that let me put it that way oh yeah David Bowie that was a good one let's say I should play some of that but this is a great thing for me this is a wonderful experience making this record [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right now this guy was just the most unbelievably talented person I've I've ever met you know probably him and Bruce and but he had something very very special because when we the first song of this album was called modern love and it was the first thing that we did vocals for and it was just he and I in the in the room when he when he came in to sing it and the first if you're familiar with Bowie at all he's got a couple different voices that he does and the this sort of voice is sort of deep and thick voice that with the vibrato and everything he sang modern loved that way the first time and he sang it he sang a verse in a chorus and then in the in the studio with the headphones and he stops and he goes I could just just play that bit back for me and uh I played it back and he's listening to it and he stops at the end the first course yours oh let me think a minute hang on he was okay let's just do it again and then he sang it uh if you know the song he sings it up up an octave it's like a different person walked into the room started singing and it's like a whole different character and first first first course or a play that back for me played it back goes yeah yeah that's a lot better okay just punch me in from there finish the song double that now that was it that was the vocal know other takes I mean this is what this guy the brought you know that's that's a talent I've never seen from anybody they could do something like that and these guys they're all individually incredible and I'm like the luckiest guy in the world to be able to work with people like that Wow thank you for sharing yeah just for a short answer to your question yeah well thanks for letting me stand here and stuff so my question is for Sergio and someone who was in a band and successfully signed to a label Jimmy advice for an up-and-coming band up-and-coming band gosh don't sleep with each other's girlfriends gosh man if I was in a successful rock band I would know how to answer that but I don't know why I'm still trying to figure it out myself hi my name is Edwin thank you so much for coming out and giving us your insight just thank you so much my question is what can we all do now to become what you have been doing for the past 40 years what can we do actively that's that's a big question things are so different now I mean to be honest then when I started I mean I to be honest I was really lucky I was in the right place at the right time and it was all I knew how to do like I can't really do anything else so so that that's one thing is is be focused you know if you're trying to do a lot of different things if you're trying to do this and do five other things and I don't even know what what you're you could be into post-production you could be into making records into the live sound but pick the one thing and just go with that and concentrate on it and don't be distracted by other stuff I mean it's it's just that focus of and and that Drive of just wanting to to be be good and and don't let anything get in your way and you know don't get discouraged well thank you so much for coming out and talking to all of us it means so much to all of us I'm so glad thank you that means a lot to me that you said that actually I was wondering do you use mostly outboard gear or plugins mostly outboard gear what are a few standards that like you use in most year mixes of the outboard gear or either well plugins I use out of a river but I use it as a as an outboard so I I take it off an ox off my ssl back into the computer and then back into returns I use for another plug-in or this is something sort of interesting I know you guys teach Melodyne and auto-tune well I don't use either of those and of course of course every singer I work with sings perfectly in tune so I wouldn't actually every but but if I ever need it there's a there's a waves plug-in that's part of one of their packages called sound shift or pitch which is really just a pitch shifter it doesn't do anything automatic doesn't do anything like Melodyne or auto-tune it's just a basic pitch shifter with manual and so I just automate that I do it totally by ear now I don't know if anybody else does this but uh I liked I've always done it by ear I used to do it with an even tightened harmonizer back in the day and it's just really fast for me it you know I think you I think if everybody tried it they'd realize they probably most people have pretty good relative pitch you don't have to have perfect pitch you just have to pretty good relative you have to know when something sounds out of tune and which is why you do it anyway because wow that sounds out of tune and but no I would recommend trying it like I say I don't know anybody else that does that but it works really well and very quick but then the upper gear picture I have la three days for compression I go between them and I use eleven seven ates as opposed to 1176 is mainly because you can fit two in the space of one and they're really handy because of the stereo mode I use them for like on tom toms and things like that and they'd sound every bit as good as the 1176 is to me I use pultec EQ p180 threes which in fact I just bought two of the reissues and what else yeah the stressors are fantastic everybody probably knows them just some of they're great for acoustic guitars and guitars in general let me see but some digital delays have a Yamaha D 5000 which not many people know about it's just a great box for a digital delay the rolling SD 3000 the apogee gear of course is the most important thing to me otherwise probably to have a place to sleep I'm just kidding about that but ya know it makes a big difference because it's all all Apogee converters in and out and and just just stereo you don't really notice much of a difference but when you get you know 60 or 70 channels coming back at you it really does make make a pretty big difference when you're doing a mix yeah the clock you yeah clocking is important you just mentioned clocking of course everything's clock tough oh no that's not there anymore the apogee Big Ben which really helps it lowers jitter and just makes everything sound better and so yeah there's there's a great little new device here by Apogee called the elements and glad you asked that actually because this is something that's been overlooked for some reason these these products is that was a 2x4 or a 4x6 and an 8x8 and they're really ugly it just looks like a stage box doesn't look like anything and the idea of it is that they took the the knobs buttons and meters which cost extra they took them out and it has none of that all that's in the box so it's got a there's a thing called a symphony remote that goes with that or is that what's called human Avenue remote yeah it's it's all software it's like a plug-in in your computer and so so all the controls are in the computer where you're sitting in most people that makes the box why I put the boy pay for all this extra hardware on the box when you could just have it all right in front of you in the computer and it costs less and it's just they put all them all the money into making it sound better than anything else I mean the really super high quality so yeah hello thank you for coming obviously I have two questions so obviously I know you've probably worked on millions or thousands of songs how do you know when to decipher between a song that goes on the album and when that's just like a song that you really like but you know it shouldn't be on the album and then um when when do you know when to work for money when you don't love what you're putting out but of course you have to make a living so I get I guess I'm asking like when do you know how to work for money but not love what you're working for that makes sense okay the first question is not something that I really ever have to answer because it's more that's up to the artist what he puts on the record and his producer and the if there's a label involved they're quite involved in that I mean there's been songs that I thought should come off records because I thought they were terrible and the label put them on anyway for whatever reason and vice versa you know I thought there was some songs that were great that never got released as singles as far as getting paid for stuff let me see but what was that second question you can't give me that that's something like I don't like working if I don't believe in what I'm working for right so like but I have to make a living obviously off of what I'm doing so how do you know when to just like push that loving of something and wait for money well I I mix all kinds of stuff that I don't don't that I wouldn't buy right that I don't necessarily love I mean I rarely luckily nowadays I don't have to do anything that I absolutely hate or really rarely privately predatory Dever there's always something that I can get out of it I do i mix a whole lot of french artists and I don't speak French but they're all pretty good in the band that the music is well recorded and it's it's well arranged and the songs I can tell the songs are good even though I don't know what they're saying the melodies are good and so so that's okay but yeah something is something in mind I I think that kind of you have to work right you have to make money work so I think that you can learn to find the opportunity and whatever it is that you're working on you know find the passion in there somehow fine invent something find a way to make it great in your own way you know yeah exactly you can get something out of even if you hate it there'll be something in there that you can get out of it it's not just a the cash yeah experimentation like if I'm working on a project that I'm just like not too thrilled about I'll experiment you know like really experiment you know maybe maybe you can turn it into something good yeah all right thank you guys mm-hmm hi my name is Jesse and first off I read that you're from Connecticut and I want to know what part I'm prepared from Greenwich Greenwich I'm from Newtown all right great pound phone yeah so I just wanted know I you said you're a bass player and you started out as bass player first and I noticed that I noticed that a lot of songs that you heard that were played here have really like prominent bass lines and they're really recognizable like miss you by the stones and I wanted to know what your experience playing bass played a part in your mixing and producing I think quite a bit I think there's something especially the arm be stuff you know I think it's something that because I'm always listening to the bass and it's a big thing in fact there's a a sort of an interesting story and that song good times by Sheik and then when we cut the track okay the guy the producers everybody's in the studio they're all in the band and they're it's basically a live band and so they come in to listen back and I'm going that's one of the coolest bass lines I've ever heard in a pop record and we're in disco in any record I just was so impressed by what Bernard Edwards played and so he comes in and were playing it back and I'm sitting at the at the Neve and he's standing next to me and I turned to him and I just disco where the hell did you come up with that bass part it it's unbelievable and and he looks because oh really you like that like he didn't know this guy was so humble like that it's a you know this is classic I mean I knew just I just knew it was just because the bass part I knew it was a hit record and it was huge yeah so yeah it does plus the fact I played bass at the apogee band at Christmas time for the Christmas party and sérgio plays guitar and so do when you're mixing though do you have any specific things that you do in relation to the bass since you do have that experience let's see there's a couple things it's it's sometimes I try to make sure that the the sound of the bass drum mixes with the with the bass sometimes I'll use a sample may or le queue in a certain way just so that it's it sounds like one thing or if it's a little out of time we might fix the fix the base so it's a little more in time with the debate especially on live stuff sometimes you know obviously the bass player might be wandering off the side of the stage and you know he's hearing it and we'll just kind of tighten it up a little bit things like that the usually you'll get a a DI and a mic and an amp and I find quite often the the amp is just a few samples late you know maybe 90 degrees out of phase kind of so we'll just kind of pull that pull it up a little bit so that the waveforms match and it kind of makes it sound better make sense smoother how you doing I'm Rami I thank you for coming out speaking of Sheikh I just wanted to ask if you still keep in touch with now Rogers and have worked on anything recently with him I haven't worked on anything but I just saw him last week actually a power station is reopening because Berklee School of Music just bought it and along with some grants from the city and was there at a big party a reopening party and now na was there so I did I saw him briefly said although they produce the David Bowie let's dance he produced that yeah and you miss that and it makes recorded and mixed it super cool and you can you probably notice if you know I'm sure you're all familiar with get lucky the Daft Punk record notice basically the very similar guitars that's well that's Niall you know can't mistake his plan absolutely thank you hi um I was just wondering you mentioned that like you got your start in New York and you made a vow that you wouldn't move to LA which is something that I've kind of made myself I'm a very avid New Yorker and I'm just wondering like is it worth trying to stay in New York because I feel like a lot of people do end up moving out to LA and it's just kind of like how did you convince yourself to do that it depends on what what you're doing I think if you're if you're recording jingles or in the film business maybe or television then New York's a pretty pretty good place or if you're doing hip-hop this I mean there's a huge hip hop industry in New York I think if you're more into rock or maybe movies LA is gonna be better for me it was let's see I worked in New York you know all through the 70s in most of the 80s and then for some reason my businesses dropped off it was I was going between London and LA and I finally realized then it started to drop off in London and I ended up in LA most of the time and I had an apartment in New York and a house upstate and well this is ridiculous you know I'm spending money on on mortgages and I never even go there and so I just fell in LA doesn't that my wife there thank you yeah hey me again all right I want to redeem my last question um looking at this long list here I'm assuming there's not a lot of people you haven't worked with that's a few and that's gonna actually my questions so if there's an album that you heard or a song or something in particular that you wanted to go back and put your hands on and actually mix it your way is there a specific one that you that comes to mind well that - Punk record I think I mean Mickey's house he's a friend of mine he's a great guy and it's a great mixer but I think I could done a better job with it made it sound more more like douchey crackers I think it should have sounded like the chic records specifically like what are the specifics within that sonnet you wanted to bring out just a way that the punch of the drums and it's it just doesn't seem that it's a great record don't get me wrong you know and he did a great job but there's just something missing about the the feel of the the mix for me okay you know I think if you compare some of the chic records to that I think I think maybe you might hear it I don't know I liked it but I'd like to hear your version I would yeah but don't tell Mick that I use listen to me really good very talented and I just have one question so when you started since you started since you first started mixing compared to how you're mixing now do you feel like there's some elements that you now change or you go about mixing different things different ways yeah to certain extent yeah you know I haven't changed radically but certain things like really specific things like I do a parallel compression on the snare drum most of the time and and let me think I probably mix drier than I I used to I don't know I hopefully I'm better than I was you know that's that that's the only thing I just hope I've gotten gotten better and I think I have sometimes I think I have sometimes to go back and listen to stuff that I did in the 80s and either like wow that was pretty good or did I do that oh my god there was one time some couple times this has happened where things have come on the radio and I didn't recognize the song right away I thought well what idiot makes that and then I realized it's me we're also going to after we finish this little row of questions here we'll kind of cut off the questions and we're going to talk about and it's a more modern Bob I was actually that's why I wanted to kind of close with that artist it's it's I think maybe gonna answer a little bit of your question because after the stuff we've heard compared to her record this is really the solution yeah yeah this is a welcome welcome let's go get these guys okay all right hello actually being that you've worked with a short list of artists what would you say would your favorite sub-genre genre be to mix well you feeling familiar with crowded house that kind of thing yeah there you go that that sort of style where it's it's rock music but it's I guess kind of soft rock you might say but with great lyrics and great melodies squeezes another one in fact I'd love to play a squeeze tractor from that their new album is just stunning and that that kind of music The Pretenders I always liked of course I got to work with them to sort of jangly rock music not not real heavy rock but that kind of thing just jangly melodic rock music you know that's that's my favorite thing although I'll you know mix heavy rock stuff I'll mix our be well they say anything you throw at me thank you up thank you for coming out um in your opinion what separates a good record and mixed as well from a great record and is there something that you do on every album that you've worked on I can't say there's something that I do on every record other than try to make it as good as it could be there isn't but isn't a no one consistent um formula that I use I don't think and I mean there could be that I'm not aware of you know but I I'm not aware and uh wait sorry what was the first part of the question the question was to you what separates a good song I think the great makes is is one that that you can sit down and listen to and never even think of commenting on the mix you know what I mean whether you just love the song and the mixture to me that makes a great makes it's transparent and it's just the music that comes through the performance the lyric the the performance of the singer performance of the all the instruments you know thank you hi I'm Tyler um I just wanted to ask you uh what's kind of your process for mixing drums because I noticed that your your snares are just really really punchy as well as your kicks well that's it I try to make this then both really punchy you know you you nailed it right on the head specifically what are some techniques that you like to use well if it is like it's like a parallel compression thing that I do where I'll bring it I'll just bring it up onto faders the the one faders got a it's usually uh eleven seventy eight and a pultec EQ some five or eight K something like that and and then just mix it with a just a straight one and I'll just do some SSL EQ to sort of match it a little bit the kick drum I'm if it's a if it's recorded really well if like like it's really punching and mixing blending with the base and accenting you know and doing the right thing I'll I'll just use what's recorded but quite often they shows are very hard to record I think and even though I have trouble I rarely get it when I'm recording and so very off I have a bunch of bass drums that I really like that I'll just take a sample in there with it we're using a drum agog which is kind of our favorite drum replacement plug in there thank you so much thanks for coming out Bob I'm an instructor here and the guy that teaches Melodyne but I just want to ask don't need to put down I know I always tell the students get it right on the way in but yeah just for selfish reasons I am a still a student of the music history and hearing about the Bowie's stuff is amazing to me and did you meet Bowie at all before from the Ian Hunter album or is that more from the sheep connection with now Rogers it's more with now I mean he he recorded the album before let's Dan it's called scary monsters he did that the basic tracks he and Tony Visconti did it at power stations to do a with another guy named Larry Alexander who's a great one of the great power station engineers and that was like one of my favorite record I was just such a fan of that record and but I used to see him around the studio and I said hello a couple times you know I never really talked to him much and then just a couple of quick ones uh who's your favorite Ramon cuz I know you worked with that I didn't know them that well I just did like I think one session with him but the original drummer Tommy or t'lie Tommy Ramone he was my favorite cuz he was the only one I actually knew very well he was a great guy cuz he used to come he was friends of ours and he used to come in and hang around session sometimes and then talking about dealing with providing the mix that the artist envisions how do you go about that when it's deciding between Bowie and Niles Rogers like who's correct or another favorite one should I stay or should I go by the clash was were you involved in between the battle between Mick and Joe Strummer because it's kind of near the end of the I didn't actually mix that one you know I did mix Rock the Kasbah that's okay it's alright yeah I totally understand I'm next songs up all the time that was just with Mick Jones yeah Joe wasn't around I'm fortunate I never got to meet I was a huge Joe Strummer fan and I never got to meet him unfortunately you know I thought he made some great records late in his solo career yeah but uh yeah it was just with Nick okay had a little problem with Mick Jones because he kind of changed smoked marijuana and I'm a little bit allergic to it and it's kind of a problem really thanks for coming out this has been amazing thank you okay so we're about to educate you guys a little bit because outside of the instructors how many of you guys have heard the band squeeze so yeah now here this is from their new house I saw your eyes light up because it was like this is this is a little guys I was just a big fan of these guys back in the late 70s I mean they've been around a long time and and then I mixed a couple records for them in the 80s over at Peter Gabriel's studio real world which is an experience in itself and so just recently they called me up and said okay we have a new record could you mix it and this record I just think is stunning now I'm gonna play us a song off the record that reading all the reviews this is like the least favorite song in the record I think maybe it's a but my only truth no I'm not sure if I have it the way I'm sorry okay no I actually I'll play a more popular one instead because what I was looking for isn't in there yeah play a flame Mary Wilson part this is actually called patchouli it was originally called Marian Wilson Park and I changed the name for some reason it was just a nice just a beautiful song [Music] too much sometimes [Music] like this [Music] like normal to fester [Music] I see the smile [Music] Oh Juliet [Music] to that day [Music] see the sky [Music] we said [Music] see a chance [Music] to that day [Music] [Applause] [Music] I just want to get to the solo because how many rock bands have the harpsichord solo it's it's like I'm gonna follow that band for you know most of you know seventies on and the vocal stuff that those guys do it's just insane and ya know so I was hearing I liked a lot of stuff you know depth-wise in the mix that was yeah they I mean it's Chris differed and Glenn till Brooke and they Chris does that low octave they do that's a real signature thing for that band was he Glenn sings the high part and Krista's just just an octave it's doubling it an octave down and that's pretty cool and then they do all that these harmonies there's some things on this record with choirs there's one track that's got an opera singer on it I mean really they just stepped way over the line as far as you know pop music goes into unusual territories but it all works that's the thing so and that's gonna just kind of bring the last artist I really kind of want to talk about is Nico kostas you know this record is for me you know like you produced a little bit like you said her husband produced a lot but you know kind of explained the approach to this one because it's definitely sonically a different than anything that we played for you guys today you know it's a very contrast to you know kind of almost the modern Bob if you will what's unusual for me because there's no there's no guitars on it and there's no synthesizers on it either it's piano bass drums and a and string quartet and vocal and it was mostly cut live in fact most of the the vocal that you'll hear she sang with the band with the strings strings are off to her right the drums were in front of her she was in a create like a gobo booth in the middle of am studios or Henson's now Colin Henson studios you know the piano is off to the left the pianist did the arrangements and he's also conducting the strings while he's playing piano and and this song you will know you'll probably most of you will know this song and it's because she was really good friends with a guy who passed away that that wrote it a guy named Prince wrote it [Music] [Music] [Music] it's been seven fifteen day since you take your love away I go [Music] since you took away [Music] sensible [Music] I can see whomever I choose [Music] I can [Music] said another and [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so the dryness the like from 80s exploding snare drums - as in-your-face as that can be I mean completely different and what what like what's your emotion about that I mean as far as you know when I mean when you hear that back you know I mean up so we have a lot of low end up here but I'm just saying like does it does it really like do you feel like that's an evolution if do you feel like that's something you know that you've kind of like gone through all these phases and you can kind of do everything but almost going back to the basics without is is the right thing does that make that could have been mixed anyway I mean I could have annex a million ways yeah and I did mix it a few different ways until we figured out exactly you know that that sort of ambience I originally mix it with with more reverb and more sort of classically but what I realized when I added more reverb to it that I wasn't getting the feeling that I had in the studio and it was recorded you got to understand these guys are in front of me that that's just a performance that there's no overdubs on that at all and I was standing there in the control room just with my jaw on the floor because it was she's just unbelievable she's so incredible such an amazing singer and the whole album was it's just remarkable and so I really wanted to get that the feeling that I had in the studio when they they played it and I think I got got real close to it and yeah like I say it's it's it's not you know I don't think of it as oh oh well I'm not gonna mix it real echoey or I'm not gonna do this because it's some sort of evolution it's just what makes the music sound best what brings it to life the most and and what what gets the most emotion out of it especially record like that it's very emotional especially this particular song because she was really good friends with prints and it was a it was a huge thing to her that when when he passed away because they are very close and so she's kind of honoring her by by doing this song I think yeah it's crazy record you guys should definitely listen to it closing statements from Sergio what can you tell them it's gonna help them out there okay I got one thing that I think has helped me through me being in the in in this sort of position I guess because it's it's hard sometimes it's really hard but one thing that brand in tolling who's bob's former assistant just kind of offhand like not even he he's amazing at just figuring like making things work when you're like there's no way this this could work and so I don't know one time he made something work it's something on the NIMH it's like dude how do you how do you do that I like how do you just figure like how did you know he's like it's like I I didn't he's like I just will it to work and I'd you know I just that that's all I do and that just I didn't even really understand what he meant I just laughed it off I thought it was a joke and it just stuck with me and any time I was ever in a situation I was like how am I gonna figure this out it's just like you just kind of you just do you know you just kind of find the will to figure it out and then you do and then suddenly you like it becomes like a muscle or like an exercise that you do on things that get thrown at you because I think you'll find that you get thrown into the fire a lot especially in like this kind of industry entertainment kind of thing cuz everything has to be like you have to do it perfect every time and I mean that's just not possible so mistakes are gonna happen and you got it you know roll with the punches you know like learn from your mistakes and and hopefully you're quick on your feet right because that's that's a big part yeah I've always felt there's a motto for mix this that we've kind of I've always felt and we actually had a printed on the little cards there's always a way right no matter what you think that don't ever let you know somebody asked you to to do some crazy effect or if you think of some some nutty effect that you want to try to do don't ever think oh well there's just no way I'm gonna be able to do that you'll figure it out just just work on it you know there's always a way to do pretty much anything when you're making records or making music recording mixing I mean I'm gonna make a closing statement after that I'm gonna leave it it will Bob just said I just want you know you guys were a great audience I want from full sale from you guys let's thank Bob for being here thank you for coming [Music]

Channel: Full Sail University

Views: 21,217

Rating: 4.9102564 out of 5

Keywords: full sail university, full sail, bob clearmountain, music school, music industry, breaking into the music industry, getting in to music, getting into the music industry, Bob Clearmountain (Mix Engineer and Producer): Breaking into the Music Business, audio engineer (profession), record producer (character occupation), music producer, record producer, music business, audio engineer, mixing engineer (profession), mixing, sound engineers, full sail on campus

Id: CwLfCVZLv38

Length: 138min 46sec (8326 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 12 2017