Hi, you're listening to Guy Fletcher from Dire
Straits, and you're also listening to my weekly
mixtape with Brian Colburn. Have a lovely day.
Welcome to my weekly mixtape, a podcast that
takes the classic mixtape approach to building
a modern playlist. I'm your host, Brian Colburn.
On tonight's special Song Dive edition of the
show, I'm joined by Dire Straits' Guy Fletcher,
who spent the last decades as well with Mark
Knopfler's solo band. Guy is an incredible music
producer as well as accredited Dolby Atmos engineer,
something I'm very excited to talk a little bit
more about. Guy, thank you so much for joining
me on My Weekly Mixtape. It's a pleasure, Brian.
Good to be here. Well, before we dive into things,
I'd like to start by asking you my first time
guest question. And that is, Guy, what does the
word mixtape mean to you? Oh, well, it's a collection
of one's favorite songs, isn't it? It's the stuff
you want to listen to when you're doing whatever
you're doing, driving or vacuuming. I don't know.
Yeah, it reminds me of when I was a kid, you
know, cassette tapes and just putting all your
favorite stuff onto tape into one. format. Yeah.
A lot of fun. Yes. And today I get to talk about
a lot of the songs that you have recorded on
that made a lot of my mixtapes growing up. Now,
Guy, your tenure with Dire Straits began on the
1985 album Brothers in Arms, but you worked with
Mark prior to that on a few soundtrack albums
being 1984's Cal along with Comfort and Joy.
Could you talk about how your musical relationship
with Mark came together and then evolved into
your role with Dire Straits? Yeah, we got together
in, yes, it was 83, I think. And he was looking
for somebody to work with him on these two soundtracks
he was planning on doing, Cowl and Comfort and
Joy, because he'd just bought this thing called
the Synclavia, which was a very state -of -the
-art digital music system. And he needed somebody
to, A, operate it, and B, you know, realize his
musical ideas. And that's exactly kind of what
I do. I took one look at it and thought, well,
how hard can it be? So I skimmed through the
manual and figured out the essence of it. And
yeah, we set to work pretty much straight away.
He played me a lot of the stuff that he was into
at the time. There was a lot of JJ Cale and some
Dylan stuff and some blues things. And I was
very much into the same sort of stuff. So we,
you know, we hit it off straight away. And, yeah,
pretty soon we realized that we had a good working
relationship together and he could, you know,
get his stream of ideas down. Because at the
time, well, I mean, he's always had an incredible
stream of, yes, ideas. He's very prolific, obviously,
with his songs, but his music, you know, his
musicality is it just pours out of him. And I
was I was sort of the facilitator and enabled
him to to record it. Now, diving into the Brothers
in Arms album, Money for Nothing was the song
that introduced me to the band, given my age,
before my father could take that opportunity
to bring me down the Dire Straits rabbit hole,
if you will. I've always wondered if the song's
main introduction was recorded prior to Sting's
involvement or how that collaboration came together.
Yeah, the intro to Money for Nothing was, yes,
it was put on the track after the main track
was recorded, I seem to recall. Sting came in
a little after that. The track was actually,
at one point, it was in the bin. We weren't going
to carry on with it. Really? And Neil Dorsman,
the producer, who Neil just did a fantastic job
on that album, by the way, Neil and I said, because
Mark was getting a bit fed up with it, the band
weren't really inspired by it. And Neil and I
said, come on, let's go back in the studio after
dinner. This is one evening. And Neil said, get
on the Yamaha synth, the DX1. And I'm hearing
some kind of dinosaur sound. So I came up with
this sound and did this sort of what I call the
crash sound, which features all the way through
the main body of the song. And Mark heard it
the next morning and his enthusiasm for the track
was revived. And he put his guitar on right that
day. And then the track just, everybody sort
of started to get excited about the track again.
And the intro did, yeah, that came about a little
later. And then, of course, Sting just happened
to be on the island on holiday and our paths
collided. The coincidences started to happen.
And yeah, he found himself on the song. And yeah,
the next thing you know, we've sort of built
this, what's become an epic, but we didn't, we
had no idea at the time that it was going to
do what it did. indeed the album you know we
were just making another album um we didn't really
expect it to be what it became well i guess in
a case of poetic foreshadowing money for nothing
complete with the i want my mtv opening lyrics
became a huge staple on wouldn't you guess it
mtv when the band was making this music video
was there a sense that you were treading some
new ground visually because this was one of the
more unique video concepts of the entire decade
yeah i think when we saw the first animation
yeah we definitely thought this is this is different
in a really good way it's um i remember being
excited about it obviously i wasn't involved
in the production of the video we were pretty
busy at the time because as soon as we finished
the album we started the tour so we were really
kind of swept away Without really thinking too
much about the album's success, you know, the
next thing we knew, it was, we seemed to be number
one everywhere. It didn't really hit us until
long afterwards because we were just so busy.
And, you know, the band had been so busy before
my involvement. I mean, the number of gigs Mark
and the band had done, you know, just trying
to get themselves, get a foothold in, trying
to find some sort of success. You know, the band
worked very, very hard and it's very easy to
forget that. the amount of work that went in
in the early days. But yeah, we just got swept
away on this wave of success. And obviously the
MTV link hyped it to a massive degree. And it
was a great time to be involved in music video.
Well, in 70 plus episodes of my weekly mixtape,
I've only been able to ask this question one
other time. And that was to Bill Gibson, who's
the drummer for Huey Lewis in the news. Money
for nothing, both the song. and accompanying
video were parodied by Weird Al Yankovic as Beverly
Hillbillies, the video of which was included
in his feature -length movie UHF. Growing up
listening to all the music Weird Al was parodying,
I've always wondered what the actual artist's
thoughts were on his renditions. So were Dire
Straits a fan of Beverly Hillbillies? Yeah, we
loved Weird Al. And when he, when he did Money
for Nothing, we just thought, fantastic. Mark
and I actually played on it. He approached us
and yeah, we added a couple of, he played his
guitar and I played that sound that features
on the track. Yeah, we absolutely loved it. In
all my years of listening to Weird Al, I did
not know you played on that track. That is so
awesome. A little known fact. Well, Diving Back
to Brothers in Arms also featured one of my personal
favorite Dire Straits songs, which is Walk of
Life, a song that's been covered by countless
artists, including Shooter Jennings, who recorded
a country version back in 2007. This song features
your keyboard part as the lead melody. And while
the song features a lot of tasty guitar fills,
there's no actual full blown solo sections, which
was something that was very prominent throughout
the 80s musically. Was that the band's original
intent or was that kind of how the song unfolded
in the studio? No, I think that's how the song
was written. Mark feels strongly about the fact
that the song should be complete before it's
recorded. Obviously, things do change. Money
for Nothing certainly changed. Walk of Life was
always that kind of finger -picking style of
electric guitar playing, and it never really
needed anything else. I mean, it's obviously
such a catchy tune and a wonderful lyric. But
yeah, it didn't change in any way. That track
just kind of happened very naturally. And again,
yeah, that sound came from that same synth again,
the Yamaha DX -1, which is pretty prominent throughout
the whole album. That big sound. Now, after the
success of Brothers in Arms, you worked on the
soundtrack to the 1987 film The Princess Bride
with both Mark Knopfler and Willie DeVille, who
we sadly lost in 2009. For folks my age, mid
-40s, that movie is our childhood treasure. And
I think the score and soundtrack play such a
pivotal role in selling the movie's fairytale
atmosphere. In terms of scoring this movie, Were
the songs written after the movie was filmed
or were you working in conjunction with the filming?
Because they're so cohesive together. No, we
weren't working. I mean, obviously, Mark wrote
all the music for that. And I performed, I think
it was 98 or 99 percent of it because it was
done on the Sinclair. There were only a couple
of things that weren't Sinclair, which was Mark
played a nylon guitar. But the songs weren't.
Obviously, they were written to the scenes. as
in any normal film. But it is a completely unique
soundtrack, isn't it, in the way that it does,
like you said, lend itself to the fairy tale.
And it sort of happened by accident because nowadays
scoring is done with samples and the technology
available now means that composers can recreate
the orchestra and then record it with real players
when the budget allows. in the case of princess
bride we were planning on doing just that but
for one reason or another we didn't and rob reiner
loved what we were doing and it has that sort
of unreal bad sample sound to it because if you
if you listen to the sounds the actual samples
they're not that great they're pretty sort of
sucky strings as i call them um i don't really
they don't really lend themselves they don't
really compare to the real thing at all but it
really really helped as you said it really helped
the atmosphere in the movie that the whole fairy
tale that whole other worldliness of it and it's
i've never come across another soundtrack that
sounds like that so i think that does have you
know i'd like to think it played some part in
its you know cult success because it certainly
does have that doesn't it? I mean, for me, it's
a big movie because it's, it's the time that
I got together with my wife who I'm still married
to now. So we, we were working in LA and yes,
we kind of got together around that time. And
when I took her to see one of the screenings,
Princess Bride, it was, it was quite a special
moment. So, yeah, so it's, it's, it's very big
in my heart that, that movie. And obviously,
yeah, I love it. Same here. Well, Looking at
Dire Straits' final studio album, 1991's On Every
Street, I'd like to first talk a little bit about
Heavy Fuel. And I apologize in advance, Guy,
but this is where my musical nerdom is going
to come into play here. I hope this isn't too
deep in the weeds. I like a nerd. Recently, the
song came up on one of my streaming playlists,
and I immediately realized it sounded different.
And when I pulled out my original CD, because...
On Every Street was one of the first five CDs
I purchased with my own money. I listened to
it hundreds of times. I realized there's an extra
four measures of music before the second and
third verses on any subsequent later productions
of the album, but not the original release. Was
the longer version the band's original intent,
or was there an alternate take that was a label
decision or something? No, no. The original would
have been the longer version. I'd forgotten about
that. Yeah, I think they were just edits done
for the original release. Yeah, that's a good
point. I'll have to go and listen to that. I
do remember it vaguely. I didn't do the edits,
but Chuck Ainley will have done them. Yeah, I
remember shooting the video. That was a lot with
Randy Quaid in Sheffield Arena in the UK. That
was absolutely hilarious. That it was. Well,
the other song I want to talk about from On Every
Street is The Bug, which a year later was covered
by Mary Chapin Carpenter, whose version became
a huge country hit, peaking at number 16 on Billboard's
Hot Country Singles and Tracks. Earlier, I had
mentioned Shooter Jennings covering Walk of Life
as well. Is there a musical correlation between
the country genre and Dire Straits that makes
these interpretations translate so seamlessly?
Yeah. Well, obviously, Mark is very much inspired
by country, what I would call original country.
The time he spent in Nashville, particularly
when we were working with Chet Atkins. Yeah,
I mean, his musical history goes back a long
way into the Americas. A lot of Mark's songs,
if not all of them, are influenced both by folk
music over here and folk music in America and
country too. So yeah, there's definitely a big
pull. And I think around that time especially,
he was writing stuff that was very easily coverable
by country artists. I mean, you could argue that
that album is... Kind of a country album. Certainly
a lot of people called it that, although we never
did, but yeah, quite a few of those tunes are
essentially just country tunes and yeah, good
songs too. So that's why they get covered because
they're good songs. Completely agree. Now you
had brought up Chet Atkins recording with Mark
and I want to talk about the neck and neck album
for a second, if you don't mind on that is a
cover of a cover as yakety acts. is a cover of
Boots Randolph's Yakety Sax, only the version
you guys recorded in 1991 featured an updated
arrangement with new lyrics by Merle Travis.
I'd love to hear about the dynamics of working
with both Mark and Chet together and what the
two of them brought out of each other musically
on that album. Wow, it was a wonderful experience
to be in any room with both of them because they
really hit it off. Chet was fascinated by Mark's
thumb. I remember that. He used to comment on
the size of Mark's thumb and couldn't believe
how he could do what he did with it on the guitar.
And obviously Mark's love of Chet and his music
and his history throughout the early Nashville,
when Chet was producing in Nashville, Mark was
massively influenced by that. And a huge admirer
of Chet. So when they got together, it just seemed
like a match made in heaven. And of course, they
became very close friends. And, you know, it
was such a sad moment when we lost Chet. But
working with them was so much, it was just so
much fun. Chet was a very funny man and very
generous, very warm and incredibly talented.
And, you know, hearing the two guitar players
together, because they didn't play the same.
They complemented each other beautifully. And
because Mark understood that genre and Chet certainly
understood Mark and loved, you know, I suppose
the more rock and roll side of where Mark was
coming from. Yeah, the making of that album was
a lot of fun. We made it in several different
places. Some of it was done in Nashville in Chet's
house and some of it was done in London in Mark's
old studio, which was in a little muse. awful
place really but since then we've we've moved
on a long way and obviously mark built his wonderful
british grove studios which is where we record
now but we did make a lovely album and yeah it
was a wonderful very happy time well you recently
compiled and mixed the 2023 dire straits live
box set which included the unreleased 1979 rainbow
theater show Without getting too deep into the
technical aspects of studio mixing, though I
could probably talk about that all day, given
the live recording limitations in 1979, at least
in comparison to what's available now, how many
audio channels were you working with on this
mix? And did you face any challenges in that
project that maybe wouldn't be prevalent in this
day and age, considering we're working with pretty
much limitless digital options? No, it was well
recorded. It was as simple as that. It was done
by, I don't know who the engineer was. I can't
remember, but it was done on the Manor Mobile,
which was a very busy, popular mobile recording
unit. It was just 24 tracks, just two inch analog.
And when I put the first tracks up, I just thought
this is going to be absolutely fine. It wasn't
a problem. It got a bit, you know, because it
was the last night of the tour. And there were
some guest artists. It got a bit crazy at the
end. There was one, I think, one of the encore
numbers, there are two basses playing. Oh. And
which I kind of had to sort of skirt around because
it was pretty messy. But, you know, overall,
it was just really well recorded. And when you've
got good source material, there's really no excuse
for not making a great mix. Obviously, though,
yeah, there was a bit of... You know, a bit of
spill, as always. But it was a lovely big, you
know, the Rainbow was a great room to record
in. And, you know, the guys who did it knew what
they were doing. So I was kind of blessed to
have the opportunity to do that. Yeah, I really,
really enjoyed it. Well, now I'm excited to dive
into the track that's the feature of our episode
today, Going Home, themed from Local Hero. The
track was originally recorded in 1983 for the
soundtrack to the movie Local Hero, but in 2024,
the song has been given a total overhaul and
has been re -recorded for the benefit of charity
as it aids both Teenage Cancer Trust and Teen
Cancer America. Before we dive into the song
itself, how did the charitable nature of this
song come about? Well, it was an idea. The idea
didn't come from us. It came from a chap called
Peter Bradley, who is heavily involved with the
charities and in particular the Buddy Holly Foundation.
And he and a guy called Mike Reed, a DJ in London,
came up with the idea of using that track to
try and generate some money for Teen Cancer America
and Teenage Cancer Trust. They went ahead and
recorded a little version of it in Nashville.
This is before our involvement. And then they
sent it to Mark and I and asked if Mark would
like to play on it. And he said, well, yeah,
I'll play on the bits that they've got right.
And so we did. I recorded his guitar. And then
I thought, well, hang on. There's more to this
because the track that they recorded was great.
And they just didn't have a very good intro.
The intro was kind of free time. it didn't really
go and it meandered a little bit and it occurred
to me that if it had the proper intro like the
original it would be much more playable on for
players to come on board so we had recorded that
track an instrumental version or coincidentally
for the local hero musical which we started working
on in 2016 and we and mark was insistent that
he wanted to record demos with the band of all
the songs they were completely unused we never
used them never released them they were just
demos and of course we recorded going home and
i thought well if i can just tag that on so i
spent a day doing a big multi -track edit tagged
it on the front of their version and said there
we go now we've got a track and the charities
said you've got to produce it so that's when
i became the producer and then as soon as that
was done mark play a little bit more on it and
Suddenly everybody wanted to be involved because
Mark had become involved. So all our mates wanted
to pile in. So Townsend and Clapton showed up.
Albert Lee was one of the first to come on. And
so I recorded a lot of them at British Grove
at Mark's studio. And then as word spread and
as people were asked, I had an influx of, it
just became more and more players. And of course
the track, which was originally three or four
minutes long. had to be extended. So, so each
stage I would edit and extend the track kind
of, I had an inkling that it would be quite big
in terms of the number of players. So I prepared
myself for, for, you know, six, seven minute
track. I wasn't quite, wasn't quite expecting
the 10 minutes that the version is, but once
we got Ringo on board, and zach his son also
i had quite a lot of drums to play with so i
i was able to have enough material to extend
you know i never repeated anything in the track
it was always always fresh because there was
just so much stuff to come from come to use but
you know it was you know probably the biggest
editing job i've ever undertaken but you know
by the same token it was done over a two and
a half year period so the thing evolved in a
nice way Just to give listeners a small sample,
you had over 60 musicians on the track without
going through the entire list, because that could
probably take as long as the song itself. Ronnie
Wood, Jeff Beck, Alex Lifeson, Slash, Bruce Springsteen.
You mentioned Eric Clapton, Roger Daltrey, Peter
Frampton, David Gilmour, Tony Iommi, Brian May,
Tom Morello, obviously Mark and yourself. Did
you ask each artist to play through the song
in its entirety and then mix their different
guitar parts together? Or were the artists tasked
with tackling specific segments in the song?
No, pretty much. I didn't ask anybody to play
anything specific apart from a couple of instances
where I thought something would be really good.
most of the play what nearly all the players
i just said play as much as you want or as little
as you want wherever you want and i'll work it
out leave it to me to work out because and i
i had explained to a lot of them that the track
was being edited it was it was so if you play
in section c it may not actually end up in c
it might end up in e you know because i obviously
had to had to number or letter all the different
sections so so i created a lot of stems the usual
drums, bass, guitars, keyboards. And I had two
or three main guitar tracks that I would keep
updating as the track evolved. And I would say
to players, take those two guitar tracks out
and then just play wherever you want. Don't worry
about if something gets in the way, take it out
and I'll put it together. And they pretty much
came to me one at a time. So I was able to find,
I was able to make it work. It's not like I amounted
a whole load of stuff and I had to deal with
it. I dealt with each individual player pretty
much as soon as they'd done it and then mixed
the track. So at each stage, the track got mixed
as if it was finished because I figured that
was the only way to do it, finish it at each
stage and then open it up again and then mix
it again. And as a consequence, there are 52
different mixes of the track. But it seemed to
me the only way to keep it from being crowded.
The one thing I didn't want to do was to have
it become a mess. And it's close because there's
so much going on. But I think it's worked out.
And there was a lot of great material that I
was given that had to go by the wayside just
because it just didn't. There wasn't space for
it. So creating space was the name of the game,
really. And, of course, Jeff Beck. was one of
the major contributors. It was his last recording,
sadly, as Dwayne Eddy. Dwayne Eddy. It's also,
very sadly, his last recording. And from a listener's
perspective, it truly feels like you took all
60 musicians into a room and were just, it sounds
so seamless as if they're all playing the song
together. That's an insanely difficult musical
picture to paint. But what you did is very vivid.
You hear each guitarist complimenting each other
and telling that story musically. It truly feels
like you were pointing at them one by one in
a live. Thank you. You know, a lot of it was
to do with Sonics. And I was very keen to have
each player's sound come across as much as what
they play, because all of these players have
their own unique sound. I'm a big fan of. of
every one of them i mean they all have a sound
and i was very keen to to make sure that that
you could hear and distinguish their sound that
was my kind of you know when i picked up on something
that gilmore played there was a couple of licks
that he played because he gave me loads and loads
of stuff But there are a couple of licks that
I just said, that's David Gilmour. It's unmistakable.
So those had to go in. So there were, you know,
I'd give them a big red mark and they were the
ones that would go in. And it was the same with
everybody else. You know, Frampton did an incredible
job. He gave me so much stuff, so much, you know,
multi -layering, you know, the end section is
pretty much built around Frampton's contribution
and Brian May as well. Just very typical, very
much them. Have you thought about alternate mixes
in some kind of album form with all different
versions of the song, given all this source material?
I've thought about it, but it's just kind of
too, well, it wouldn't be the same. I mean, you
could do another mix and it would be another
version of it that would be completely unique
stuff because there is so much stuff. But I don't
think, I think it would dilute it. I think what
we have is. You know, I'm reluctant to use the
word classic, but it keeps getting banded about.
It's it is what it is. It's a lovely melody.
It's a lovely piece of music. And which is why
it worked in the first place. So it was a good
idea. And I was just very happy to make it happen.
Well, off the top of your head, do you have a
rough percentage of how many artists you worked
with in person versus remotely at alternate studios?
I think there were only about 12 of the players
came into British Grove. to record in person
um although no maybe a few more because because
there's mark's entire band are on are on it as
well so yeah different stages yes obviously they
they played on it four years before the track
was even conceived so because their contribution
came from an early recording so yes yes yes it's
kind of odd but yeah so i suppose about 16 maybe
17 people out of however many it is 65 i've lost
count any of those sessions bring out like a
memory like oh my god we're doing this here in
person yeah absolutely all of them albert lee
was just so sweet and everything he played was
just so albert pete townsend came in and he had
this little tiny amp and i just thought oh hang
on as that's i want pete townsend i want his
sound i want his big sound and as soon as he
played the first chord mark and i looked at each
other and went yeah okay that's pete incredible
sound from this little this little twin eric
gave me a whole top to bottom pass on acoustic
and on electric and i just thought i just you
know it was like all my christmases had come
up once everything you could just do the track
just listen to eric to be honest with you, because
everything he played was beautiful. And he kept
saying to me at the end, you know, are you sure?
Do you want more? Do you want more? Because I'm,
you know, I'm a bit out of practice. I just said,
God, Eric, just get out of here. Perfect. And
Ronnie Wood came in quite late on. They were
just about to start rehearsals for the, or they
were getting together for their tour and gave
me a few big chords and it just instantly sounded
like the Stones, which was. exactly what we wanted
exactly what mark and i would mark was there
when ronnie came in yeah and it was yeah it was
a lot of fun most of the day when these guys
came in was most of the day was spent chatting
and catching up because you know all these guys
know each other and you know when pete comes
to the studio we have lunch and we spend the
afternoon talking usually about recording gear
geeky stuff that you know all about So, yeah,
it's friends catching up as much as anything.
Well, along with the musician roster that you've
assembled, you also brought on board Sir Peter
Blake, who designed the cover art for the Beatles'
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band to create
the artwork for the CD single and album and digital
artwork. How did he become involved with the
project? Well, he was asked very early on by
the people who conceived the idea. And he very
graciously said yes. So he knew about it at the
very beginning, two and a half years ago. He
was struggling with his health at the time, so
he didn't get around to doing anything for quite
a while. But as soon as we saw what he did, it
was just perfect. It was just exactly what the
project needed. And we had a little launch playback
at British Grove where... A few of the players
came, Joe Brown, Joe Namatrading, Ronnie Wood,
Albert Lee was there. And Sir Peter came to that.
And so we did a little photo shoot. And it was
just, yeah, it was lovely. Well, for those listening
who don't know this, as I mentioned at the top,
Guy is an accredited Dolby Atmos engineer, which
as an audio guy, I'm excited to learn a little
bit more about. Can you maybe explain at like
a top level what Adobe Atmos music mix is for
those who might not be familiar with it? Yeah,
it's really an immersive mix. It's a mix that
comes from, instead of coming from stereo speakers,
comes from multiple speakers all around you or
multiple sound sources. So the advantage is that
the track becomes more open. You can kind of
get inside it a little bit more. Well -recorded
pieces of music obviously benefit greatly from
the technology. So if you take a lot of care
with an album and you spend a lot of time getting
sounds, when you do an Atmos mix, you can really
kind of feature those sounds more, like particularly
guitar sounds. We spend a lot of time working
on the sounds on Mark's records, not just the
lead guitar, the acoustics. all the other incidental
instruments, and you can really hit them out
and enjoy them with Atmos mixes. Of course, the
problem with Atmos is to listen to it properly,
you need a lot of loudspeakers. That is changing
because I'm involved with a system called AirSound,
AirSound Spatial, which is a way to listen to
true Atmos from two, three, or four speakers.
So it's very new. We're developing it now. We've
done a couple of demonstrations and everybody's
been completely blown away. So you're hearing
it here first. Keep your ear out for air sound
because the potential for consumers to be able
to listen to Atmos, to me, is very exciting.
To make it affordable. Because, I mean, most
artists are doing the mixes now. It's just that
people aren't really able to hear them properly.
You know, you can hear them with the Apple headphones
and it's okay. And you can hear them with soundbars.
But it's not true Atmos. You know, I think anything
we can do to get it to the consumer is going
to be a fantastic thing because it is a really
enjoyable way to listen to music. It's my, it's
our new favorite. Mark is totally in love with
it. That and vinyl. It's, I mean, it's a, you
know, it's a good record sound, fantastic on
vinyl and in Atmos too. Having seen feature films
using Dolby Atmos, you truly feel like you're
being surrounded. by the sound as well as what
you're seeing on screen, but for music, just
the sound. Is your mindset different when you're
mixing the song for Atmos versus a regular stereo
recording that would just come through a CD player?
Yes and no. No in that the main thing to focus
on is the song still. It's very easy to pick
it apart and for it to lose its cohesion, to
lose the glue, because tracks work. partly because
of the glue that they have with stereo mixes
when you when you master a song you you're kind
of giving a little more glue with a little limiting
a little eq to make it sort of pump a little
bit more that kind of disappears with atmos because
you don't really need to do that so you have
to sort of find other ways to give it a little
bit of excitement if it needs it so you know
it's it's very difficult to it's very easy to
get it wrong i think um and really i think for
me the rule is just keep it keep the stereo as
your guideline and you know everybody mixes atmos
is this does it the same i'm sure the stereo
is what you're trying to you're trying to maintain
what the stereo achieves but make it more immersive
and more enjoyable and that kind of happens naturally
just when you start to spread things out and
use the format It kind of happens by itself.
You just have to be a little bit careful and
a little bit subtle with certain things. But
it's a lot of fun when you've got nicely recorded
material. And obviously with keyboard sounds,
which is my domain, I love being able to pull
keyboard sounds apart because so much of what
I do is combination sounds. You know, I don't
just have a sound. It's often three or four sounds
to get that sound. And they may not all come
from a keyboard, but with Atmos, you can play
around with pulling those apart and actually
being able to identify the elements a little
more. You can get quite geeky about it, but essentially
the main thing is the song. The song is the main
thing you have to keep in mind. Do you see Dolby
Atmos being the silver bullet that finally puts
an end to the loudness wars that have been happening
over the last two decades in music, the brick
walling? Do you think that this could be the
solution that brings people to quality sounding
music versus just loud? Well, I hope so. It's
already starting to happen. I mean, most of the
stuff I'm listening to in Atmos kind of doesn't
sound like it's brick walled anymore because
what's the point? it doesn't work when you brick
wall something in atmos well some things do but
um yeah it's i'm enjoying listening to the way
people are doing mixes and and i'm enjoying listening
to the way people are experimenting with with
dynamics because atmos gives you the dynamics
gives you the back so you're right to sort of
bring that up the the dynamics that we've lost
Mind you, popular music was never very dynamic
because you've got to get it to sound good out
of a transistor radio. So get rid of your dynamics.
But obviously, you know, my background is very
much about arrangement and working with Mark,
you know, diastrates. We took a lot of care in
arrangement and dynamics particularly, particularly
on our live shows. Dynamics was a big part of
it. So, yes. To be able to explore that more
is a very cool thing and people are doing it.
Well, for you personally and with Mark in his
band, are there any projects that you have right
now that are going to follow up going home? God,
we've done so much work in the last couple of
years and it's all suddenly come out at once.
I kind of got no idea what's around the corner,
which has been great because I'm actually, for
the first week, This week and last week, I haven't
actually had anything to do. I'm mixing a couple
of albums for some friends of mine, bands who
want their albums done in Atmos. But apart from
that, it's suddenly all very quiet. So I'm actually
spending some time doing some acoustic treatment
in my room, which I meant to do 20 years ago.
So I finally found time to sort of do something
like that. So to answer your question, there's
nothing. that I can mention that's coming up
in the pipeline, but there's bound to be some
stuff just around the corner. I know Mark wants
to record more music. So yeah. Well, congratulations
on Going Home Guy. The single came out amazing.
It is such a great cause that you're doing it
for. And this has been an absolute honor. Thank
you so much for joining me on My Weekly Mixtape.
It's a pleasure, Brian. Thank you. And for those
listening, remember, you can find my weekly mixtape
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again for listening, and until next time, enjoy
the tunes.