Recording - September 2020 - 44

Mixing
Josephine Beaver's Prime Time
and tracking big bands

with Al Schmitt
When you mixed Prime Time, where did you start?

I pulled up every track to see how well it was recorded. I
don't know who recorded Prime Time originally, but they did a
good job, which made my job easier.

How many tracks was this project, and how were things
set up?

I think it might've been sixteen or twenty-four, but I'm not
sure. The bass was on its own track. I think the drums were on
three tracks.

What was your vocal chain?

things don't wash into one another, and I get more clarity and
separation.

Do you add compression to instruments individually or in
groups or buses?
I don't use compression much at all, really.

So, everything's kind of wide-open, more or less, except
for the Fairchild on the vocals?

Yeah, and that's just a tiny bit, maybe 2 dB on the vocals. I
use the Fairchild mostly to get the warmth of the tubes. I love
that sound.

Which Capitol studio did you mix this in?

I mixed this in Studio C, which is a really good mix room,
and I also like to mix in Studio A. Both rooms have really nice
Neve consoles.

Did you do any fixing on this album, like maybe something
Josephine didn't like in the original sessions?

No, we didn't have any of those problems, we were just
trying to bring it up to date and make it a more contemporary
kind of record.

I used an original Fairchild compressor that I use all the time.
I just tapped that a little bit. It gives a warmth to the vocal that I
really like. Then I used echo chamber four at Capitol, which is
my favorite chamber. With the compressor and chamber four,
we were able to really bring out her vocals, which sound great.
She's such a wonderful singer.

I think it sounds fantastic. I'm a massive fan of big band
music from the 30s and 40s-Ellington, Count Basie-I'm
a huge Benny Goodman fan.

One of my favorite things is the reverb. I was going to ask
if that was the real chamber. Especially now that we have
the Capitol Chambers plugin from Universal Audio.

Now that's cool!

For a long time, chambers were out of vogue-it was all
plates and reflective rooms, no one was using them.
Nobody but me. Wherever I mix,
I always want a live chamber. You
gotta use your ears, you don't want
to use too much echo, and you don't
want to use too little. A little trick that
I do is I use chamber four at Capitol,
and I blend that with my Bricasti M7
reverb. There's no specific 60/40
or 70/30-it's all in my ear, a little
bell goes off in my head and then I
know I hit the right spot.
When I'm mixing, I set up eight to
ten reverbs-a couple of live chambers, the Bricasti, a Lexicon 480,
a TC Electronic M6000, all set to
different lengths, like a small room
on one-I like the small and medium
stage on the 480. Then I adjust them
as I'm going along with the mix. I
try not to put too many things in
any one specific reverb. That way,
44 RECORDING September 2020

I've been around studios since I was eight years old. I saved
my money when I was eleven, and the first record I ever bought
was by Jimmie Lunceford. Woody Herman was one of my alltime favorites along with Harry James. I did five or six albums
with Harry James and Duke Ellington. I've been blessed from

Photo by George DeLoach

[Laughs] I get calls from people all the time, telling me, "Al,
I'm using your echo chamber."

Me too, I grew up with big bands. My uncle Harry Smith
had a studio in New York City, and he recorded the Benny
Goodman Sing, Sing, Sing record.

Recording - September 2020

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