Bob Clearmountain has collaborated with many of music’s biggest artists since the mid 70s, including The Rolling Stones, David Bowe, Tina Turner, and many more. He  got his start in the music industry’s technical side by working out of his home studio. During his teen years Bob was the bassist in a bar band. His band frequently recorded at Media Sound studios where he would eventually be hired as a gofer and then work his way to becoming an assistant engineer where his first studio session would be with jazz pianist and composer Duke Ellington. 

Bob Clearmountin had mixed some of the most iconic live shows in music history and had many of the records he’s mixed win grammys. Some of his notable works as a producer have been: The Rolling Stones “Shine A Light”, Paul McCartney’s album Tripping the Live Fantastic, and Hull & Oats album Big Bam Boom. Clearmountain was actually the first mixing engineer to negotiate a royalty for his work, which was unprecedented at this time.

Clearmountin has stated that he believed more is less when it comes to producing and mixing. Despite technological advancements, he still prefers to work on his analog mixing deck and treats Pro Tools software like a tape machine. He finds that trying to figure out and create things from scratch is more fun. He also says it’s best to work fast and mix the song as a whole rather in sections which helps maintain the flow of the song and the cohesiveness from beginning to end. 

Citations

Equalization (audio) (2023) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equalization_(audio)#:~:text=Variable%20equalization%20in%20audio%20reproduction,equalizer%20to%20use%20slide%20controls. (Accessed: 31 May 2023). 

Bob Clearmountain (2023) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Clearmountain (Accessed: 31 May 2023). [ URM blog ] learn from the legends – volume 8: Bob Clearmountain (2017) Unstoppable Recording Machine. Available at: https://urm.academy/learn-legends-volume-8-bob-clearmountain/ (Accessed: 31 May 2023).