Mixer with the Midas Touch: Bob Clearmountain on the Tools and Techniques of His Trade

May 7, 2007 5:13 PM, By Jeff Casey

You’ve mixed quite a few live albums. Do you find these types of projects to be a challenge?
It depends on how good or bad the performance and recording is. If both are good, it can be really easy. The big trick is using the ambience from the audience mics and blending them with whatever artificial effects you’re using to achieve a realistic impression of a live performance, while keeping it all sounding good.

How does your technique differ from working on studio-recorded tracks?
Well, live stuff is generally a lot more straightforward than studio recordings because there are usually no overdubs. As far as how my technique differs, I think it actually differs for everything I mix, depending on what’s recorded. So no different than anything else, except having to ride the audience mics and always muting vocal mics when no one’s singing.

I mixed a live Bryan Adams track the other day that was interesting because it was being used for a movie soundtrack: Hope Floats on Twentieth Century Fox. The producers, of course, wanted it to sound like a studio track, so I had to completely eliminate the audience, which was hard because at the end of the song the audience was leaking into practically every mic. Luckily, the last chord of the song was held by a real string section that was miked with contact mics, so I was able to mute everything else, letting the strings hold that chord where the audience would normally have been roaring.

Paul McCartney’s Tripping the Live Fantastic is, in my opinion, one of the best-sounding live albums to date.
Thanks!

Was this a difficult project to mix? How clean was the location audio?
It was very good, although the guy who recorded it was sitting next to the monitor mixer while wearing headphones and couldn’t hear the cymbals clipping occasionally. There were 80 shows on digital tape, so we had plenty to pick from. They didn’t replace anything, although I did do a few electronic repairs, like taking a solo from one show and putting it on another—things like that.

David Bowie has a reputation for using innovative recording techniques. What was it like being a part of that process?
The Let’s Dance album took a total of fifteen 8-hour sessions to record and mix. It went by so fast I hardly remember it! His most prevalent technique was the "first take" method. He and Chrissie Hynde are probably the best singers I’ve had the pleasure of recording. Unfortunately, on Let’s Dance he didn’t use any of those innovative techniques he’s supposedly known for, unless they went by so fast I didn’t notice them!

What is the most challenging project you’ve worked on?
Probably the first two Robbie Robertson albums. The first one because most of the songs were recorded with absolutely no arrangement in mind, so it all had to be created in the mix. I must add that this made it one of the most interesting and fun albums to mix, despite being difficult. Also, Robbie tends to have a new mix or edit idea every 30 seconds or so, and they’re mostly pretty good.

The producer on the second album, Storyville, left the project after about a year. He had recorded it on Dash 24-track and made slaves for Robbie to do his vocals and guitar on. It turns out that they did quite a number of digital edits on the slaves before they were finished recording on them. Besides not duplicating the edits on the masters, no one thought to keep notes on where the edits were done or what edits were done, for that matter. When I came in to mix it, the producer was long gone. Robbie told me we had to bounce the slaves back onto the unedited master tapes to tracks 25 through 48, and there were just one or two edits to match on the masters. No problem!

I soon discovered it was more like fifteen or twenty edits, and I barely had enough time to mix the album, much less duplicate massive edits, before I had to start my next project. I remember transferring the tapes and Robbie saying, “Hey, wait a minute, the vocal and guitars are playing the second verse, and the drums and bass are still on the first chorus! Oh yeah, I guess I forgot about that one too.…” This went on for more than a week. Of course, the edits had to be matched exactly, otherwise everything after the edit would have been out of time.

What do you think is the best mix you’ve ever done?
There isn’t just one, but if I have to narrow it down, there’s "Into Temptation" by Crowded House, not because the mix is all that great, but because it’s one of the most incredible songs I’ve ever worked on; there’s "Ghost" by Altered State because it’s a real fun, "effecty," over-the-top mix; "Satisfied" by Squeeze and "Victim of Love" by Bryan Adams because they’re both great songs and pretty good mixes; there’s Aimee Mann’s entire first solo album, Whatever, because it’s amazing and unusual sounding; and, probably most of all, Jonatha Brooke’s album Ten Cent Wings because the songs are so good I just can’t stop listening to it.

How about a mix that someone else has done?
It could be "Tempted," by Squeeze, because it simply sounds perfect. In fact, the whole thing—the song, performance, recording, and mix—is absolutely perfect, no matter where I hear it. Hats off to Squeeze, Elvis Costello, and Roger Bechirian! Also it could be "Street Fightin’ Man" by the Rolling Stones.

Tell me about your involvement with the development of SessionTools.
It started when I became tired of not being able to read DAT and cassette J-cards that assistant engineers had scrawled on. I got turned on to Claris FileMaker Pro by someone at A&M Studios, and I started printing them myself. When I opened Mix This! I needed a system of work orders and invoices that was quick and easy because I was doing it all myself. So, having taught myself FileMaker, I created some layouts. I also needed a client database and an efficient way of logging tapes. It turned out the same program was well suited for all these things.

In 1994 I hired Ryan Freeland as my assistant engineer, and he expanded the J-card section to include many other formats—sticky labels, floppy-disk labels, track sheets, and outboard-gear recall layouts. Last year, after a few clients with their own studios asked for copies of the program, my wife, Betty Bennett [president of Apogee Electronics], suggested that Apogee market the whole thing as a stand-alone program. Ryan and I then spent about eight months trying to get it to the point where the general public would be able to use it.

So what projects are next for you?
I’m doing a new Paul Westerberg album, a live Counting Crows project, and more work for the soundtrack of Hope Floats, which I’m producing with Don Was. Aside from that, I’m trying to engineer a couple of days off. I’ve worked pretty much seven days a week for my entire career, and I recently discovered that there indeed is a world outside the recording studio—and it’s actually pretty cool!

To sum it all up, what do you think is the key to a great mix?
I really have no idea. When you find out, please let me know!