Bob Clearmountain has all the time had a superbly human manner of approaching the technical craft of blending. In dialog, he usually circles again to 1 deceptively easy concept: mixing shouldn’t be about obsessing over particulars, it’s about feeling the music. And on this clip, he distils many years of iconic work right into a philosophy that’s refreshingly grounded.
Bob begins with a sentiment each engineer ultimately learns the laborious manner. “You simply can’t give attention to the small print an excessive amount of.”He has watched folks grow to be trapped in microscopic determination making for days, shedding all perspective whereas chasing perfection in an element that will barely register within the full combine. Bob’s personal threshold is far shorter. After a few days within the weeds, he says, he’s achieved. He can’t hear the distinction anymore. The lesson is obvious. There’s a level at which consideration to element stops being useful and begins suffocating the combo.
As an alternative, Bob prioritises momentum. “Get one thing as fast as attainable and take heed to the music.” That is the other of the gradual, surgical method that many youthful mixers default to. Bob retains the whole lot in as a lot as attainable, not often soloing, solely isolating a monitor briefly to verify there are not any technical issues. The actual work occurs in context, with the complete image seen. As he places it, “I all the time have the voice in. It’s all concerning the music and the voice for me, and the whole lot’s set to work round that.”
That vocal focus has outlined so lots of the mixes all of us grew up learning. The singer is the storytelling centre. The band and manufacturing exist to help that emotional core. Bob’s philosophy makes this really feel apparent, nearly inevitable, but it’s astonishing how usually mixes drift away from this straightforward reality.
One other fascinating a part of Bob’s outlook is emotional neutrality. “For those who’re not feeling the music, it’s laborious to do a very good combine,” he explains. Nevertheless he doesn’t chalk this as much as style. Even when the music shouldn’t be your model, he believes you may “make your self prefer it.” That doesn’t imply pretending. It means briefly divorcing your self from your personal opinion so you may perceive the file by itself phrases. “What’s it? What’s the factor right here? What’s the dominant factor that individuals ought to get out of it?” Bob approaches each monitor as if it has one thing particular in it, and his job is just to disclose it.
What stands out most is how humane this philosophy is. There isn’t any ego. No must impose a signature sound. No obsession with the microscopic. Bob listens, responds, shapes, and lets the music inform him what it wants. And that’s the reason his mixes, from Springsteen to Bowie to The Rolling Stones, really feel alive. They breathe. They punch. They transfer.
In a world of infinite plugins, infinite recall and limitless tinkering, Bob Clearmountain stays a beacon of readability, reminding us of the last word reality of blending. For those who give attention to the music, the music will inform you the best way to combine it. The whole lot else is simply noise.
