Check out this amazing video in which Jack Conte and Ryan Lerman of Dead Wax visit Mix This, Bob Clearmountain’s studio, to hear a mix of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born In the USA’ and dive into the multitrack.

The first thing which might strike you about this video is how humble Bob is. He’s got nothing to prove and he’s very comfortable being the “old guy” he declares himself to be. He’s got a massive G series SSL in his studio not as an affectation or as a status symbol but because he bought it when it was how the work was done at the time and he still likes it - can’t argue with that.

The second thing which might strike you is just how close his mix, which he did the day before in a little over an hour, is to the original which he did nearly 40 years before. If I were listening and there was a drop out from the original mix and it came back as the new one I wouldn’t have noticed the difference unless I knew it was a different mix and was listening for differences. And to match an old mix surely takes longer than to mix for the first time. It’s impressive and even more so because the approach is so uncomplicated.

The Real Reason?

Which brings me to the reason I refer to in the title. Watch out for the interaction between Bob and Jack and Ryan at 13.30. They are listening to a widening effect Bob has used on a guitar track.

Ryan - “Is that like a microshift?”

Jack - “It sounds like a chorus”

Bob - “It’s just like five cents…”

Jack - “Five cents on one..so it separates it into two and it does a five cent detune on one of the chains?”

Bob - “It’s just adding a five cent detune basically”

Jack - “OK… Is it a five cent changing over time, is it a modulation?…”

Bob - (laughs) “I haven’t really though about this stuff the way you guys are.. When I’m mixing it’s either intuitive or stream of consciousness or whatever but you guys are actually dissecting it and I don’t think about it that way”

I shuffled uncomfortably in my seat hearing that because I knew that I was one of those guys dissecting it too.

In this great scene in the Simpsons Professor Frink is standing in front of a kindergarten class pushing a toy filled with bouncing balls backwards and forwards and explaining the physics behind what is happening. A child asks whether they can play with the toy to which he replies:

“No you can’t play with it, you won’t enjoy it on as many levels as I do”

I see a connection between these two interactions, do you?

When we create audio content we are usually trying to engage with the listener on an emotional level and how we did what we did isn’t important. Bob Clearmountain understands this, lots of us need to remember it when we work, myself included.