BOB CLEARMOUNTAIN EXCLUSIVE AUSTRALIAN INTERVIEW at Empire Music Studios

*Bob Clearmountain mixing masterclass at Empire Music Studios. Photos Jason Rosewarne*

American mixing engineer and record producer Bob Clearmountain is best known for his recording engineering, mixing of artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Toto, Simple Minds, Roxy Music, INXS and The Rolling Stones. It was on Springsteen’s 1984 album “Born in the USA” for which Bob might have gained his widest audience and greatest fame. The tracks are still considered works of art, and are often the focus of analysis within trade magazines and blogs. As a mixing engineer, he worked on David Bowe’s “Let’s Dance” album, Tina Turner’s “Back Where You Started,” Bon Jovi’s “Crush”, INXS ‘Kick’, as well as dozens of others beginning with Kool and the Gang’s 1974 release “Light of Worlds.” Clearmountain is also known for his live mixing, having worked on live broadcasts for Live Aid, The Concert for Nelson Mandela, The Concert for the 911 First Responders, and The Tribute to Taylor Hawkins with the Foo Fighters.

Sadly Clearmountain and his wife Apogee founder Betty Bennett lost their home in the Pacific Palisades fires in LA recently. However it didn’t deter Bob and Betty from keeping their commitments to come to Australia for a series of immersive mixing masterclasses, exploring Apogee products in 3 sessions taking place at Empire Studios in Melbourne Australia. For Paul Higgins and Trevor Carter, owners of Studio 52/Empire Music Studios, these sessions were quite a coup. For Australian Musician, it also presented a unique opportunity to conduct a short interview with Bob.

At the Thursday mornings session at Empire Studios, Michael Jago from Link Audio, distributor of Apogee in Australia kicked off the day by introducing all those involved in making the sessions possible and then brought Clearmountain to the stage. Bob took the microphone and told us we’d begin with some ear candy from Joe Bonamassa, as he played Pilgrimage, the intro to Joe’s 2021 album Time Clocks. It was Bonamassa’s first album to be mixed using spatial audio with Dolby ATMOS. This was the second album Bob had mixed in this manner. The label had only asked for a stereo version and didn’t even know about Dolby ATMOS but Bob had recently mixed one other record for The Band and was all set up to do it, so completed the Bonamassa mix in immersive sound. Bob then followed up with a track he’s very proud of, the atmospheric title track of the Roxy Music album Avalon, originally recorded in 5:1 surround sound and now mixed for Dolby ATMOS. The sound coming out of the Adam Audio speakers was stunning.

Bob went on to discuss stems as a topic and how he prefers to work with a recording’s original files, as a lot of effects are already baked into the stems making them not as flexible to play around with. The audience, made up of studio owners, studio engineers and producers, industry movers and shakers, musicians and curious music fans were left spellbound by Bob’s advice and recording experiences.

Playing Bryan Adams’ Run To You, Bob then dissected the track, explaining that the recording room at the studio in Vancouver had a really dead sound and he wondered how he was going to achieve the huge drum sound he was seeking. Upon looking around he discovered a door to a loading bay with a 15 ft ceiling. While he didn’t want to place the drummer out in the loading bay, he positioned him near the loading bay entrance door and used a sheet metal wall to bounce the sound out through the door. Bob discovered years later that the assistant on the session, Mike Frasier had taped off the drum position and marked the microphone placements in the loading bay and had kept the sheet metal wall and used it all as a template for many classic recordings to come from bands like Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, and Metallica and in doing so, set in stone the drum sound of the 80s that Bob had invented.

Other highlights included Bob’s use of the Dune movie soundtrack to demonstrate the real impact of the immersive mixes created using the Apogee interfaces and convertors, such an incredible, all-encompassing sound. We were also privy to an exclusive viewing of a clip from the Taylor Hawkins Tribute concerts, which featured Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor with the Struts’ Luke Spiller singing on the classic We Will Rock You. The concert was live-streamed in stereo but of course Bob couldn’t help himself and created an immersive mix, which sounded huge, particularly on this track which included four drummers. It’s great to know that the mix exists and who knows, one day the concert might even be released for all to experience in Dolby ATMOS. It seems that Bob has a habit of remixing projects for the fun of it. While being asked to do a remix of Legend, Bob Marley’s Greatest Hits album, he casually also produced an immersive mix (which they didn’t ask for), which he joked that he must get around to offering to the record label one day.

The floor was then opened up to the audience to ask questions, of which there were many, mainly very technical queries from studio engineers in the room. In our interview, we didn’t feel the need to discuss the fires with Bob, he’s been through enough. Although one innocent attendee at the event did enquire about him losing his unique SSL system. Bob was pleased to inform us that his friend Chris Lord-Alge had called to to say he had just bought a similar 72 input console with E series EQ and “it has your name on it”. Bob said his house burnt down but he still feels like the luckiest guy in the world as he has so many great friends.