Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2: Grammy winning mix engineer Michael Brower talks about the art
Speaker 2: of engineering, his studio secret and what.
Speaker 3: Is this like working with artists such.
Speaker 2: As Coldplay, Luther and Vandross, Aretha Franklin, Grace Jones, and Moore.
Speaker 2: This was episode fifty six from November one, twenty seventeen.
Speaker 4: S Bramo, Son Son Supremo, Roll Call Subramo, Son Son Supremo,
Speaker 4: Roll Call Subramo, Son Son Subramo, Roll Call Subramo.
Speaker 5: Son Son Subrao Roll Quest Love a single, Yeah, Quest
Speaker 5: Loves Free, Yeah, Quest Loves Dancing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Wes Love is going.
Speaker 6: To be.
Speaker 3: So Supreme. Roll call Supremo, something so Supreme.
Speaker 5: Roll my name is Spante Yeah, coming through when the clutch. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I can give you a little Yeah, but number too much,
Speaker 5: number two of us, number.
Speaker 7: Two Supreme, something Supreme, Roll call Suprema, Something Suprema.
Speaker 2: Roll my name is Sugar. Yeah, I'm never shower. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that Purple Room, give it back Brown.
Speaker 7: Supreme, Son Son Supreme, Roll Call Supreme Supreme.
Speaker 6: Roll Hospital Ain't ready Yeah, ready to start? Yeah, we
Speaker 6: wrote my role call Yeah, had a change of heart.
Speaker 4: Supremo, something supreme, My roll call Suprema so supreme, roll.
Speaker 8: Yeah with Mike and his hands.
Speaker 9: Then touch Joe Cole play oh nose God damn.
Speaker 4: Brema Suprema Suprema roll.
Speaker 3: Brower, brow I don't know what else to say, but brower.
Speaker 7: Suprema, Role Supremo, Suprema roll call, Suprema so supremo roll call.
Speaker 1: Well like you actually hit the on the hedge, right,
Speaker 1: I can just name them all. Luthor, Change, made an Ingredients,
Speaker 1: Cheryl Lynn, Chrace Jones, Jones, Girls, Queen Guthrie, Angelo Beaufieldtha Franklin,
Speaker 1: James Brown, Tevin Campbell, gladst Knight, Meet Look, Tony Bennett,
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney, David Byrne, Billy Joel, uh Hall of Notes,
Speaker 1: Kick the Coconuts, Glen Jone and now the show's over
Speaker 1: last John Right now, what they all have in common
Speaker 1: is probably a very distinct sound. Most notably Luther Vandros
Speaker 1: had such a sheene and such a clean texter to
Speaker 1: his music, which I feel defined eighties FM radio brought
Speaker 1: to you none other than the master engineer with us
Speaker 1: today on Quest Love Supreme welcome Michael Brower to the show.
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: Now, my my personal favorite shows of any shows that
Speaker 1: we do are with the President Company excluded looking at
Speaker 1: Sugar Steve are the engineers because they, to me, shape
Speaker 1: the sound of the artists that we love so much.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, and more than you know.
Speaker 1: Often I don't even think the artists really know that.
Speaker 1: I don't think the artists know much of the science
Speaker 1: that goes into the product that they deliver, but the
Speaker 1: engineer can explain it. So we thank you for doing
Speaker 1: this with us. Yeah, honored you. You agreed to do
Speaker 1: this so for our audience that's not too detake. Yeah,
Speaker 1: technical nerds, what is the role of an engineer.
Speaker 3: To get the vision of the artists down on tape
Speaker 3: as closely as possible, to record it in a way
Speaker 3: that when you put the faders up, you've got the
Speaker 3: feel of that song nailed. Okay, So it's more than
Speaker 3: just a documentation of the event, but trying to get
Speaker 3: the emotion and the feel across.
Speaker 1: Now, often are you part of because people don't know
Speaker 1: that tracking a song is different than mixing a song.
Speaker 1: So is it important for you to actually record the
Speaker 1: song so that you can really determine the app control
Speaker 1: of what comes in.
Speaker 3: We can we remind a little bit, what's the difference
Speaker 3: between what is tracking? Okay, well it is tracking. There
Speaker 3: is a big difference between tracking and mixing. Tracking is
Speaker 3: when you're recording all the instruments to multi tracks, to
Speaker 3: many different tracks that you can control the volume over later.
Speaker 3: And so how you record the drums and how you
Speaker 3: record the vocal and the bass, all that is very
Speaker 3: very important to make sure that the feel of that
Speaker 3: song comes out properly. And I started at a studio
Speaker 3: called Media Sound, which was an R and B studio primarily,
Speaker 3: and I just spent seven days a week in there,
Speaker 3: just you know, starting as an intern and then working
Speaker 3: my way into an assistant. But the point that I
Speaker 3: watched that I that was made clearly is how great
Speaker 3: the engineers were at this studio and how well they
Speaker 3: they recorded the sounds so that the artists would come
Speaker 3: in and just go, oh my god, this is exactly
Speaker 3: the way it should sound, and you know, and it
Speaker 3: would change from song to song. Media is where you
Speaker 3: first interned, like that was yes, Media Sound was my
Speaker 3: first gig. What year was this? This was seventy six,
Speaker 3: and then I was an assistant by seventy seven, and
Speaker 3: then an engineer by seventy eight. So did youeer, wait,
Speaker 3: why did that whole process take me eight years? You know,
Speaker 3: you still you give me some more coffee? Times are different,
Speaker 3: I mean back then everybody moved up pretty quickly. On
Speaker 3: it was just I've just noticed how quickly it slowed down.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was a time as Media sound and
Speaker 3: many of the studios you had an engineering staff comprised
Speaker 3: of the staff engineers, and then the assistants that were
Speaker 3: being taught by the engineers, and then the interns, and
Speaker 3: eventually the engineers would move on and assistants would move
Speaker 3: into that slot. And then around seventy nine or eighty,
Speaker 3: when the bottom fell out of Disco and all the
Speaker 3: labels were basically getting rid of their roster, studios couldn't
Speaker 3: afford staff engineers anymore, and they only had on payroll
Speaker 3: of the assistants. So moving up to become an engineer
Speaker 3: slowed down dramatically by two or three years because the
Speaker 3: engineers coming through were all transient, you know, they were
Speaker 3: just coming in for a bit and then moving on,
Speaker 3: and so studios just wanted basically professional assistants.
Speaker 1: So are you saying that from the mid seventies to
Speaker 1: the very early age eight that there was actually a boom,
Speaker 1: an upward mobile movement, Because when I hear any veteran
Speaker 1: of the music industry talk, they always speak of, you know,
Speaker 1: the slow down period of a particular part of the
Speaker 1: recording industry. You know, some people think that period was
Speaker 1: like the early eighties, you know, the industry was over.
Speaker 1: It was musically almost every period every year it is
Speaker 1: like it was over that year, it was over.
Speaker 3: So well it you know, the studios were starving because
Speaker 3: there were no more acts coming in. They'd all been dropped, right, So,
Speaker 3: but so in order for studio to stay open, they
Speaker 3: couldn't have staff engineers also on payroll, so they forced
Speaker 3: pretty much most of the engineers to go independent.
Speaker 5: Ah So, so when people say like Thriller saved the
Speaker 5: record business, like that is not much of an exaggeration
Speaker 5: because from the period that you're saying, like those yeah,
Speaker 5: early eighties, like it was kind of.
Speaker 3: It was a time when when bands came in and
Speaker 3: they had carte blanche with a budget. And I remember
Speaker 3: this distinctly because of our food budgets. I mean what
Speaker 3: we ate during launch and dinner was amazing. And then
Speaker 3: one day none of those bands showed up anymore. They
Speaker 3: were all off the roster. Uh. And then you know,
Speaker 3: when it started to bands were starting to come in,
Speaker 3: it'd say, okay, so what do we do for food budget?
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no, no, we don't have that anymore.
Speaker 1: Do you think do you think that MTV sort of
Speaker 1: helped with that as well? I mean, of course with Thriller, Yes,
Speaker 1: it was the butt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it was super important. It's also important
Speaker 3: that bands that were maybe mediocre but had great presence
Speaker 3: via MTV just became huge hits.
Speaker 1: Okay, so who do you remember your Did you get
Speaker 1: a job at the studio as an intern because you what?
Speaker 3: Were you in love with music? Or was it just
Speaker 3: like I got to get a job with me. I
Speaker 3: was a drummer with the band. It was just a
Speaker 3: cover band, and we were out in the Midwest, and
Speaker 3: I I liked what I was doing. I wasn't sure
Speaker 3: that I was going to be good enough to make
Speaker 3: a living off of it, but I had gone to
Speaker 3: Eastman School of Music right when I graduated. For it
Speaker 3: was like a two to three week course and it
Speaker 3: was there where I met well, there were there were
Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of people, but one of
Speaker 3: them was Phil Phil Phil No, no, no, oh my god,
Speaker 3: it'll come back to me. But anyway, way, what was
Speaker 3: it an engineer? No, it was a great producer. He
Speaker 3: just recently died. I can't believe. I just Phil Ramone.
Speaker 3: Phil Ramone, Yeah, thank you very much. And you know,
Speaker 3: until then, I was I was pretty scared of what
Speaker 3: they were. They were very technical, and I didn't understand
Speaker 3: anything they were saying. And I was thinking, man, you know,
Speaker 3: I just I was a performer. I want to continue
Speaker 3: doing that, and how is this going to go on
Speaker 3: with with people just talking about eqs and reverbs and
Speaker 3: wet and dry? And I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: And so it was after a day of lessons and
Speaker 3: we're all sitting around and Phil Ramone is talking at
Speaker 3: a table and we're just sitting around and he's, you know,
Speaker 3: he's just talking about how when he's mixing and his
Speaker 3: hands are moving and and I'm just at the table.
Speaker 3: I go, wow, this looks like he's performing. And I thought, man,
Speaker 3: this could be amazing. And there was at that point
Speaker 3: just watching him describe how he mixes, I thought this
Speaker 3: would be perfect. This is what I want to do,
Speaker 3: you know, I want to continue performing, and it just
Speaker 3: to me it was like instead of playing drums now
Speaker 3: I playing the console. When did the.
Speaker 1: Days of like I'll see old studio photos of the
Speaker 1: Beatles and even some James Brown studio session photos, and
Speaker 1: like engineers were actually dressing like engineers with the white
Speaker 1: lab Like when did when did that particular period come
Speaker 1: to an end?
Speaker 3: For engineers? Like that was mostly going on in England
Speaker 3: and Abbey Road. I didn't see unless there was a
Speaker 3: couple of studios where the jazz studios where that was
Speaker 3: very evident. But I never saw any of that. I
Speaker 3: don't think that was really going on in uh in
Speaker 3: any of the American studios. So how how important is
Speaker 3: math and equations to you?
Speaker 1: Like do you go, I'm a guy that goes on
Speaker 1: feeling like I'm you know, I'm just learning about different dB.
Speaker 3: Levels and hurts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it hurts, and you know overdriving, you know, with
Speaker 1: hip hop, it's just like more about feel as opposed
Speaker 1: to you know, science. A guy like Bob Power would say, well,
Speaker 1: you know too much base UH four level base will
Speaker 1: cause your record to skip and da da da dad,
Speaker 1: So you got to balance it and take it.
Speaker 3: You know, he has come up with these equations because
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: That your your calling card or your signature is how
Speaker 1: you use compression, which I used to think compression was
Speaker 1: the enemy of music, but you made it work.
Speaker 3: So like how important is is percent? Feel? Everything else
Speaker 3: is a coincidence. I mean you can analyze it and go, oh,
Speaker 3: he does this and he does that. Or when I
Speaker 3: started with mixed with the Masters, where I needed to
Speaker 3: teach and actually verbalize what I'd been doing, That's when
Speaker 3: I had to actually kind of study what I'm doing.
Speaker 3: But it was always by feel. If I was looking
Speaker 3: for a delay, I would just turn it till it
Speaker 3: went ah. You know, if I slap on a vocal,
Speaker 3: I would just keep moving it too far, too little,
Speaker 3: and just then that's not right in But you know,
Speaker 3: I mean I'm not making a joke.
Speaker 2: I mean that's when he gets on the board, he
Speaker 2: just you know, he'll boost up the level and then
Speaker 2: sweep sweep the frequencias.
Speaker 3: So that's how I learned.
Speaker 9: That's interesting because throughout my when I was a I
Speaker 9: guess out of college. I was interested in being an engineer,
Speaker 9: and then I realized the science of it, and I figured,
Speaker 9: at some point, even though you are doing it through ear,
Speaker 9: at some point it's like you have to know the
Speaker 9: formula of mega hurts into this, and goodness.
Speaker 3: I didn't have to do that, because then I would
Speaker 3: have never.
Speaker 6: That's actually what kept me from doing it, because I
Speaker 6: I almost was a music engineering major in college. Then
Speaker 6: I saw all the physical class required.
Speaker 3: Oh well, you know, I'll tell you what. It's interesting
Speaker 3: you say that because I was terribly intimidated by people
Speaker 3: who talked like that, I mean really really bad, and
Speaker 3: I would have to leave the room when they'd start
Speaker 3: talking like, oh my god, I'll never be like that.
Speaker 3: They're so smart, you know. And there and I'll give
Speaker 3: you the best example where I learned my lesson and
Speaker 3: this they changed me forever. It was that Media Sound
Speaker 3: and we have just started. It was right after outside
Speaker 3: engineers are now being allowed into studios. Because at Media Sound,
Speaker 3: you there were no outside engineers. You came to Media
Speaker 3: Sound to work with their engineers. But with the desk,
Speaker 3: death of disco and studios opening up, there was this
Speaker 3: engineer and so he's describing, you know, we're just in
Speaker 3: the lounge or just hanging out, and he starts saying, yeah,
Speaker 3: I've got this acoustic guitar sound, and I've got this
Speaker 3: MS positioning where I've got it for two inches one
Speaker 3: mic over the other. And then I bring it up
Speaker 3: and I bid good bed, bid bed bed, you know,
Speaker 3: and it's like beer and baseball to me, you know,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, oh my god, I'm just and I
Speaker 3: started getting that feeling in my stomach where I'm just like,
Speaker 3: oh man, I'm never I feel when I wake up.
Speaker 3: And I was just like, man, this, I just wish
Speaker 3: it Sky would shut up because I just, you know,
Speaker 3: it makes me feel awful. I don't know what he's
Speaker 3: talking about, and I'll never do that. So I go, hey,
Speaker 3: can I hear what you're doing. He goes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: come on in. It was in studio way. It's beautiful room,
Speaker 3: I know it, you know, every inch of that room.
Speaker 3: And he plays it sounds like and it was crap,
Speaker 3: and I was just like, wow, that is not good
Speaker 3: at all. And I say, okay, thanks man. No I
Speaker 3: didn't say no. I was just like, I was likeels sketch.
Speaker 3: I said, did you say that. You know, I'm just thinking,
Speaker 3: I said, man, what an idiot. I am all being
Speaker 3: intimidated and everything and walking in there thinking this guy
Speaker 3: is God, you know, and it sounds like crap. And
Speaker 3: so I left there and I thought, never again will
Speaker 3: that happen, because it's always about feel, and I don't
Speaker 3: anybody start talks big. Yeah. If I go in and
Speaker 3: I listened to it and it sounds good, then I'm
Speaker 3: gonna be curious to see how he did, and I'll
Speaker 3: be interested in learning. But all the talk talk talk,
Speaker 3: and all the numbers you need to know, and and
Speaker 3: you know, formulas that means anything, and in R and
Speaker 3: B it never meant anything. I mean, you know I learned.
Speaker 3: You know, it was because of being around Luther, and
Speaker 3: you know that that whole crowd and that whole field
Speaker 3: that I started mixing in the up on the upbeat,
Speaker 3: like I never really moved much. I used to move down,
Speaker 3: and I'd be the only guy in the in the
Speaker 3: room on the feeling, you know, down, and every and
Speaker 3: I look around everybody else heads are bopping on the
Speaker 3: up you know. I was like, well, you know, I
Speaker 3: would try that and I'd fall out of him I'm like,
Speaker 3: I really.
Speaker 1: Am the only white guy in this room. You know,
Speaker 1: can you can you trust your ears in a studio?
Speaker 1: For me, the final word is when it's when it's
Speaker 1: outside the studio. And I know, like most studio speakers
Speaker 1: are intentionally built to be more dry than what your home.
Speaker 3: Experience is, Like how how often can you just know okay,
Speaker 3: this is this is it? I really trusted my speakers.
Speaker 3: I would take it home, but it was never My
Speaker 3: speakers at home were never accurate. They were kind of whacked,
Speaker 3: and so I stopped doing that and I'd listen to headphones.
Speaker 3: But then I was intimidated by listening to my mixesm
Speaker 3: in my headphones because I was afraid they'd sound awful
Speaker 3: and I'd hear stuff. So I was I never wanted
Speaker 3: to put headphones on a lot of insecurities to get
Speaker 3: where I am. But you know, I actually what I
Speaker 3: learned to trust. I was mixing some records in Japan
Speaker 3: and they had this boombox and they'd play back my
Speaker 3: mix through the boombox. And when they first started doing that,
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, man, this boombox sucks not good
Speaker 3: at all. And then you go, oh, you know, maybe
Speaker 3: we fixed this, We fixed that. Like yeah, okay, but
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, listening to this, it's awful. And
Speaker 3: then it got sounding really really good. And then I
Speaker 3: listened back to on my pro acts. I was like, whoa, wow,
Speaker 3: this sounds great. I thought, ah, yeah, I've never I
Speaker 3: just learned something. And you've you've probably seen it. In
Speaker 3: my room. It's like this old Sony box. Every song
Speaker 3: I've ever mixed, I mixed through there, and I trust
Speaker 3: that radio. So when I know it sounds good there,
Speaker 3: it's going to sound good on my proacts, on my
Speaker 3: ATC's or you know, all the other speakers, and it's
Speaker 3: going to sound good outside. And I also learned a
Speaker 3: lot from mastering engineer. I mean, the first ten years
Speaker 3: or so, I mastered everything with Greg Calby at Sterling.
Speaker 1: So you would you would you wouldn't trust the process
Speaker 1: of them. You would actually go and make sure that
Speaker 1: they didn't flatten you out or anything.
Speaker 3: Well, I was learning. I mean, he mastered my very
Speaker 3: first record, and so I'd go in there because back
Speaker 3: then it was called Mickey and Becky was a Christian act.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, okay, recorded and recorded and mixed, and uh,
Speaker 3: they were really great. People. I mean, so many stories
Speaker 3: with that record, but you know it was the first
Speaker 3: record and the cover had a banner, big banner across
Speaker 3: the two of them, you know, Mickey, Oh my god, yeah,
Speaker 3: what first record?
Speaker 1: Who were you an apprentice under when you finally got
Speaker 1: to assistant? Who's your Who was your.
Speaker 3: My mentors were Harvey Goldberg, okay, and Michael Deluge and
Speaker 3: Fred Christie and Clear Mountain, uh, Tom, Tony bon Jovi.
Speaker 3: I mean there were a lot of great guys, but
Speaker 3: the two that really took me under the wings were
Speaker 3: Michael Deluge and Harvey Goldberg.
Speaker 1: In your assistant days, what were your clients like? Where
Speaker 1: they local acts, any national.
Speaker 3: Or about everything? I mean Fat Back Band, Oh talk
Speaker 3: about Wait a minute, Tony BONJOI was doing Fat Back
Speaker 3: and and I mean just all you know, heavy R
Speaker 3: and B was name. Yeah, well good, good question. Remember
Speaker 3: two of them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Fat Back, I'm like Spanish Hustle, Yeah, Kington.
Speaker 3: None of them come to mind now, it was so
Speaker 3: long ago. Let me see we did the Hustle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he was there, the Fat Back Man as well.
Speaker 1: Oh they had one too, yeah oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now it was but it was m Van McCoy
Speaker 3: he was a regular. He was a great guy. Man.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Okay, how old were you at this point?
Speaker 3: On I started at twenty five, so at this point
Speaker 3: I'm twenty six, twenty seven. I started pretty late. Were
Speaker 3: you scared? I was older than most of the engineers.
Speaker 3: I was even than Fire Mountain? Wow? Yeah, and Harvey
Speaker 3: and all those guys.
Speaker 1: Were you afraid when you finally took the reins on
Speaker 1: your own or like, how do you make that that leap?
Speaker 1: Most engineers I talked to either their lead guy like
Speaker 1: decides to take a vacation or is sick that day,
Speaker 1: and then next thing you.
Speaker 3: Know, well, they were great there because you start off
Speaker 3: by doing overdubs. Okay, so you would record a guitar overdub,
Speaker 3: and then you move on to maybe backing vocals, and
Speaker 3: then you'd eventually move towards doing all the percussion and
Speaker 3: then strings and then horns all separately, and eventually, you know,
Speaker 3: the day comes and I remember the day I got
Speaker 3: the call. So it's gonna be you know, it's gonna
Speaker 3: be an AD date. It's gonna be pretty big session.
Speaker 3: It's just gonna you know, drums, bass, and you know
Speaker 3: the rhythm section and then maybe and maybe backing vocals
Speaker 3: and the singing and stuff like, Okay, that's cool, I
Speaker 3: can handle all that. And then about ten minutes later
Speaker 3: the orchestra show, she calls back, well, she calls this
Speaker 3: is for the next day, and Vivian Deluge calls me
Speaker 3: and she goes, so listen, you know they're also going
Speaker 3: to have strings and horns at the same time. It's
Speaker 3: all live. It was studie way. It was a huge,
Speaker 3: huge room, and she says, you know, I don't I
Speaker 3: don't think you're quite ready for that. I was like, no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm ready. I'm ready. I can do it. I can
Speaker 3: do it. She goes, you sure, Yeah, yeah, I'm really sure.
Speaker 3: I go okay. Click. I went over to the bathroom
Speaker 3: like I just ready to pass out, like, oh, I
Speaker 3: can do this. I can do this. And then she
Speaker 3: calls back again. She goes, look, I don't know, Michael.
Speaker 3: Now they've added also a whole whole percussion section, vibraphone, rimba,
Speaker 3: you know. And I was just like, yeah, no problem,
Speaker 3: it's no problem. Click. So you're saying I'm at typical
Speaker 3: disco sessions. This was an AD date, Okay, an AD
Speaker 3: date and so it was for a commercial or you know,
Speaker 3: for for some kind of who knows anymore. It was
Speaker 3: a long time ago, but they had, you know, a
Speaker 3: lot of musicians. I mean because the studio during the
Speaker 3: day we were doing commercials and then come six o'clock
Speaker 3: we were doing records because you couldn't get any of
Speaker 3: the musicians during the day because they were getting doubled
Speaker 3: in triple scale, right, So nobody was doing records during
Speaker 3: the day because records a single scale back then. So
Speaker 3: so Media Sound was very well known for doing commercials
Speaker 3: from nine am to five pm, and so I'd finish
Speaker 3: at five, take an hour, and then I'd start records
Speaker 3: until and I was doing double shifts. I didn't care.
Speaker 1: I loved it, Okay, So I want to get into
Speaker 1: some of your clients, Billy Joel.
Speaker 2: Before we start with all the the ones you want
Speaker 2: to talk about.
Speaker 3: Billy Joel, Let's back up because with Billy Joel, there's
Speaker 3: some of these acts like Billy Joel and Aerosmith where
Speaker 3: it was part of a box set. You know, I
Speaker 3: would just do a couple of songs, and I never
Speaker 3: met Billy, I never met Gosh from arrow Smith. So
Speaker 3: those were one offs, which you know, it was fun.
Speaker 3: But I read you also did mixing on Freddie Hubbard.
Speaker 3: Did you do? Yeah? He did. Red Clay was direct
Speaker 3: and it was another it was another ct record and
Speaker 3: that turned out to be Yeah, he's still in your
Speaker 3: swag right now, Red Clay, He's still That was that
Speaker 3: I'm dunking it.
Speaker 2: I'm approaching the hoop elevating. Uh well, what about Red Clay, Well,
Speaker 2: because that's rudy right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was it was after, way after the
Speaker 3: record had been done. I don't remember why it had
Speaker 3: to be remixed, but that show was you know, that
Speaker 3: album was remixed and it was Steve Berkowitz. I believe
Speaker 3: that was, you know, the head of that. The live
Speaker 3: version of the studio version.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 3: God so long ago. I think it was a studio version.
Speaker 1: Ok because you were you weren't coming from the hip
Speaker 1: hop perspective. STUDI version that's tried live version as far ASDA.
Speaker 2: So, I mean other what what other CTI records were
Speaker 2: you associated with?
Speaker 3: That was it? I mean again, it was it was
Speaker 3: going through Sony through Steve Burkowitz, being re released, you know,
Speaker 3: just like the Dylan records. Okay, it was a point
Speaker 3: where they were, you know, they wanted to do sac
Speaker 3: D and so a lot of these records were being
Speaker 3: redone with the Dylan records. The masters had been lost.
Speaker 1: Oh so you're completely mixing from scratch. You're not just
Speaker 1: taking the half inch and the final the original.
Speaker 3: Wow. Okay, So what pressure is that on you? Because
Speaker 3: I'll notice that.
Speaker 1: This explains a lot when like when I go on
Speaker 1: iTunes and I'll hear variation in the mixes of like
Speaker 1: the box set versus the greatest hit remastered versus the
Speaker 1: original version, and you know, it'll be a ring in
Speaker 1: the snare and I'll notice different mixes. Of course, you'll
Speaker 1: you know, I assume that you'll try and stay faithful,
Speaker 1: oh to the original. But what keeps you from but
Speaker 1: you're known for such sheen, Like what if you're doing
Speaker 1: a project that is okay, if you're doing something from
Speaker 1: John Wesley Harding or something from like yeah, it's trashed
Speaker 1: out trashing, it's.
Speaker 3: Not appropriate to make it anything less than trash. So
Speaker 3: you do believe in the trash. Now I love trash.
Speaker 3: See okay, See this is the thing that could because
Speaker 3: it's gonna say, when I was listening to some of
Speaker 3: your stuff. Get busy? How dirty? Get busy is right.
Speaker 3: I was like, listen, man, I want to mix something
Speaker 3: like that for you because it's dirty something though, because
Speaker 3: I don't want to do Sheen was. Sheen was years ago.
Speaker 3: You know that that's what was cool. But times change.
Speaker 1: The thing is like when I think of, like even
Speaker 1: when I think of what hip hop was trying to
Speaker 1: be the anti or go against, especially like with Public Enemy,
Speaker 1: Like I'm thinking, oh, Luther Vandros, because I'm like, what's
Speaker 1: the shiniest, most brightest, most clear. I mean now, as
Speaker 1: a DJ, I respect it, you know, because I love
Speaker 1: when a good mix translates over.
Speaker 3: The system. But how how do you think.
Speaker 1: As far as like you're definitely did you set out
Speaker 1: to say, I'm going to like just redefine what R
Speaker 1: and B was, because, with the exception of Off the Wall,
Speaker 1: most R and B records weren't that super clean.
Speaker 3: Yeah. With Luther, you know it was. I mean there
Speaker 3: was nobody like him when he came out. Nobody was
Speaker 3: singing like him, but it was pretty basic R and B,
Speaker 3: and I think the sound we were getting at media sound.
Speaker 3: It's not like I did something completely different than what
Speaker 3: we were already doing there. I think I just he
Speaker 3: looked at me, he goes, you take care of the sound,
Speaker 3: I'll take care of everything else. And he had met
Speaker 3: me when I was doing the Change record, and he
Speaker 3: really liked what I had done with Glow of Love,
Speaker 3: you know, and Searching. Those were the only two songs
Speaker 3: I'd done on that record. And he was like you,
Speaker 3: and he was like, I really like what you did.
Speaker 3: You know, He's just you know, I don't know if
Speaker 3: I thought you had my voice a little dry on
Speaker 3: Glow of Love and yeah, but Luther, you know, it
Speaker 3: was just like it brought that vulnerability out because yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: you know, I wanted more reverb.
Speaker 8: Can I ask you.
Speaker 9: Guys a question as a novice, like what would be
Speaker 9: an example of a badly mixed R and B record
Speaker 9: to give people like a reference points?
Speaker 8: Luther was the great I.
Speaker 3: Mean, not.
Speaker 1: Like for real Princes albums. Oh yeah, Prince records. But
Speaker 1: this is the thing though, that was part of the
Speaker 1: kind of Prince albums are bad. And he admitted that,
Speaker 1: you know, because he did it in his bedroom.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Up to what And the thing is, if you work
Speaker 1: too much on a song, your ears will start lying
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 3: I don't know, do you agree with me or are
Speaker 3: you above the no. I like to take a lot
Speaker 3: of earbrakes if I can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like a lot of times, like okay, a cat
Speaker 1: like Kanye West will blast, He'll blast his music on
Speaker 1: the biggest speakers ever, and you'll wear.
Speaker 3: Your ears out.
Speaker 1: So a lot of times when you're mixing, you're supposed
Speaker 1: to mix it on soft speakers, very low level. Because
Speaker 1: the thing is, if it sounds good on crappy you know,
Speaker 1: like your clock radio at home, like what he was
Speaker 1: saying about his box, like sound excellent. So you shouldn't
Speaker 1: wear your ears out and you should take ear breaks.
Speaker 3: But I don't completely agree with that. You really feel
Speaker 3: it physically. I mean I start off with the big speakers,
Speaker 3: when my I've got the ATC fifties and a big
Speaker 3: ass sub, and when I'm getting the drums and the
Speaker 3: bass and you know, everything else on, it's cranked. But
Speaker 3: I don't do it for hours. I'll do it for
Speaker 3: you know, under an hour, clearly, but I'll get to
Speaker 3: the point where I physically feel it, and when I
Speaker 3: know where everything is in its right spot, then I'll
Speaker 3: start to turn it down, and then I'll progressively get
Speaker 3: the smaller speakers the point where it's on my radio.
Speaker 3: But I gotta physically feel what I'm mixing. I gotta
Speaker 3: feel that bottom end and the kick hit me under
Speaker 3: the you know, in the stomach, and the snare in
Speaker 3: the chest.
Speaker 1: And but to finish the point, if those first ten
Speaker 1: Prints records had a professional scene mix, it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: the same record. I agree, Like I his this is
Speaker 1: where Bill kind of gets mad at me because I'm
Speaker 1: slicing everything after the love Sexy period, like once Prints
Speaker 1: upgraded to Paisley's Park Studios and had you know, better,
Speaker 1: better equipment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just I hated it. I hated it because
Speaker 3: it just IT'SOK.
Speaker 1: The songs were great, like and Stevie too, same thing.
Speaker 1: The songs are great, but I felt the personality was
Speaker 1: in the mistakes and the kind of like a Wu
Speaker 1: Tang record, like you know, like Doctor Dre is great
Speaker 1: for seeing, but I love the Rissa in the Basement
Speaker 1: with Mildew and you know, the second they went to
Speaker 1: l A and did Wu Tang forever and I was like,
Speaker 1: this sounds like everything else. So sometimes only the best
Speaker 1: won't do so how how how much of it?
Speaker 3: Uh task master was luthor as far as like his.
Speaker 1: His his discipline, his anal retentiveness is unbelievable because I
Speaker 1: know the concert He's like.
Speaker 3: What is it like in the studio It was a
Speaker 3: great experience. He I mean him and and nat Adeley,
Speaker 3: who was arranging and on the first record he was
Speaker 3: This was in studio B at Media Sound and he
Speaker 3: was in the vocal booth and then the band, the
Speaker 3: whole rhythm section. You know, it was basically performing recording
Speaker 3: it live. And once he had a great vocal take
Speaker 3: that was to take. I mean that first album. Those
Speaker 3: were all I barely touched any of the vocals. Those
Speaker 3: were all the rough vocals. Those were the final vocals
Speaker 3: on on that first album. And when you say touch
Speaker 3: on what would what would you mean? I hardly did it?
Speaker 3: In other was maybe i'd maybe i'd you know, re
Speaker 3: record a word or two, you know, just it is, yeah,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't even edits you know, it was all
Speaker 3: hitting recording in and out real quick, so just jump
Speaker 3: in and out on one or two words. But you know,
Speaker 3: it was an incredible first record and it was done
Speaker 3: in bits, you know, we did, you know, two songs
Speaker 3: on a weekend. It was over a period of a
Speaker 3: few months, easily, because he didn't have a deal yet.
Speaker 3: But but to answer your question, when you'd see him
Speaker 3: get to work, when it came time for doing backing vocals,
Speaker 3: oh my god, it was just tredible to watch because,
Speaker 3: you know, the first he always doubled the backgrounds and
Speaker 3: who you know, they would be the regulars. You'd have
Speaker 3: Phonzie and to author, Brenda and Cissy. Occasionally Sissy would
Speaker 3: kind of come in as a you know, as a guest,
Speaker 3: but there there was an even Whitney came in a
Speaker 3: couple of times. But you know, he had the regulars,
Speaker 3: and then he would do the first pass and then
Speaker 3: the second pass. He would change everybody around you say, okay, Fonzie,
Speaker 3: you take this note, and I'll take this note, and
Speaker 3: you know, in the invert and invert stuff, and and
Speaker 3: if somebody just went off a tiny bit or you know,
Speaker 3: they were doubling and someone else, he'd notice it right
Speaker 3: away and go no, no, no, fix that. And so
Speaker 3: the reason why the backing vocals always sounded so incredible
Speaker 3: is because he wasn't just doubling the doubles were always different,
Speaker 3: really yeah, because you know he would just have people
Speaker 3: take different different parts.
Speaker 1: When you're when you're initially tracking a song like take
Speaker 1: all right, let's take uh never too Much?
Speaker 3: That has not been a lounge? How much pre how
Speaker 3: much pre uh work goes into your tracking before you
Speaker 3: know you have a take?
Speaker 1: In other words, uh, does the band have to play
Speaker 1: it over and over again until you premix it?
Speaker 3: Oh? No, I've I get the sounds before they walk in,
Speaker 3: or well they'll walk in, you know. With Never too Much,
Speaker 3: it would have been Buddy Williams, right, Buddy would have
Speaker 3: come in and I would have gotten the sounds on him.
Speaker 3: You know. Back then you'd get these in like ten
Speaker 3: minutes basically, and so you do do do do doo,
Speaker 3: snare snare, snare, kick kick kick, Okay, we're good, and
Speaker 3: then bass. So you see that your rough sounds.
Speaker 1: Close enough for Luthor or markets to not be discouraged, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know this sound. I'm trying to imagine what
Speaker 1: a rough mix of Never too Much sounds like because
Speaker 1: to me, thechine of it all, there wasn't the makeup
Speaker 1: on it. To me, is the product, you know, not
Speaker 1: the glue, the hair weave.
Speaker 5: The.
Speaker 3: It was. There wasn't much difference really between doing the
Speaker 3: rough and the final mix, because I was recording it
Speaker 3: that way. I was recording it feeling it final. I
Speaker 3: was riding the faders during the recording, and all the
Speaker 3: monitors were set at basically one o'clock, and so the
Speaker 3: way I would record is to keep leaving all the
Speaker 3: tracks at one o'clock. And I did all my rides
Speaker 3: so that when when i'd have to bring that song
Speaker 3: back up really fast, I could just do it with
Speaker 3: a pencil and I'd have my balance, the exact balance.
Speaker 3: Because you know, if you got to do backing vocals
Speaker 3: on four or five songs, it's not like you got
Speaker 3: ten minutes or fifteen minutes to get a rough mix.
Speaker 3: You need it right away because they're onto the next song.
Speaker 3: So you just with a pencil, it goes and there's
Speaker 3: your mix. And so when it came time to mixing,
Speaker 3: the mixing took like a couple hours, like two or
Speaker 3: three at the most. It's crazy. We were at Media Sound.
Speaker 3: We were if you took more than three hours to
Speaker 3: mix the song, you were just not cool, really cool. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we would mix, yeah, things up, which of you two
Speaker 3: is one that's overthinking.
Speaker 1: Well, it's just that he's saying the exact opposite of
Speaker 1: what my experiences are. Like, Okay, take on things fall apart,
Speaker 1: take Act two Love My Life, which is pretty much
Speaker 1: a root support or favorite. But the rough mix sounded
Speaker 1: nothing like the final mix and a lot of my compositions,
Speaker 1: it's strictly done on faith of don't worry guys, when
Speaker 1: we mix it, it's.
Speaker 3: Going to sound like this for a long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's like, you know, and for the longest,
Speaker 1: Tarik hate it. Like the version, the version that's a rough.
Speaker 1: If I finally consent, maybe I'll leak it out. I mean,
Speaker 1: it sucks compared to what the final was. And I
Speaker 1: just had to be like, yo, man, that's the one.
Speaker 1: He's just right to it. No, no, no, no, but
Speaker 1: just like just he didn't like it com and started
Speaker 1: writing to it, and it was like, all right, let
Speaker 1: me add my verse. But because the tracking when we
Speaker 1: were done, it just it had no life to it.
Speaker 1: And I was like, dog, just trust me. See my
Speaker 1: final vision. I'm gonna have strings of the thing. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna mix the snare roll, you know. And they had
Speaker 1: the snaps on it and all this stuff, and then
Speaker 1: the final mix it was like, yo, this is nothing
Speaker 1: like that, But that's what you do in the production
Speaker 1: at the time of the mix. That's what's going on there.
Speaker 1: That's the difference with Luther. Everything was done as we
Speaker 1: were recording. All the decisions were made at that time,
Speaker 1: and so come time to mix, it was.
Speaker 3: Just the final process. So everything the record is done.
Speaker 3: Now just put it up and ride it properly. And
Speaker 3: they were done.
Speaker 1: So if you want to put a phasing effect on
Speaker 1: the base or something, or just a little bit of
Speaker 1: course on it, you would do that as you're tracking.
Speaker 3: If everybody thought it was a good idea, yeah, and
Speaker 3: we committed to it.
Speaker 1: Okay, see all right, you just thought that if it
Speaker 1: sounds good dry, then it's like, okay, this is a song,
Speaker 1: and then wait till we.
Speaker 3: Dress it up and well, yeah, but did it sound
Speaker 3: good dry? Not really? Okay, that's where we went, Well,
Speaker 3: let's make it feel great, because otherwise we're not going
Speaker 3: to print it. When we recorded, it's got to feel great.
Speaker 3: Everybody in the room's got to be excited.
Speaker 9: You said it so much that thought it was like
Speaker 9: some extra honor in whoever the engineer was that was
Speaker 9: mixing the album after it was done. Like I always
Speaker 9: in my mind, I was like, Okay, the recording engineer
Speaker 9: is one thing, but the mixing engineer, that's like a
Speaker 9: whole other level.
Speaker 3: That developed into it where you had guys who were
Speaker 3: became strictly mixers like myself. I mean, the first person
Speaker 3: I remember that being like, wow, you know people are
Speaker 3: coming to him just to mixing would have been Bob Clearmountain,
Speaker 3: so it is, and Tony bon Jovi and uh, I
Speaker 3: mean Godfree and a lot of the guys at the
Speaker 3: studio became just really really in demand for what they
Speaker 3: could do with these tracks.
Speaker 2: But you let me ask you a question, Michael, So,
Speaker 2: when it started to become this person's a recording engineer
Speaker 2: or known as a recording engineer, and this person's starting
Speaker 2: to become solely known as a mix engineer, did it
Speaker 2: immediately start to be some kind of like a financial
Speaker 2: different difference as well, like a mixing engineers notoriously get
Speaker 2: paid more than recording engineers and mastering engineers. I don't
Speaker 2: know if they get paid more than mixers, but it
Speaker 2: seems like, you know, it started to become more.
Speaker 3: Separated and very much in the beginning.
Speaker 2: My question is, why do you think mixed engineers deserve
Speaker 2: to be paid more than recording I've always obviously they're
Speaker 2: being paid for their for their wrong persons, But no,
Speaker 2: I mean to me, tracking or recording it's pretty hard work.
Speaker 2: It is hard work using your ears, you're using and.
Speaker 3: You're spending way more time than I am to mix
Speaker 3: what you spent weeks and months recording. But it becomes
Speaker 3: a specialty, and the more you can really enhance the
Speaker 3: vision that the artist had originally and do it in
Speaker 3: a way that is blowing everybody's minds on, the more
Speaker 3: in demand you become. If you if you're a mixer,
Speaker 3: we're the only people that like your mixer. Your friends
Speaker 3: probably going to get all that much work. But in
Speaker 3: the beginning, everybody who's an engineer was a mixer. You
Speaker 3: did everything. You did everything then. But we started realizing
Speaker 3: that some guys were much better energy at engineering than
Speaker 3: they were at mixing, and vera and vice versa.
Speaker 1: I always thought that Bob Power was a way better
Speaker 1: mixing engineer than a tracking engineer, But then.
Speaker 9: Master there is a whole nother level is like if
Speaker 9: the mixer is a peasant too. I mean, if recording
Speaker 9: is the peasant to mixer, then mixer is the peasant
Speaker 9: to master is like the last.
Speaker 3: Step that's like, yeah, the last step that you know
Speaker 3: a whole few leagues what's mixed. If you're doing it right,
Speaker 3: the mastering engineer shouldn't have too hard a time, but.
Speaker 8: He probably gets paid the most.
Speaker 3: I don't know about that. It really depends.
Speaker 2: But as you said before, the same thing holds true.
Speaker 2: If the recording engineer does his job right, then the
Speaker 2: mix engineer shouldn't have two over time.
Speaker 3: There are tracks where if I know I'm getting something
Speaker 3: from Joe Chicarelli or or a bunch of great engineers,
Speaker 3: and I know I'm going to be mixing them, I'm like,
Speaker 3: it's going to be a good day. Okay.
Speaker 1: So since you say that, I now think that the
Speaker 1: mixing engineer has it harder, because there have been a
Speaker 1: lot of times where my mixing guys will be like, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I understand the nightmare they're going through. Then
Speaker 1: we have a situation with one of our interviewees where
Speaker 1: they said that they got it. Who said that, oh,
Speaker 1: just plays explained that you know they would get bad
Speaker 1: tracked jay Z songs, Oh yeah, yeah, And a guy
Speaker 1: like jay Z doesn't understand the technical jargon. He's just like, yo,
Speaker 1: I won't right in two minutes. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: with a client that is not you know, the technically
Speaker 1: you know, up there with his IQ to understand certain things,
Speaker 1: then I almost feel like the mixing engineer would get
Speaker 1: more abuse because it's.
Speaker 3: Like, yo, why mush it sound like that? Because that's
Speaker 3: how I came.
Speaker 1: They're not going to understand like, well, you know, the
Speaker 1: tracking was bad, and so yeah, I never we learned
Speaker 1: not to use that as an excuse.
Speaker 3: We just made it good and we had to figure
Speaker 3: out how to make it sound good. I mean way
Speaker 3: before drum samples and we're doing you know, like disco
Speaker 3: records and you get this kick that goes like what
Speaker 3: am gonna do with that? You know, and we learned
Speaker 3: how to make it sound like a great kick. So
Speaker 3: are you more.
Speaker 1: Not afraid worried about the producer and artist at hand
Speaker 1: versus the an R and label president like so say
Speaker 1: a great example if now Rogers was extremely satisfied with
Speaker 1: the way that the Diana record Barry Gordy gets it
Speaker 1: and like this shit sucks, you know, and then hired
Speaker 1: his own guy to remix that entire nineteen eighty album.
Speaker 1: So I know that because a majority of your stuff
Speaker 1: was on Sony and Arista and stuff that you know,
Speaker 1: is Clive talking to you like, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I like my mixes and da da da da da. Well,
Speaker 3: it's very clear what you were going to hand into Clive.
Speaker 3: It was going to have to be all about the vocal,
Speaker 3: and so the challenge was to make sure that you
Speaker 3: got a real good groove going with the rest of
Speaker 3: the rhythm without making it sound like it was a
Speaker 3: huge vocal up. And that's where I learned how to
Speaker 3: eq certain things out of the record so that for Aretha,
Speaker 3: I could make her sound really really loud, but you
Speaker 3: could still feel the track around her.
Speaker 1: So, uh, of your of your of your hits arsenal,
Speaker 1: what was a recalled nightmare?
Speaker 3: You know? Did you have to do Freeway Love like
Speaker 3: five times over? Like?
Speaker 1: How often would you have to recall a mix until
Speaker 1: all parties were satisfied.
Speaker 3: There wasn't much that going on back then. You know,
Speaker 3: you might recall it, and back then it was almost
Speaker 3: like a memory. I mean they'd start writing stuff down
Speaker 3: a little bit, but I would just kind of puts
Speaker 3: and recording, like now you know you can recall something instantly.
Speaker 3: We're protests. No comparison. I mean, there's just no comparison.
Speaker 3: So now you've got to do stems. If you're recording
Speaker 3: on I mean, if you're mixing on an analog desk,
Speaker 3: no back, then you know you'd recall the desk. And
Speaker 3: I mean I got my guys trained so that you could,
Speaker 3: you know, you could match the mix to the recall perfectly.
Speaker 3: I mean really had him taking good notes, but quite
Speaker 3: often I just throw the track back up and it
Speaker 3: I don't know. I would do the same things I
Speaker 3: used to do, and then I'd look at it and
Speaker 3: it would sound just about the same. But it's interesting
Speaker 3: you brought up pre Way Love because that was the
Speaker 3: turning point for me that particular record with NRATA, because
Speaker 3: something changed. Well I didn't record it, and that was
Speaker 3: a bit of a challenge, but he wanted a lot
Speaker 3: more bottom end than I had ever done before. And
Speaker 3: that was truly the most terrific day or two in
Speaker 3: my life, because as I added more bottom end, the
Speaker 3: vocal started to calm down. Because the stereo compressor was
Speaker 3: just grabbing, grabbing, because the stereo compressor reacts to low
Speaker 3: end more than top end. And he'd say, hey, give
Speaker 3: me more vocal, you know, bring the vocal up, and
Speaker 3: it's like, oh my god, and then the bass would
Speaker 3: get squashed and just the whole mix started going.
Speaker 10: So I.
Speaker 3: Survived it. Let me put it that way. I still
Speaker 3: can't really listen to that song without thinking what I
Speaker 3: went through better.
Speaker 2: But we're telling My Free Way of Love by Aretha
Speaker 2: right yes now, and it's it's a funny song. I
Speaker 2: never understood the lyrics and.
Speaker 3: Well you pants but that you would use for her,
Speaker 3: like what, Yeah, I was a four fourteen I used
Speaker 3: I use a four to fourteen AKG with with Luther
Speaker 3: and everyone everyone, and I had it angled in a
Speaker 3: certain way so it was the bottom of the microphone
Speaker 3: was just tipping at the nose, so it was kind
Speaker 3: of it would look at their face. That's what I
Speaker 3: was getting. I was getting their face and their throat
Speaker 3: as opposed to just the mouth, so I get the
Speaker 3: nose and the whole face. Faces and and if for
Speaker 3: reath of example, if she would you know, kind of
Speaker 3: edge up into the microphone because it was licking down.
Speaker 3: I would just put a dummy mic in front, so
Speaker 3: she'd be singing into like a fifty seven. It's like
Speaker 3: keep her position properly.
Speaker 8: Her head wouldn't go up.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, oh wow, look at that. Wow. So but
Speaker 3: four fourteen, that's got that had a really nice area.
Speaker 3: And then I was using my knave. You know, I
Speaker 3: was recording on a Neve desk exactly like the one
Speaker 3: that we have here eighty sixty eight. What kind of
Speaker 3: what kind of preamps or compresses? What are you running
Speaker 3: them through? It was the Neve pre amp and the
Speaker 3: Neve compressor that was in the desk. Oh wow, it's
Speaker 3: like no outside like tube take notice. Not No, it's not.
Speaker 1: When I had the Neves, it was perfect. So another
Speaker 1: one of your clients that I'm really curious about. I've
Speaker 1: always wondered about the the quote unquote compass point sessions
Speaker 1: of Grace Jones's trilogy. Did you mix and I only
Speaker 1: mixed it? So did you have to go to bahamasador
Speaker 1: or no? That's after No, I mixed it the entire album.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I really love that record, man, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: for hip hop heads, the my Jamaican guys like you know,
Speaker 1: it's a staple. So in doing that record, which you know,
Speaker 1: of course would Slid and Robbie as the as the
Speaker 1: as kind of the the the rhythm anchor of that
Speaker 1: album and them being known for a lot of the
Speaker 1: stuff that they don't reggae music.
Speaker 3: Uh, what was it like for you to.
Speaker 1: Sort of incorporate because a lot of that record would
Speaker 1: you know, you have to use a lot of reggae
Speaker 1: effects like echoes and all those things.
Speaker 3: Like what was that process like mixing? You know, it
Speaker 3: just came to me. A lot of that is just
Speaker 3: this is what it has to be, and you know
Speaker 3: it's back then, it just happens. Spontaney. Spontaney, That's right.
Speaker 3: It was no just another day really Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I mean, you know, just the legend of
Speaker 1: Compass Points Studios and well I we're supposed to represent
Speaker 1: you know now and it's legendary folklore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, but Sli and Robbie were incredible, just incredible.
Speaker 3: So mixing those records Chris actually produced those records are
Speaker 3: when I came. I came in and also did it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I came in later, you know for the mixing of it.
Speaker 3: So I don't know what process, but I think Chris
Speaker 3: was always involved in those records. Talking about Chris black.
Speaker 8: Was that Slyestone because.
Speaker 1: Robbie Shakespeare you but they're known as Sli and Robbie
Speaker 1: infamous rhythm section.
Speaker 3: They're based in drum. Uh drum and based rhythm section.
Speaker 8: And the folklore of Compass is Compass.
Speaker 1: Points Studios is uh uh a facility and I believe Bahamas, yeah,
Speaker 1: and the Bahamas.
Speaker 3: And pretty much.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 1: Chris Blackwell wanted Grace Jones to get out of disco music.
Speaker 3: She was doing, you know, like.
Speaker 1: Via Le Rose Viva and I forget the Levia. She's
Speaker 1: doing like you know, album and a weird disco ship.
Speaker 1: And he wanted her. He was like, you would have
Speaker 1: a better fit, uh doing more pop reggae stuff because
Speaker 1: like the police was hitting and sort of using that together. So, uh,
Speaker 1: what they call the Compass Point uh trilogy is her
Speaker 1: three albums Nightclub and uh, Live My Life, You Nipple
Speaker 1: to the Bottle of pull Up to the Bumper, all
Speaker 1: those songs that you know Grace Jones for we're.
Speaker 8: Recorded there just love spring learned something new every hour.
Speaker 1: Okay, I know it's it's not classy for an engineer
Speaker 1: to tell, but there has to be a heart client
Speaker 1: like one that just Roji to the limit. Yes, there's
Speaker 1: hardly any records that I feel that you had bad
Speaker 1: results in. But everything could have been a sunny journey
Speaker 1: from eighty.
Speaker 3: No. No, there was one where I was just mixing
Speaker 3: his record. It's not good to tell you, but I'm
Speaker 3: going to tell you that. He comes in and uh,
Speaker 3: he says, all right. He puts his feet up on
Speaker 3: my desk, right right on the console. Now I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: you know, grow, as we grow wiser, you get to
Speaker 3: understand how different people, you know, tick And by doing this,
Speaker 3: he was going to show me he was in control.
Speaker 3: That's what That's what you know. All the body language
Speaker 3: was saying. He walks in and yeah, he wants to
Speaker 3: piss on there and just say this is territory, but
Speaker 3: in fact it's mine. So he says, all right. I said,
Speaker 3: all right, I'll let that go, and he he listens
Speaker 3: to it. He looks at me and he goes, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, it's okay. But I got a problem with this.
Speaker 3: I got a problem with that. I'm like, okay, fine,
Speaker 3: let's get to work, and he just complain and complain
Speaker 3: and complain and just really was there was no point
Speaker 3: in it now. I was, I believe the third mixer
Speaker 3: on this, he'd already mixed this record with two other people,
Speaker 3: and they said, I think I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: And they said, Brower, you're the only guy that can
Speaker 3: be able to handle this because at that point a
Speaker 3: reputation for you know, knowing how to deal with a
Speaker 3: lot of different egos and stuff. And so we kept
Speaker 3: going at it and going at it, and he just
Speaker 3: started getting more and more upset and being more and
Speaker 3: more disrespectful. Finally I stood up and I went I
Speaker 3: was like, well, this session is over. He looks at
Speaker 3: me and he goes, what do you mean. I still
Speaker 3: got more like, no, no, this session is over because
Speaker 3: at this point he's kind of swearing at me and
Speaker 3: you know, okay, And I just stood up and I
Speaker 3: shook his hand and went.
Speaker 1: See you okay. Can I just ask one question? That
Speaker 1: was one time I did this. Can I ask one question?
Speaker 1: Does this artist go buy three names? Doesn't go by
Speaker 1: three names?
Speaker 3: He went by one name? Quest Love.
Speaker 11: Oh.
Speaker 3: It was really a great story with Trent I Terrence yeah,
Speaker 3: I mixed and I did some extra production on If
Speaker 3: You Let Me Stay. And when I was first being
Speaker 3: introduced to him, Lincoln Clap was the I mean, not
Speaker 3: Lin Lincoln Oh is his last name? Oh, I can't remember.
Speaker 3: Lincoln was introducing me. He was the A and R
Speaker 3: for for Terrence, And so he introduces me to him
Speaker 3: at a club and he goes, you know, hey, Terrence,
Speaker 3: this is Michael Brower. He's gonna be working on your record.
Speaker 3: And he goes, ah, so this is the guy who's
Speaker 3: gonna fuck up my record. I looked at it and went, no,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to fuck up your record because I'm
Speaker 3: not doing it. Why should I start now? If you
Speaker 3: think I'm going to fuck up your record, why should
Speaker 3: I even bother? Right? Because I've been down this road.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to waste my time, so see you.
Speaker 3: And he goes, oh, well wait a minute, wait a minute.
Speaker 3: You know, Lincoln's like, no, no, Michael, Michael, you know,
Speaker 3: I go no, man, I'm not into this at all.
Speaker 3: He goes, oh, I'm just kidding. I'm like, really, really,
Speaker 3: are you kidding? This?
Speaker 1: Some of my twenty one Jump Street, you know, And
Speaker 1: he was just like okay, all right, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I said, all right, well we'll think about it now,
Speaker 3: and that was you know, and then eventually I did it.
Speaker 3: But I was like, man, if you're starting off on
Speaker 3: the wrong foot like that, it's not about an ego
Speaker 3: that I've been down this road, you know. And then
Speaker 3: you go, oh, I hope not, I hope I don't
Speaker 3: screw up your record. No, I'm going to do a
Speaker 3: good job, you know.
Speaker 1: But in the eighties, wasn't everyone arrogant, wasn't everyone at
Speaker 1: now Whole? And wasn't everyone at Diva, And wasn't no
Speaker 1: what no, damn I didn't work started getting polite now
Speaker 1: like I do.
Speaker 3: Back then, you had to deal with.
Speaker 5: Cocaine on your your your soundboard, and well yeah there
Speaker 5: was a lot of but they were usually too burned
Speaker 5: out to, you know, to be an asshole. So you
Speaker 5: ended up doing the Hardline album the introduced Tennis Trent
Speaker 5: Derby's Yeah but just one if.
Speaker 3: You let Me stay.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that was a voice I wanted to ask you
Speaker 9: about since we're talking about the eighties, not to bring
Speaker 9: it up with the Coco now, but Angela Beaufield, who
Speaker 9: is a voice that's not spoken about a lot. Do
Speaker 9: you I'm guessing you were to recorded engine?
Speaker 8: What was what was Sasion?
Speaker 3: Did you track the entire too tough record?
Speaker 10: No?
Speaker 3: Just the song? Yeah? Okay? Mixed? Or or track just mixed?
Speaker 3: Ah damn okay, because I wanted to ask.
Speaker 8: A person, That's what I was asking unsung. But the
Speaker 8: music was remarkable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so can I ask a question? Yes?
Speaker 2: So, So back back in the times that we're talking about,
Speaker 2: which is I guess is the eighties right now, a
Speaker 2: lot of the artists and presumably other people associated like
Speaker 2: maybe label people would show up to the mix and
Speaker 2: have input always And can you talk about how that's
Speaker 2: changed nowadays for somebody like yourself.
Speaker 3: Well, now I have to plead I don't even bother
Speaker 3: anymore to have the artists show up at the mix. Serious,
Speaker 3: they never show up. It's now down to maybe ten.
Speaker 3: It kind of went the way of analog tape.
Speaker 1: Good speakers, because now we're judging from our computers and
Speaker 1: our iPhones.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just a different time. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: just the way it is.
Speaker 8: Who was the last artist that was interested in their
Speaker 8: mix process?
Speaker 3: I cannot see them not do it. Bon Jovi, he
Speaker 3: was there every day. I mean, to me, I'm always
Speaker 3: amazed when they don't want to show up. It's their album,
Speaker 3: but they they're scheduled to appoint point where they've got
Speaker 3: there on tour, there rehearsal, or they've they're you know,
Speaker 3: they or they're not given the budget to fly over
Speaker 3: what you're saying Coldplay and John Mayer and none of
Speaker 3: those guys. Oh yeah, sure, But I'm just saying that
Speaker 3: that the majority the ones that Yeah, all the Coldplay records,
Speaker 3: you know, the guy's individual would come in at first
Speaker 3: and then but it was always down to Chris and
Speaker 3: myself on those records.
Speaker 2: Plus plus a lot of these artists trusts him where
Speaker 2: they don't need to be there the entire time and
Speaker 2: can he sends them mixes and they approve them and
Speaker 2: so forth.
Speaker 8: Okay, they're not total dickheads, just you're the.
Speaker 3: Main and too, I think, well, no, they just put
Speaker 3: their trust into the visionary there and you have to
Speaker 3: learn how for that.
Speaker 5: So, I mean, if you've been by the time a
Speaker 5: song comes out to the audience as the artist, you've
Speaker 5: heard that song a million times. So once it's done
Speaker 5: and you send it to the mix and engineers, just like, look,
Speaker 5: take it away.
Speaker 8: And at this point as an artist, do you really
Speaker 8: want to go back to you revisions? Because you are
Speaker 8: who you are?
Speaker 3: That's got nothing to do who I am is that
Speaker 3: I'm going to be a good listener. Yeah, but but
Speaker 3: it's my opinion. You know, I'm interpreting it. It's and
Speaker 3: if it's nailing it exactly the way they want, then
Speaker 3: we're good. If it isn't, then we do revisions until
Speaker 3: it's right.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm going to try to not rapid fire question,
Speaker 1: but just in general, because again, your discography is way
Speaker 1: too extensive to go through everything. So what three songs
Speaker 1: of yours that you've tracked a mixed just gives you
Speaker 1: absolute positive like goosebumps, like and I mean filler hits whatever,
Speaker 1: like just like I captured magic in a bottle, and
Speaker 1: well these three represent me.
Speaker 3: I would say house is not a home with Luther
Speaker 3: wait side question was that was it? Was it tracked
Speaker 3: to a click track?
Speaker 1: Because I always wanted to know how he nailed the
Speaker 1: stealing love, Stealing loves without Dowell it live with his band?
Speaker 3: No, there was no and it was done before the
Speaker 3: strings came in. He do you hear when he's holding
Speaker 3: that note and is like a little dip. That's his
Speaker 3: heart rate, that's his heart going. You hear that little drop. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that was just him holding it. That was that was
Speaker 3: the take. And he's just holding it. And then everybody's
Speaker 3: watching him, you know, NAT's watching and then wow, downbeat.
Speaker 3: And then when when I think it was Leon that
Speaker 3: did the strings, they were just you know, they practiced
Speaker 3: it a few times and then.
Speaker 1: And so after they tracked the music, he didn't come
Speaker 1: back like a week later and say I think now
Speaker 1: that vocal take just a little bit better.
Speaker 3: None of those songs, none of those vocals were redone.
Speaker 3: Those were all from the rhythm tracks. It's crazy, you know,
Speaker 3: from the basics, because he would also he would also
Speaker 3: he would do he would do a tour of.
Speaker 1: Radio stations and have the TV track of that stuff
Speaker 1: and actually sing live in the studio. I've heard like
Speaker 1: maybe four different versions of a house is not a home,
Speaker 1: various places across the unit, and he nails all those
Speaker 1: gaps and pauses like yeah perfectly. And I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 1: is he like okay thirteen seconds here?
Speaker 3: No, It's just I feel just feeling and what what
Speaker 3: we used to do a lot too. Is. I was
Speaker 3: really into throwing a delay on his voice, you know
Speaker 3: when you go WHOA. Well, I would do that when
Speaker 3: we were recording, and so he and I would just
Speaker 3: be playing back and forth and he would never know
Speaker 3: when I'd throw, you know, a delay on it. But
Speaker 3: eventually as he's recording, you know, I'd throw a delay
Speaker 3: in and and he would answer the delay. So I
Speaker 3: was always printing the delay, but he would just he
Speaker 3: and I would go back and forth. It was just
Speaker 3: this thing between him and I, you know, so okay
Speaker 3: something he was a bad boy, it would do that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: that was all during the recording of the basics. I
Speaker 3: was doing that, Okay, that's why there was that natural
Speaker 3: answer back and forth. I mean, you know, and I was.
Speaker 3: I was very much part of starting that. And then
Speaker 3: that became part of the trademark, you know, when he
Speaker 3: was doing live, then the mixing engineer was doing all
Speaker 3: that stuff. But that was just fun between he and
Speaker 3: I had just tried to surprise him. What are the
Speaker 3: other two well, recording see ever recording and the mixing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean mixing is I would say with mixing it
Speaker 3: would be yellow for cold playing. That was just there
Speaker 3: was that really empty, lonely feel that turned out to
Speaker 3: really I was able to get that just from the
Speaker 3: snare drum. The snare drum just created this I'm I
Speaker 3: just feel it was. So did you mix and record parachutes? No? No,
Speaker 3: I just mixed it. But to record, it's the recording
Speaker 3: and the mixing back then. Really the only one it
Speaker 3: would be that it would be jumped to it. Ah
Speaker 3: man jump jump jump to it, and that was Yogi. Yeah,
Speaker 3: drums probably using either you know, one of two snares,
Speaker 3: but really it was always either the well Artie Smith
Speaker 3: was his drum tech, the Great Arty, the great drum
Speaker 3: tech too. Yeah, and you know he would tune the
Speaker 3: drums and he had you know, Yogi's drum set. But
Speaker 3: quite often depending on the song, I had my two
Speaker 3: snares next to him next to Yogi that he really liked,
Speaker 3: and depending on the song, we'd switch it out between
Speaker 3: my eight hundred and the what was that snare? That
Speaker 3: the percussion that weird?
Speaker 1: It's no on YouTube vic he's in a Yamaha, but uh,
Speaker 1: his signature stare snare that he used on it's no,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is.
Speaker 3: I assumed it was a Yamaha, but it's not. No,
Speaker 3: it's some percussion company. Why can I ask why so
Speaker 3: deep with the snare tones? Why it sounded good? Is
Speaker 3: that simple? You know? It was just nice to have
Speaker 3: it real fat. And then lou there ever tracked the
Speaker 3: song with like a tight snare and you guys are like, eh, nah,
Speaker 3: it doesn't work. I don't think it ever occurred to him.
Speaker 3: I mean, he never brought it up. It was it
Speaker 3: would be between you know, Yogi would be the one
Speaker 3: that says, you know, tighten it up or loosen it up,
Speaker 3: or I want this other snare. You know, Yogi really
Speaker 3: directed all of that. But you know, you get that
Speaker 3: low sound and then you take the pulltech which is
Speaker 3: an EQ, and then you'd push eight thousand all the
Speaker 3: way up and then you get that great, great edge,
Speaker 3: natural edge on the snare, so you'd still hear that
Speaker 3: crispy sound, but it was big and fat song.
Speaker 1: Do you wish you could recall and just do again
Speaker 1: that you're still not satisfied with?
Speaker 3: I don't. I never get never felt that way. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 3: there wasn't. When I was done, I was done.
Speaker 1: Most most first singles are like the last song done,
Speaker 1: like I need one more song and then that's the
Speaker 1: time pressure or whatever.
Speaker 3: Like I it's not to say that they couldn't have
Speaker 3: been better, but I just never I just never thought
Speaker 3: that way. I was like, we're done, let it go,
Speaker 3: move on.
Speaker 2: He doesn't want to say because somebody's gonna ask for
Speaker 2: their money back.
Speaker 3: Well, I just I felt really good when I was done,
Speaker 3: when I walk away and say okay next and if
Speaker 3: it if it needed to be recalled and it was better,
Speaker 3: I was like, Wow, I didn't think of that. Who
Speaker 3: else do you do you like that? Mix engineers do
Speaker 3: you admire? Oh, I've got a lot of fans. I
Speaker 3: love Manny It's a good buddy of mine. Yeah, America
Speaker 3: and Tony Maserati, Spike. You know when Bob Powers he
Speaker 3: used to be at at Sony and he was in
Speaker 3: one room and I was in the other, and I'd
Speaker 3: listen to his mixes like, oh my god, that sounds
Speaker 3: so good. He would make me feel really like do
Speaker 3: I really want to go back and mix the song
Speaker 3: I'm doing? You know? He was just had such a great,
Speaker 3: great feel. Yeah, I mean, there's those are the ones
Speaker 3: that clearly come to mind that I just I just
Speaker 3: love and I got to know Manny through mixing John
Speaker 3: Mayer because we split up the album and it was
Speaker 3: on the Continuum record and I'm listening to this other
Speaker 3: guy's mixes. I'm like, wow, man, this feels it sounds different,
Speaker 3: but it feels the way I feel a song. I
Speaker 3: gotta get to know this guy. Who is he? I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't pay a lot of attention to who's out
Speaker 3: there and I'm just doing my work. But on it
Speaker 3: was it really stood out because it was one of
Speaker 3: the first times where I'm sharing songs mixes with another
Speaker 3: person and they fit so well together. It's great. So
Speaker 3: how do you feel now the way.
Speaker 1: That technology has has completely changed from what it was
Speaker 1: thirty four years, thirty or forty years ago when you
Speaker 1: first started. So now people pretty much can do everything
Speaker 1: on their laptop.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm fine with it as long as they
Speaker 3: call me to mix it. Now they're mixing on their
Speaker 3: laptop too. Yeah, well, I mean, but that's where it.
Speaker 3: They can do everything on their laptop, and then when
Speaker 3: it comes down to the mix, it's like it could
Speaker 3: be better. How do you think feel about modern engineering?
Speaker 1: Now as far as like mixes are concerned, Like, are
Speaker 1: you like everything was better with analog?
Speaker 3: Like? No, it still comes down to the pilot. You know,
Speaker 3: you're gonna have great engineers, you're gonna have really terrible engineers.
Speaker 3: And that's never changed. Even in analog days. You got
Speaker 3: really really crappy tracks that you'd have to work extra hard,
Speaker 3: and then you get other guys who are just incredible
Speaker 3: and you just put the tracks up and you're like,
Speaker 3: mix is done. It's just fantastic, you know. And and
Speaker 3: as far as analog desks, I mean, I'm moving away
Speaker 3: from an analog desk pretty soon. How do you feel
Speaker 3: about that? Oh, I can't. I've been mixing a lot
Speaker 3: of music on the hybrid. I'm still surrounded by analog.
Speaker 3: Everything is analog, right, Yeah, all my outboard gear is analog.
Speaker 3: So the only thing I'm kind of switching out is
Speaker 3: the fader and the sound of that particular desk. But
Speaker 3: you've got great plug ins where you can get the
Speaker 3: same sound. You know, if you're doing an SSL, you
Speaker 3: can get the SSL sound. If you've got a Neve,
Speaker 3: get the Neve sound. You just put that across the
Speaker 3: channels and you at least in my experience, you can't
Speaker 3: tell the difference between what I've done on on the
Speaker 3: SSL nine thousand and in my hybrid because it's sharing
Speaker 3: all the analog gear. Okay, so I'm and you know,
Speaker 3: and it's easy. Now it's a lot easier because you know,
Speaker 3: when you're on an analog desk, you've got three and
Speaker 3: a half hours of stems of you know, pasts, excuse me,
Speaker 3: passes you've got to do. In a hybrid situation, you
Speaker 3: hit a button, you got a script that does it
Speaker 3: all automatically. So it's also way more efficient.
Speaker 5: What was the transition like when like moving I guess,
Speaker 5: I guess it's maybe in like late nineties when the
Speaker 5: game started transitioning front analog to pro tools and two computers.
Speaker 3: What was it like then? How did you make that switch?
Speaker 3: It wasn't difficult, it was well, I still treated when
Speaker 3: it went from analog to digital. The first thing I
Speaker 3: noticed is that there was a lack of tightness in
Speaker 3: the music now, and I didn't know why. I just thought, well,
Speaker 3: twenty four track analog just must sound, you know, just
Speaker 3: sounds way better, and digital doesn't. It turned out to
Speaker 3: be that it's the clock the clock that ties all
Speaker 3: these tracks together. I didn't know this at all because
Speaker 3: I'm not at all technical, but it you know, it
Speaker 3: was years later when I realized how important this clock
Speaker 3: is to getting a sound. And again it's down to
Speaker 3: the engineer too. If the engineer is recording, great to digital.
Speaker 3: But Digital had just a lot of artifacts that just
Speaker 3: didn't sound musical at all. You know, they felt like
Speaker 3: there was a ceiling to everything that I was doing.
Speaker 3: And of course that's no longer the case, but yeah,
Speaker 3: it was sonically, it was rough, and I still use
Speaker 3: I didn't know anything about pro tools. I would just
Speaker 3: use it as if it was a playback. You know,
Speaker 3: I didn't do anything. I had an assistant who well,
Speaker 3: I think it's still like that to this day, but
Speaker 3: shout out to Steve Feely. That's right, thank god. But
Speaker 3: you know, and then in the beginning, you had plugins,
Speaker 3: but the plugins they looked like my hardware, but they
Speaker 3: didn't sound at all. So I had no reason to
Speaker 3: use him because I had that gear. But eventually, you know,
Speaker 3: Waves and UA D and soft Tube and you know,
Speaker 3: all these great companies started, you know, getting so good
Speaker 3: and emulating some of this gear that that you know,
Speaker 3: one day I I put a pull tech across something.
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, this sounds just just like mine.
Speaker 3: And at that point use it, you know for me,
Speaker 3: I I'm not. I just want what sounds good.
Speaker 1: So I what's your opinion on soft two versus waves?
Speaker 3: You know? Hard? And yeah, really hard anyway? So uh.
Speaker 2: So, so the last ten years approximately, you've you've been
Speaker 2: an electrical lady.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: In the studio eight years? Eight years going on nine,
Speaker 3: I think, okay.
Speaker 2: In the Studio B, which is the legendary Purple room
Speaker 2: with the purple SSL in the thousand.
Speaker 3: And great sounding. It was one of the first first
Speaker 3: ssls in New York City and it's it got totally
Speaker 3: refurbished and it just has a great punch to it,
Speaker 3: great sound. And uh and and now you're moving on
Speaker 3: to your building, your own place. Now. I'm having place
Speaker 3: built for me, yes, which I'll be moving in to
Speaker 3: next year. That's right.
Speaker 8: I'm happy.
Speaker 3: Going to miss it electrically, of course, I'm going to
Speaker 3: miss electrically. I'm gonna miss everybody there. I'm gonna miss Lee,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm gonna miss the vibe. But you know,
Speaker 3: it's I'm excited by this is you know, it's another
Speaker 3: another phase. Wait answer me this.
Speaker 1: I have rats ever run in Studio B because just
Speaker 1: mice my last day. No, no, and I still say
Speaker 1: that was a rat, not a mon. I've never seen mice,
Speaker 1: and I've never seen ghosts.
Speaker 3: Okay, my sister has. He's been totally freaked out by
Speaker 3: by a ghost. Who there's a there's a ghost. That
Speaker 3: name is Jimmy. It's not Jimmy. It's some some guy,
Speaker 3: don't Everybody describes him the same way, some guy with
Speaker 3: a beard.
Speaker 1: An electric lady electrically because when we were there, Jimmy
Speaker 1: the kat was Jimmy, Like was that ghost Jimmy Catt
Speaker 1: is no longer.
Speaker 3: With this and he did not have a beard actually,
Speaker 3: just a very overall Yeah. Yeah, maybe I don't know.
Speaker 11: I've never seen him, so, but you know, I'll look
Speaker 11: at Steve or other assistants before him, who just have
Speaker 11: this look on their face.
Speaker 3: They're not They're not kidding. You know. Somebody just walked
Speaker 3: by and they thought it was me and I had
Speaker 3: already gone. I believe it's on it. But the only
Speaker 3: thing that I've experienceds is on one piece of gear.
Speaker 3: I've got two really big knobs is on a shadow
Speaker 3: hill and you'd have to literally, yeah, you'd have to
Speaker 3: literally fall into it sideways to turn the knob. And
Speaker 3: I had just left the room and I came back
Speaker 3: in and I played the mix and it's completely whacked.
Speaker 3: It's like all left heavy. What just happened? And I
Speaker 3: turned around and one knob is just like, you know,
Speaker 3: been moved almost all the way to the top. And
Speaker 3: I looked at my assist and I go, how did
Speaker 3: you bump into this? He goes, I haven't even been
Speaker 3: near it. I was like, whoa you believe you? I
Speaker 3: was like, okay, all right, well, let me turn this
Speaker 3: nob back down. Jimmy the cat do that?
Speaker 2: Jumped on the jump on the console, and the cat
Speaker 2: turn on all the The.
Speaker 1: Cat jumped on the console and actually clicked a button.
Speaker 3: And santed twice as good as my mix.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he jumped on the console and actually walked on
Speaker 1: the board and clicked something and then walked away. And
Speaker 1: we all looked at each other like, holy shit, that
Speaker 1: I believe that Jimmy Hendrix is still trapped in that
Speaker 1: studio somehow.
Speaker 3: Did you, I want to ask, did you do the
Speaker 3: did you record and mix Viva Levita. The co player
Speaker 3: just mixed most of the record too. It wasn't I
Speaker 3: didn't do the whole record. Okay, did you just Strawberry Swing? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I love that song. That was awesome, great job on that.
Speaker 3: I about to ask Joe Santorini questions. Oh oh about
Speaker 3: the lawsuits. I was in the Grammy audience.
Speaker 1: The day that they won an award for that, and
Speaker 1: him and his lawyers were trying to chase them with
Speaker 1: the subpoena. So it was like watching that, remember like
Speaker 1: those old Keystone literally like the Cold playing their whole cat,
Speaker 1: their whole management team like running down the isisland and
Speaker 1: Joe and his lawyers are running the other way, and
Speaker 1: they're like chasing each other, trying to serve papers.
Speaker 3: Dang, oh you mean with the Yeah, you know, look,
Speaker 3: I've known these guys from the beginning. They were physically
Speaker 3: running that. That was just one hundred percent coincidence here
Speaker 3: what anybody say? I mean, you know, if you look
Speaker 3: at the at the prior record, it was a soundcraft
Speaker 3: where they copied, you know, they they loved this one
Speaker 3: little hook and they immediately called them and said, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, we're going to use We're going to use
Speaker 3: your you know that line and and here's your credit,
Speaker 3: and I mean, this is it's just you know, unfortunately
Speaker 3: it happens. The millions and millions of songs coming out.
Speaker 3: It's going to happen, and you know, it's kind of
Speaker 3: like it. But regardless, it was not a conscious effort
Speaker 3: because that's that's not who they are. If if they're
Speaker 3: going to copy something, they're going to give that person
Speaker 3: credit and they're going to be very very humble about
Speaker 3: it and and write about it. So it's my opinion
Speaker 3: on it.
Speaker 1: Well, we're filing them for coming on the show today
Speaker 1: in school and that's about about sound and craft.
Speaker 3: Thank you Michael for coming on. Thank you for the pleasure.
Speaker 3: Any other last minute.
Speaker 5: You guys face Like okay, on the Parachutes album, did
Speaker 5: you mix You're a Big Man.
Speaker 3: Man politics?
Speaker 5: That was that whole first album? Like that was just okay,
Speaker 5: did you mix the song Parachutes?
Speaker 3: The one was him the whole record, but but one
Speaker 3: song was Shiver? No I mixed up. I think actually
Speaker 3: the first two songs I mixed for them was Shiver
Speaker 3: and Yellow.
Speaker 5: Shiver, in which one is yellow yellow man. Goddamn yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I love that record. Did did you do clocks as well?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 3: You didn't mix flocks? Okay, that's the ship I wish
Speaker 3: I had. Okay, but but did the X and Y
Speaker 3: record and then a good part of the Viva Livido
Speaker 3: got to.
Speaker 9: Say to the listening audience, if you want to get
Speaker 9: a real quick headache, go down Michael's list of credits because.
Speaker 3: It's much.
Speaker 1: Fishbone questions, Fishbone, all.
Speaker 3: Right, we're definitely a great record. That was which which fish?
Speaker 3: Which one? Surroundings? David?
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, line real quick? Uh the line between engineer
Speaker 5: and producer? Where does that begin and end? And have
Speaker 5: you ever kind of gone more into the producer?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I did production for a couple of years. Got
Speaker 3: that out of my system real quick. We won't talk
Speaker 3: about that. Who did you produce? Nobody? You know? I was.
Speaker 3: I went to England and I did I did some production.
Speaker 3: I did this one band Animal night Life, and then
Speaker 3: Icicle Works and Roachford Yeah, yeah, to his first album
Speaker 3: and the second album, first record first Roachford and.
Speaker 8: We can google you know that.
Speaker 3: But you know what I realized quickly as a producer,
Speaker 3: and I was pretty sure of it, and then I
Speaker 3: confirmed it as I'm not a songwriter. I don't have
Speaker 3: a melody in my head that came from my own head, right,
Speaker 3: And to be a great producer, I think you really
Speaker 3: need to be a songwriter. And so I knew I'd
Speaker 3: always be limited or restricted to bands who are completely
Speaker 3: self sufficient, which isn't really realistic. So after a couple
Speaker 3: of years, I like, the best I'm gonna do is
Speaker 3: be average on this and I and then I really
Speaker 3: just loved mixing. It's like, I don't want to do
Speaker 3: anything else but that. Did you mix Magic? But I'm
Speaker 3: thinking about.
Speaker 5: Did you make that record? Did you do that off
Speaker 5: the off ghost Stories? No, you didn't mix Thatkay? Did
Speaker 5: you do anything on that on that record? Okay, you
Speaker 5: didn't do that. Okay, Okay.
Speaker 3: Unpaid from because he has a gazillion Okay anything else?
Speaker 1: You worked on the Gwynn Guthrie Patlock record?
Speaker 3: Yes, that was. That's when I worked with Sli and
Speaker 3: Robbie and I did it a compass point? Did you
Speaker 3: have any introduced that I did not know that? Did
Speaker 3: you work with Larry Lvan on the mixes at all?
Speaker 3: Or No? I mixed that. I think it was with
Speaker 3: Sline Robber, seventh Heaven they came back. Yeah, seventh seventh Heaven. Yeah, miss.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, do you even know how kind of
Speaker 1: like that that uh that one sim stab is at
Speaker 1: the top of that's all. Yeah, yeah, that's yeah.
Speaker 3: I mixed that in studio way at media sound Jesus,
Speaker 3: but I recorded that and it was, you know, it
Speaker 3: was a trip being there because you know, you'd be
Speaker 3: on the beach and then around twelve o'clock, one o'clock,
Speaker 3: everybody show up a studio and start recording.
Speaker 1: And I was gonna say it's it's got pictures of that.
Speaker 3: I don't think like to be in that comfort zone.
Speaker 1: I think that's bad luck. It distracts everybody. It might
Speaker 1: be relaxing, but it might be too relaxing. Well, it
Speaker 1: was I'd rather be uncomfortable and cold in the studio
Speaker 1: and focused.
Speaker 3: Than like yeah, but the whole vibe was laid back.
Speaker 3: There was a whole lot of smoke going on that
Speaker 3: It was size of cigars and I'm not smoking, so
Speaker 3: you know, I get.
Speaker 1: Waitin Since his rapid fire last minute questions the BBQ
Speaker 1: ben oh yeah, on the beat, did they just say like, look,
Speaker 1: we want to sound like chic or like, what's was
Speaker 1: there any connection?
Speaker 3: Well? Like was it the same guy from Change was behind? Well,
Speaker 3: hold on a second, Hold on a second. How that
Speaker 3: record was done is we went to Italy and we
Speaker 3: recorded sixteen songs. We recorded sixteen songs, the rhythm tracks
Speaker 3: on all of them. Right then we came back to
Speaker 3: New York and he split it in two and called
Speaker 3: one Change and the other one called BBQ, and then
Speaker 3: put lead vocals. You know, at that point Luthor didn't
Speaker 3: sing on that. He was they Fred Peatrice had had
Speaker 3: done something dumb probably didn't. So, but the basics are
Speaker 3: identical because I recorded them all in one period.
Speaker 1: Song.
Speaker 3: He never recorded, well, he would have, except that that
Speaker 3: Petrice didn't want to give him a royalty, so he said, well,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to sing on this record. So then
Speaker 3: we spent three weeks trying to find a singer that
Speaker 3: sounded like Luthor. It was just so you got everybody
Speaker 3: coming in there trying to sing like Luthor. It was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god. But we ended up with Crabs Robinson
Speaker 3: who ended up doing that. But and then on BBQ
Speaker 3: it was you know, different singers and different backing vocals,
Speaker 3: and then maybe some of the overdubs, since overdubs were done,
Speaker 3: you know, by different people. But I just mixed, you know.
Speaker 3: I came back to New York and I mixed all sixteen.
Speaker 3: Did you do a BBQ? Did you do Imagination Starlet
Speaker 3: like all those records? Imagination you mean hoole of notes?
Speaker 11: No?
Speaker 3: No, no BBQ. I did one BBQ. I was just
Speaker 3: one okay, the first one. Okay, Okay, we really got
Speaker 3: to wrap up, guys. Yeah, because you did Private Eye, right,
Speaker 3: did you mix that?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: You didn't mix. I mixed, I can. I mixed some
Speaker 3: of the singles. I mixed, uh one on one you
Speaker 3: can do. Those were remixes. Those are the ones that
Speaker 3: went R and B radio. Oh.
Speaker 8: So the album version is different than the single that
Speaker 8: you met.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I understand the twelve inch fatter drum version
Speaker 1: of I can't go for that. But I love just
Speaker 1: the teenty toy sound of the album version. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love it, but I get it now. So you you
Speaker 1: were there to boost up the mix, Okay, I see
Speaker 1: anything else, Ladies and Joe, Okay, the cold Play.
Speaker 3: You're fired. You said that, like Mark.
Speaker 10: Stay on the graffiti, we didn't like, Okay.
Speaker 3: You did everything.
Speaker 1: We have Bossville, Babelle and Finn, Tickeolo and Laya and
Speaker 1: Sugar Steve this quest love signing up Michaels.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much for coming. We'll see you all
Speaker 3: the next go around. Love Supreme, h West.
Speaker 1: Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
Speaker 1: was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts
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