Kevin Killen has helped create what many consider some of the most important records of our time. Peter Gabriel’s So and U2’s The Unforgettable Fire crown an impressive discography that includes Tori Amos, Elvis Costello, Prince, Laurie Anderson, Stevie Nicks, Brian Ferry and Patti Smith. Always forward thinking, Kevin is a founding member of an online record-making community called eSessions, has fully embraced mixing in the box (without an analog 2-bus chain) and continues to evolve his record-making approach as economies, technology and culture rapidly change. Given his track record it’s difficult to grasp him telling me that he still wakes up some days and wonders if he’s still got a career. Yet this remark is a good example of how Kevin’s warm and humble personality shines through the glitter of a hit-studded discography to open up a candid conversation about making records as well as his career. We got together at Mavericks Studio in NYC and talked about everything from Ireland’s early punk scene, to the technical perils of making So, to Kevin’s first leap into producing and Kevin’s proclivity for mixing in the box.

Tell me about those early days in Ireland in the punk scene. Was it the late ‘70s roughly that you started engineering?

The late ‘70s and early ‘80s. The first studio I worked at was called Lombard Sound. It’s still in existence, though it’s changed its name to Westland Sound. It was a small 24-track analog studio. There were two principal owners. One of the owners ran an ad agency, so typically we got jingles from about eight in the morning ‘til lunchtime. We always had an album project, be it traditional Irish music or some other album project. Back then management was very keen to have the junior assistants, of whom I was one, bring in outside projects. The punk and new wave scene were really proliferating there. Everyone was in a band. Everyone wanted to make a demo tape with the hope of getting signed to a major label in the UK. The impetus for a lot of my training was [wanting to go] from that hectic jingle session to having a bit more time and leeway in a regular session. I did frenetic eight hour, do-as-much-as-you-can sessions because the studio would allow the client to come in for a couple-hundred dollars for the night. You got one of the junior engineers, which was either myself or maybe Gerry Leonard, who is David Bowie’s MD [musical director] and is MD’ing with Rufus Wainwright now. One of the owner’s sons was the other junior engineer. We also had a couple of people who would come in and freelance. Management encouraged us to go out and find projects and they would assign us to projects based on either recommendations or whether you happened to be in the studio that day. It was a really great training ground because I was allowed to make mistakes and from those I grew. The house engineers, Philip Begley and Fred Meijer, would critique our work – it was great because they could put up the multitrack and listen to how we recorded basic things and they’d ask questions and then make suggestions. It was really a hands-on experience.

That sounds like a great education.

It was a great education – I learned a lot. Within five to six months of joining I was engineering my first full-time session on my own with no assistance. I had to set up the room, do the tape alignment on the machines, set up all the mics, get all the balances, do the headphones, make the tea [laughs] – which I was doing all at the same time. I completed the tape logs, the sessions data, made the copies afterwards, leadered the tapes.

Sounds like a lot of work.

It was a lot of work but there’s no way I would have been able to propel my career as quickly as I did without that experience. It gave me such a good grounding.

In these late night sessions did you record, mix and finish that night; or were they coming back to mix? How fast was it?

Some of them were a wrap in one evening – typically two or three songs. And it could also be somewhat delusional, meaning that the bands were thinking, “We play this as a three minute song, so how long could it take to record?” They were thinking, “With eight hours, gosh, we could record a whole album!”

Fast records!

They were not taking into account the whole set up and getting everyone comfortable in that environment. Some of them literally ran the gamut of completion from beginning to finish, as many tunes as you could do. Some of them said, “We’re going to try and get drums, bass and guitars. Then we’re going to come back another evening and do vocals and additional overdubs. Then we’ll set aside a separate time to mix.” Initially a lot of bands started out in the first mind-frame and then started moving gradually towards slightly elongated projects. But typically they’d be done in two to four nights, so I’d have maybe thirty-two to forty hours maximum to get the whole project done. We sometime had to hurry because these bands were putting up their own cash to make these demos with the hopes of getting a deal.

Right.

Some of them actually got a deal with major UK labels and some of them managed to progress onto the next level. Many of the bands received interest from labels but never went beyond that. U2 had just released Boy and there was Cactus World News, The Boomtown Rats, Horslips, Thin Lizzy, Clannad, Planxty and The Chieftains. There were a lot of different kinds of success stories on different levels so people were thinking, “This is something that could really work.” Use that demo tape to get more gigs, generate more interest – it’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. And there were many a day when you’d certainly have two or three A&R people from London checking out the Dublin scene.

Label people?

Yes – label people, management companies and publishers. One of the biggest deals occurred in 1981. Bill Whelan (a very accomplished musician and arranger) along with house engineer Philip Begley produced demos for two local brothers, John and Willie Hughes – they were called Minor Detail. The demos consisted mostly of a LinnDrum [drum machine] and a Prophet V synth. Labels were falling over themselves to sign the band. Eventually they got a huge deal from PolyGram. Bill went on to produce a song on U2’s War album [“The Refugee”] and achieve enormous international success with “Riverdance.”

It was an optimistic time?

Yes. At the same time the Irish Government decided to break parity with the British pound and very quickly the Irish punt dropped about twenty percent. So, there was a level of UK interest as a cost-saving device to come to Ireland to record. Suddenly we were getting a lot of English bands coming over with English producers and engineers. It elevated the standard and created a greater awareness of processes and techniques.

What kind of mistakes did you make on those sessions?

Oh my god. Like not placing the microphone in the right direction, having it backwards. Forgetting after I’ve aligned the tape machine to engage the Dolbys so that the first playback would be really noisy. Just oversights because you’re trying to do too much. Forgetting to plug the microphone into the actual wall [laughing]. Comical. Forgetting to turn on the headphone amplifier. Just really dumb basic things. Even erasing things sometimes. That’s the thing when you’re an engineer: you’re really not given the luxury of making too many mistakes, especially with tape. I mean with Pro Tools it’s somewhat different. It’s always retrievable – almost. But with tape it really tended to be a little bit more dramatic. Forgetting to ensure the piano was in tune before the session. Forgetting to put a tuning reference down at the top of the take. All the basic problems.

Were there any revelations in technique that you could recall from those times?

Very early on, while I was working at Lombard, we got our first set of Kepex noise gates. I was gating things, triggering or keying in the gates so I could get a particular sound. Also, I would not stay within the confines of the recording space, which enabled me to push the envelope a little further. We had a pretty echo-ey stairwell. At night when no one else was in the building we would stick some speakers, microphones and occasionally amps out there and we’d broadcast into the hallway and make an echo chamber. It wasn’t anything I’d done before but an engineer who came over from the UK said, “We should use this as an echo chamber.” The light went off. So we started looking around the rest of the building to give us more options in terms of recording.

And those techniques came into play on U2’s War, especially.

Yes. I worked at Lombard Sound for just under two years and then I went to work down at Windmill Lane. That is where U2 did all their records up to a certain point. The studio space was designed by John Storyk. It had a live end/dead end kind of environment. The control room sounded pretty good but there was one issue with the monitoring. That took a few years to figure out but they eventually did. The live end of the recording space itself was still somewhat dead sounding but it was good if you wanted to make those really concise recordings, where you had complete control over each individual sound. Steve Lillywhite had developed this technique of over-compressing the drums and he wanted a live room. I think he’d worked at the Townhouse Studio in London or at Manor Studio in Oxfordshire and those places have live stone rooms, so he was trying to find something in our building that had a similar kind of sonic characteristic. When entering the building at Windmill Lane the stone reception room was straight ahead. It had a concrete or tile floor, concrete walls and a low ceiling. Approximately ten, fifteen feet in it had a stairwell that went up to the other floors. Steve’s original idea was to set the drums up in the reception area after everyone went home at six o’clock. We would set up close mics around the drums and then we’d put up a couple of mics in the stairwells. That combination of those two things and a liberal amount of compression, through [UA] 1176s, gave us our sound. When Larry [Mullen Jr.] played the drums they were really splashy in the space, so it added a level of excitement that wouldn’t necessarily have been had out of the studio space.

So the compressors were sustaining the room sound, filling it in.

Sure, filling it in and adding excitement.

I remember that record sounding like the opposite of everything else that was going on [in 1983]. Comparatively everything else seemed clean with the mid-range hollowed out. War was raw, with tons of mid-range excitement. In retrospect were you aware in the studio that it was so different?

There were definitely discussions about trying to impart it with a unique sound and I think Steve had already established the basic template of the sound on Boy and October. But I think the songs kind of dictated what the sound was going to be. Edge was evolving his own sound at that point. I think he had certainly come up with a more of a signature tone for that record. I think, as their level of confidence in their own abilities grew, that helped with the sonic architecture. In the context of other things it seemed like it was somewhat more unique – not necessarily as groundbreaking as you’re describing but it was definitely a cool sound. When you’re in the heat of the moment you don’t necessarily see it being as pivotal as it sometimes turns out to be. You’re just trying to capture what you think is the appropriate thing.

Was there a sense with the next record, Unforgettable Fire, that it was going to be as pivotal and huge as it became?

Well, U2 wanted it to be pivotal. There were very frank discussions with Brian Eno and Danny Lanois of how to create a new sound. Both Brian and Danny wanted to help the band move away from what it had been and help give them more elegance and dimension. Certainly not to diminish what Steve had done – clearly he’s remained involved with the band to this day and is hugely pivotal in their success. But the reality of it is that when you’re brought in as the new producer you want to kind of take it in a slightly different direction. The band wanted that as well, so there was a willingness to explore. The band had been rehearsing up at Slane Castle. During that process they thought, “We really like it here. We’re really comfortable; there are fewer distractions up here. Is there any way we can bring a studio to the castle?” The previous year they had the experience of recording live at Red Rocks [Amphitheatre outside of Denver, Colorado, for Under a Blood Red Sky] and they used a New York based company called Effanel to do that recording. They contacted the owner, Randy Ezratty, and asked him if he’d be willing, or if it was even possible, to ship his remote studio over to Dublin. Because his whole studio environment was set up in flight cases it was very easy for him to do. It was a matter of logistics and once in place it worked. It wasn’t completely foolproof in the sense that the castle had it’s own quirks – it had a generator that would occasionally die on us. We had this big ballroom that was octagonal in shape and had a really live sound to it. We tried to put the drums in there and we had to damp the room down – it was almost too live. But a number of those basic tracks ended up on the finished record – “A Sort of Homecoming”, “Wire” and maybe “Bad.” We had a version of “Pride (In The Name of Love)” but we ended up re-recording it back at Windmill. We were up there for the better part of eight weeks doing basic tracks and exploring. Every time we set up a new track Dan and Brian were always aware of trying to create a new environment for that song to exist in, so Edge’s guitar went through a lot of additional manipulation other than the ones that he would normally do. Creating atmospheres around the guitar and all those halos that exist on that record – that was definitely part of it.

How much of that was using the room for his guitar sounds and how much was it going through the harmonizers and delays?

Hard to say, maybe fifty/fifty. I’d have to almost go down song by song to try to remember, but fifty/fifty wouldn’t be a bad estimate. Brian and Danny were tweaking those buttons and trying to come up with a creative pallet for Edge to play off of – Edge would hear that and play into the sound and that would almost inspire what he would do. Providing him with an editing capability in that he wouldn’t have to play as much because the sound was so luminous and glorious that it kind of created this extra additional effect. In terms of the non-traditional recording space, there were lots of little rooms where the amps could be placed and we experimented with certain things like putting them in the hallway. There were a number of outside balconies for the [Vox] AC30s. We had numerous stations set up and we would run the line to those to see what sounded best for any particular thing, depending on what the guitar was supposed to be doing.

Was this something where Dan was bringing more of the room and mic’ing techniques and Brian was doing a lot more of the electronic manipulation?

They actually co-existed equally because they had already done a number of projects together up at Dan’s studio in Hamilton [Grant Avenue], just outside of Toronto. They had already established a pretty cohesive working relationship. They both kind of crossed over into each other’s worlds quite happily and supportively. It was one of those things where at any one moment in time somebody would be doing something and they’d often be doing it in tandem. The lines weren’t that delineated.

Maybe we can geek out a little bit about the remote rig that showed up there. What kind of console and gear was being used?

It was a Sound Workshop console. It was a thirty-two or thirty-six input with great sounding mic pres. We had two Stephens tape machines, by John Stephens from California. It had some quirks but in terms of sonic reproduction it was excellent and portable! Randy brought a whole host of microphones. A combination of [AKG] C12s to Sony C500s to Beyer M-88 to [Neumann] U67s to U87s and [Sennheiser] 421s. Then we supplemented with some microphones from Windmill Lane. We had a pretty good complement of condensers, dynamics and old tube microphones. Randy supplied all the headphone boxes, cabling and interfacing. For external gear we had a Lexicon 224 [digital reverb], AMS 1580, Lexicon Prime Time, Yamaha Rev 5 or a Rev 7, [Lexicon] PCM 42s. We may have had the Sony DRE 2000 reverb. So between all of that and band’s gear there was certainly enough processing. It was just a question of interfacing it with the console. We might have had a separate sidecar to do all the effects processing. All the effects returns came back and we basically had it hard-wired in such a way that we could send it quite easily to two destination tracks on the multitrack. Bus 17 and 18 would always go to the effects chain and we sometimes paralleled all the effects, or in series, depending on how we were doing it so we wouldn’t always need multiple sends.

So those are sort of Brian and Dan’s tracks?

Yes. They were the production tracks. Brian had a [Yamaha] DX7 in the studio. He’d sometimes use that as the cue for a sonic template to create something and then whatever the band brought to bear on it. So it was really a very collaborative experience – everyone was encouraged to put his two cents in. Brian and Dan were very good about soliciting opinions. It was a very cool working environment. Of course it wasn’t without tension. In any creative environment there’s always going to be that natural tension that exists between the visionaries and the actual people who have to physically create and implement it. I think in any good project there’s always a healthy dose of that and this was definitely the case there. But there was a lot of respect from everybody.

And did you engineer that record?

I did some engineering. My original role was supposed to be the assistant engineer, hired from Windmill Lane to help facilitate the recording at Slane and then come back and provide continuity. But what actually happened is that Dan encouraged me to do some engineering up at the castle. When we got back to Windmill, the studio had just installed our first SSL. We were all getting used to the new console. It was a very collaborative process. I wouldn’t say I mixed the record by any stretch of the imagination, but they ended up giving me an additional engineering credit on the record so I guess they felt my input warranted that.

That’s great.

It was good. At the end of the project both Brian and Danny were encouraging me to seek further experiences outside Dublin. My own boss, Brian Masterson, was equally supportive as were the band. Brian and Dan suggested that I come to New York and encouraged that move.

And you did. That was ‘84 or ‘85?

That was ‘84. Randy Ezratty, who owned Effanel, also lived in New York. He left the project after we decamped from Slane but we kept in touch and I actually showed up on his doorstep one day. He put me up for a couple of weeks until I got on my feet. I was kind of curious to see how what I had learned in Dublin would translate to New York. The fundamentals do translate but there’s also different aesthetics. When I came to New York there was definitely a yearning for more tube gear and more of the old vintage equipment; where I’d just come from was definitely moving more towards the solid state and the digital world. My first console was a Helios, which is a great sounding board. When I moved to Windmill Lane we had an MCI and then we installed an SSL. But at the end of the day you’re just reacting to music. If it doesn’t sound good you think, “Well, what can I change here? Do I go to something external? Do I change the microphone? Do I change its position? Do I change the tonality of the instrument?” You try any permutation to get the desired sound.

So when you came to New York what happened?

I landed here on Thanksgiving Day ‘84, not knowing the significance of that holiday, and started looking around for work. I had a couple interviews at some major studios here in New York. I needed to work and some of the studios were willing to help me. A couple of opportunities didn’t quite pan out the way I expected. I eventually got an opportunity to work over at Electric Lady [Sound Studio]. Mary Cullum, who was the studio manager at the time, took me under her wing and gave me some additional assisting work, mostly at nighttime. Ed Stasium was the first engineer that I worked with there and his normal assistant had come down with pneumonia. Mary said, “Well, I have this young guy. He’s from Ireland. He’s worked with U2. Maybe he can fill in. He knows the SSL.” Ed was initially reluctant and I understand why. You have a relationship with your assistant you don’t want to necessarily change. But apparently whatever I did that night he was convinced that I knew what I was doing so he recommended that the studio use me. I was ambitious; clearly I wanted to get ahead. The studio started giving me more work. I ended up assisting Bob Clearmountain on a number mixing projects. At the same time U2 were already here touring The Unforgettable Fire record. Occasionally I’d receive phone calls from the band asking, “Oh, could you come out and record this date for us?” So on the one hand I was assisting here at the studio and on the other hand I was getting calls to go out and do live remotes for U2. People started putting two and two together and figured, “Okay. Clearly he’s got the skill set to do this.” That went on for about ten months while I was building up my own clients, as well as going to other studios to try and get my foothold in the city. I was still carrying on conversations with Dan. He was in the UK working with Peter Gabriel, initially on the Birdy soundtrack, and through that collaboration Peter asked Dan to produce his next record with him. Dan called me in late May and asked me if I’d be interested in going over to the UK to mix that record. I jumped at the opportunity. Ten months after I arrived in New York, I was back in the UK. So wasn’t exactly just a mix job.

Tell me a little about that. I know that that was a bit of an epic production.

It was an epic production. David Bascombe, who was the Tears for Fears engineer, had done the initial tracking. He was there for about a month. From what I remember David, Dan and Peter worked pretty well together, but for whatever reason he decided to move on. Dan had called me to have me mix the record but there was still a lot of recording to be done. Tracks were in various stages of completion. The way that Peter likes to work is to invite musicians in and each musician will tend to play on each song. Then he’ll cut and paste different elements together.

Was this at Real World [Studios]?

No, this was before Real World. It was called Ashcombe House. It was an old farmhouse that Peter used for the studio with additional space for an office and accommodations. The studio was located in what used to be a cowshed. It was just this long rectangular building that had very minimal treatments in it. The control room was facing away from the studio space. There were a couple of windows and it looked over this beautiful valley just outside of Bath. There was an old workshop and you cut through that to get into the recording space. It was all concrete with a couple of windows on one side. It was a pretty live, kind of pingy sound and we had a P.A. set up in there. There was a technical issue that they’d encountered. For whatever reason, at the onset of the project they decided to record to two 24-tracks simultaneously. One was a regular Studer A80. The other was a Studer A80 shell and transport but with all the electronics modified by this local tech guy. Right before they tracked they had an Adams – Smith synchronizer installed. Apparently one machine ran off a DC card and the other machine ran off an FM card. One of those machines was slightly incompatible with the synchronizer and it was sending the wrong pulses to it. It was kind of staying technically in synch but it was drifting ever so slowly. Then there was the additional situation of tape slippage on a Studer A80 – the first couple of minutes on a reel are not as stable so we had that on both machines to contend with. The third problem was Peter had done an initial demo; comprising a drum machine loop or pattern, a Prophet V [synth] and some guide vocals. The demo was put up on the A machine and the guys recorded to the B machine. The performance on the B machine was then put up on the A machine with a copy of the demo and a fresh reel of tape on the B machine so that the players could quickly reference their prior parts. Whatever inherent fluctuation was there on that first pass was being recorded and added to the second pass and so on. Of course, because it was marginal in the beginning, people would tune up and it was just fine. Incrementally, by the time we got from take one to take six, the two machines would start together and then musically the performances would really drift. I remember Dan had called me when I was in New York. We used the Adams – Smith a lot at Electric Lady and I was reasonably familiar with the device. He described the problem to me and I kept thinking, “Well, clearly there’s an issue.” It took us awhile to figure out exactly what it was, but he still needed someone to come in to man the console. When I got in there was the creative process of recording during the day and the ancillary work at night, which was figuring out how to deal with all these great takes and performances on these different reels with various versions of the song. How do we retrieve those in a way that’s both musical and technically satisfactory back to the master reel while keeping it in time and in tune?

Ugh.

We devised all sorts of schemes. We used pitch control, vari-speed and flying stuff off to other tape machines while flying them back in. We tried looping things through an AMS 1580. Ultimately we concluded that these two machines really should never have been synchronized together and that what we really need to do was to compile a master reel. Dan was totally in agreement because he had learned through bitter experience that the synchronizer was just really causing us endless problems. To remove that from the equation would really be the safest way to go. So I suggested that we bring in a 32-track Mitsubishi machine. I’d had some experience with that in New York and I thought it was a pretty good sounding machine.

One-inch digital?

Yes, instead of the 2-inch analog. We did wonder about the analog verses digital – is it really going to sound as good? We called the rental houses in London, a couple hundred miles away – it was cheaper to fly a 32-track machine from New York to England. [laughing]

Oh my gosh.

And so we got a 32-track machine in. My job then was to start compiling master reels.

So you had to use the two 24-track machines and find a way to get them onto the 32-track?

On a song like “Sledgehammer” there was the master take plus a number of slave reels. We had the versions of these songs in long form – they weren’t necessarily jams but they had extended sections in them that had to be edited down. Not only did the master have to be edited down but all of the slave reels had to be edited down as well to create a new master. We had to agree on a process by which we were editing. Are we going to edit to the music? Are we going to edit to the click track? What’s the constant here? And so the only thing we could rely on as a constant was the click track or the drum machine. So if I had to do five edits on the master reel I had to do the same five edits on the slave reels as well and hope that my edits were consistent enough to stay in sync.

Were you using time code to figure out those spots?

Yes. We used time code but as you’re rocking a piece of 2-inch across the heads the [time code] reader is not accurate enough.

You needed a finer kind of marker.

Right, and we really didn’t have it. That’s where the click track came in. Mike Large, who worked for SSL and whom I knew from Dublin, came over to install the console at Windmill Lane and maintained Peter’s SSL. He would come down and do periodic checks on the console. As we were going through all the technical issues with the synchronizer, he was very instrumental in doing research. He discovered via the manual that there was a particular kind of sub menu that could be engaged called a Splice Lock Window. Most synchronizers, when they see a splice they would immediately look for the nearest whole number of a frame to cue the tape back into lock again. This particular menu accepted the nearest sub frame and synced the machines.

So it would kind of drift to find its sync point?

Yes, like 30 or 80 sub frames, and then it would drift back in. Around that edit point, a little smearing moment of phasing would be found. As long as the same two elements from the master and the slave reel weren’t combined, it could get away with that. Then we’d have to go back in and drop in those little sections – physically drop them in, just punch them in and out. I created this master reel on the 32-track that had the form that we wanted. Peter was still missing the sound of the analog on certain elements, so there were times where we would have a 32-track plus two 24-tracks locked up together.

Because the sound wasn’t there?

He felt like maybe the bottom didn’t quite translate and there was a certain element of truth to that. It could have just been a certain familiarity that he wanted to hear. But it gave a process to what we then needed to do, and then we had a 32-track master of the song.

That wouldn’t drift from itself. [laughs]

We could rely upon it. We also printed time code on one of the tracks. If anything ever happened we knew that we had that control track. If we wanted to try new things, we could create a brand-new slave reel [for] additional tracks. I tried to impart that kind of process on the record while at the same time still keep the creative process going.

It’s a big job. [laughs]

Yes, that’s why I ended up being there for about ten months. It was really a long period of time. I It was really thrilling because upon hearing the music we could tell that it was going to be a great record! Nobody knew at that moment how pivotal the record was going to be; for Peter, Dan, myself – for everyone involved. It certainly made, or created, a greater awareness of David Rhodes [guitar] and Manu Katche [drums]. Tony Levin was clearly an established bass player. But from Peter’s perspective, he went from selling a couple hundred thousand records to selling millions.

Even after twenty-plus years, both So and Unforgettable Fire are on the radio every day. But at the time you were making them, there’s just not this sense?

I think because you’re so immersed in the process. You’ve created these timelines for yourself, these milestones that you want to achieve: complete a song, or complete a vocal and get a mix done. You’re not really thinking, “This is the record that’s going to make my career.” After the record was finished, I remember I sent a copy to Randy at Effanel and asked his opinion. When I finally came back to New York, he pulled me aside and said, “This is an amazing piece of work and it may define your career.” Peter had also said the same thing to me before I left England. He said, “You’re probably going to need a manager after this record comes out.” Perhaps he knew better than most how significant the record was. I was twenty-five – still naive enough to think that you make records because you believe in the music, not necessarily about the impact of those records.

And how could you expect that?

You don’t. My own experience up to that point had been that I’d made records and they had a certain level of success, but it was never in the millions of records. At that point Unforgettable Fire had only sold about a million copies by the time we’d finished So. It was gaining momentum and the band was clearly elevating and transforming themselves from being a theatre playing band into larger arena artists. It coincided with other events such as Live Aid, which was obviously a global phenomenon, and U2 were part of that.

On So, you were the mixer?

My credit is engineer but it was really a collaborative thing. Both Dan and I worked together. It didn’t follow the normal trajectory of a record. Normally you do your basic tracks, then all your overdubs, your vocals and then mix. I got there in May and by late September we were beginning to get balances that we liked. When we were working on something we’d say, “Oh, this is a great balance for this particular song.” On the SSL we would store a recall and make very extensive notes, both the effects chains that we used to create a sound and balances for rough mixes. Everything was saved and there was a blue book that had all those details that Dan had initially started. The recall information was already imbedded in the session.

What model SSL were you on?

An SSL 4000 E-series. We noted when particular balances impacted the listener, such as “September 10th mix” or “October 1st mix.” Virgin Records started coming down to hear the material in October 1985. We started doing rough mixes with that particular presentation in mind and then Geffen come over from the US. Those mixes – because they were fairly well received – became the basis for the actual final mixes. So it wasn’t like we started with a clean slate.

But you were still tracking into those, so it affected the way that the tracking was going?

It affected the way the musicians interacted with the song.

And how much do you think those mixes affected the kinds of choices being made for what to add or overdub?

I think they definitely had an impact. Peter definitely had all the musicians play on all the songs. At some point we had to make a decision about which drummer to use on which song. Sometimes there were two drummers on the same song.

Like when Stewart Copeland only played high hats.

The high hats on “Red Rain.” It was Stewart and the Linn 9000 [drum machine] for the drum part of “Big Time”. It just so happened that the parts worked together. We would go through the process of deciding which performances were being kept; we always made notations of what performance we liked in case at some point we’d want to go back and add a moment from those performances. But then it started to inform how the tracks were built and the editing process involved not just editing down the performances, but editing down the form as Peter started to become more engaged in writing his lyrics. He would feel intuitively if a section needed to be longer or shorter and those adjustments would be made. I mean, it really was an involved process and it continued right up until the last moment. Right through until almost the mastering portion.

Was he there giving a lot of feedback on the sonic aspects of the mix?

Yes, Peter was thoroughly engaged. Again, because of the process that we adopted, we built a mix from a base that we all loved. A certain idea might spark the exploration of a different direction for the arrangement. But we always had that reference point to go back to. It was unusual in that way. Up until that point I’d always mixed records where there was a definitive mix period – “faders down and start again.” That was the beauty of the SSL’s total recall.

It’s a real foreshadowing of where we are today. Pro Tools is like a computerized SSL, in the sense of recall and automation.

Absolutely. In realizing the fact that you can manipulate things in a way that you couldn’t in the past. With an SSL, each channel had so much processing from the dynamics section, the equalization and all the sends. One could configure the console to suit the task at hand. It was a very versatile console and sometimes it was almost overly complex and yet so simple at the same time. It allowed for incredible creativity once you figured out how to actually use it. But definitely there was a learning curve for a lot of people.

Let’s talk about producing and stepping into that role. Do you engineer records that you produce as well?

I usually do. I’ve pretty much done that throughout my whole career, not necessarily out of choice, but because a lot of time it was a natural extension of how I got into producing. I was an engineer who would sometimes mix my own records. Then I got asked to produce, but [the artists] definitely wanted me to engineer. I’d worked with producers who encouraged my contribution, so it just felt like I should proceed. I was actually initially reluctant to take on that first role, with Mr. Mister [Go On], because I felt like I wasn’t ready. I had to almost be coaxed into doing it.

Really?

Yes. It’s a big step. I’d just come off making So. I then worked with Arif Mardin on Howard Jones’ One to One record, which was another incredible learning experience. My next project was with Pat Leonard producing Bryan Ferry’s Bête Noire. That was a very different experience, but also an incredibly wonderful one. In the space of a couple years I’d worked with Steve Lillywhite, Arif Mardin, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, Pat Leonard, Peter Walsh, Jimmy Iovine and Bob Clearmountain. They all approached their craft in different manners, but the results were always superb. I didn’t feel quite ready to take the plunge. However, the members of Mr. Mister were pretty convincing.

What duties or skill sets did you need to bring to the table that you weren’t self-assured about at that point?

I was completely aware of what my weaknesses were. I had no formal musical education and could not play an instrument. I couldn’t sit down and write a chart for somebody and I felt like that was something that really needed to be there.

What did you do?

I was very upfront and candid with the band. All the guys in Mr. Mister are very accomplished musicians. When we were having the initial discussion I said, “You know, I don’t understand music theory. I’m coming at this from an engineering perspective and I clearly love music. I feel like I have something to bring, but that’s my viewpoint.” And they said, “Well, we can take care of that stuff. We have our own internal language for all that. We want your opinions about directions, structure of songs and sonically what you can bring to bear on it.” We ended up going into the studio for a weekend just to try one song, because we all felt like that was the easiest solution.

Hit the pavement.

Hit the pavement, see what happens – and it was fun. We all had a good time, so we thought, “Okay this is going to work.” But having worked with somebody like Arif, you look at what he brings, or Brian or Danny. You think; not only are they gifted in terms of their ability to direct people but they’re also great musicians. You have that whole thing where they can suddenly just pick up the instrument and say, “Well actually, I think you should play it like this.” I couldn’t do that. I could certainly try, but it’d be very ham-fisted and I would never really do it that way. So there was certain insecurity on my part to jump into that role. But wiser heads prevailed. Once I realized that I could do it, my confidence grew. During the course of that record I really grew immeasurably, as I did on So and The Unforgettable Fire. I mean, on all the records you grow because you learn things about yourself.

You certainly proceeded to take on some big production tasks. You were at the helm for Elvis Costello records, for example.

Right, exactly. T Bone Burnett, with whom I had worked and shared the same management company, recommended to Elvis that I should be involved in the production of Spike. I thought that was incredibly generous of him. I think that T Bone felt comfortable, since he and I had worked together on a couple of little things. He felt that I’d brought a certain aesthetic and he felt he and Elvis would cover other aspects. Spike was such an involved record in terms of its musical dimension, what it was trying to achieve.

It’s all over the map.

It’s all over the map musically. T Bone felt that my experience, especially coming from Ireland, would really suit Elvis’ style. He felt there would be a good match. Elvis is such an interesting man and such a musicologist – the guy just knows everything about music – I was thrilled to be involved. It was a total rollercoaster. One day we’re doing traditional Irish tracks with a bunch of Irish players; three days later we’re in New Orleans recording the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. You couldn’t find anything more diametrically opposed to one another. One day it’s the drum machine, then recording Allen Toussaint, then going to L.A. and recording Jim Keltner and Jerry Scheff and then finally recording Paul McCartney. It was a baptism of fire, though a different baptism of fire from the other ones I’d been through. Elvis and I, we established a good rapport. That was the reason I think T Bone felt like I could be the person who’d be there on a day-to-day basis. T Bone was there the majority of the time, but he definitely had periods where he would step out for a few hours. He wanted to feel confident that there was somebody available that he could trust. I think what he brings to projects is his ability to detach himself from the record. He can come in, listen and then say, “There’s your problem on that song.” We’d identify the pitfalls of that particular recording. He’s got an incredible set of ears for that stuff. He’s so good at putting the right characters in place to play on the record – casting records. I did move quickly into production and I’ve always enjoyed that aspect of making records. I’m not doing as much of it now, just because the industry is the way it is. It’s very much driven by hits these days, it has always been driven by hits, but there always seemed to be room for slightly more artistic production projects to be out there at the same time. That seems to be less the case today, in terms of major label projects.

So you’re doing a lot more mixing these days. “Faders down… Here’s the files.”

I don’t think there’s any “faders down” these days. You get the session, you open it up and the vision – or the beginning point of the vision – is certainly there. I think that’s just a function of the way people work these days and that’s one of the beauties of DAWs. You can actually say, “Here’s my vision. Now I want you to impart your vision and/or use mine as a basis.” Sometimes it really is a good starting point. When you go through the process of recording, there are certain seminal moments during the making of a song when certain balances clearly ascribe a value to the emotional content that is supposed to be there. It’s important to keep those things together and to make sure that every time you come back to it you say, “Oh, that was the balance we liked in September, therefore it’s still valid today. Let’s go back when we do the next overdub.” Similar to what we were doing with Peter Gabriel. I’m doing a lot of mixing; most of it in the box. Not all of it, but the majority of it these days. Projects, for whatever reason, are driven by budget or time considerations. I’m also working via satellite. I’m working in a couple of rooms here in New York while the artist is located somewhere else in the world. We’re sending files backwards and forwards.

FTP?

Yes, FTP. I’ll send an MP3 initially, simply because it’s convenient. It’s faster. Certain comments that come back are really based on the fact that it’s an MP3 format. I’ll put up a higher resolution file if there’s a real issue. Then the artist can hear exactly what I’m hearing and we can start the dialogue.

What does that mean for you when you’re working in the box?

Pro Tools is pretty much my mix format. The majority of projects that come are in Pro Tools. I’m not averse to working in different DAW formats but Pro Tools seems to be the default. I work in my friend Randy Ezratty’s studio and he has a [Digidesign] D-Command [control surface]. All the plug-ins are in the box. I first started mixing this way three or four years ago. I started to experiment with a process of figuring out how I could best utilize the technology while at the same time keep myself free to be as immediate with the music as I want to be. It was impossible to do that with a mouse.

You needed a control surface.

I felt like I needed that tactile response. Even though it clearly is not the same as an analog console where you can just lean over, grab stuff and twist it. I create various templates with both bussing architecture and effects processing. When I import a session those things are already preset. I can at least try things quickly. When you’re mixing you want to create balances and try potential environments for the mix to reside in – you can get a sense of how far you can take it and how much you can push it in one direction or not. And then, based on the conversations I’ve had with the artists about what effects they like or dislike, we build up a palate of sounds that they’re comfortable using. I’ve kind of arrived at this particular way of working in the box now. Let’s just say it’s like a typical rock band; there’s drums, some percussion elements all the harmonic information from keyboards to guitars, vocals and some additional other stuff. I’ll tend to break it up into little subgroups. I’ll do the drums and percussion. Instead doing multiple instances of plug-ins across all those little strips, I’ll route it across two little subgroups and do overall EQ-ing and compression. It’s similar to how it would be done on a console. I bus it to another set of faders, like a subgroup, and then combine everything to a final destination track and record it back into the session. I’m always time stamping the mix back to the session exactly as it was, so if I need to do some adjustments later on I can drop in.

Are you bussing out to analog gear as you mix?

I’m not. I’m all in the box.

No two-bus chain?

No. I’ve created a two-bus chain in the box. Maybe using the Sony Oxford, some GML, some Roger Nichols plug-ins and some of the higher end plug-ins that are targeted towards the mastering side. I’m taking that approach because I feel it’s the easiest way to maximize the potential of the DAW without giving up CPU and processing power. There are still constraints on mixing, as there always have been, because of time and budget. It’s not unusual to have to mix the whole record in a week or five days, and that requires you to move in a more efficient manner. You have to ensure that the project is delivered to you in a particular way so that you can maximize your input. At the start of a project I’ll mix a couple songs quickly just to get a feel for it. I will usually discuss taste preferences with the artist beforehand. It takes a few mixes before I really start to get a sense of where their head is at and what really concerns them. It may be different from song to song. But I start to see a pattern evolve and I think, “Okay. I’m not going to go that route. I’m going to follow this route.”

“Now I know where to go with this next song.”

Exactly. I can start moving the process along a little more quickly. DAW allows you to start building up a catalogue of balances for the record. If I start feeling like I’ve hit a roadblock with the mix I can say, “I’m going to put it away for a half an hour. I’m going to go move on to song A and I’m going to have a quick peek at that one. See how it hits me today.” On the old analog consoles it was more like, “I’ve got to go out and get a cup of coffee. I’ve got to go walk around the block. I’ve got to go watch the football game and come back in.”

Do something to get away.

But you had to come back to the same song that day and you had to finish it. There’s also something good about that – a singularity to that process too, which helps you focus and make a decision.

At what point did the DAW situation in digital get good enough for you to say, “I can do this now. I can get the results I want here.” How long ago?

I think when Pro Tools moved into HD. They changed their bussing and mix bus architecture. That, in my mind, was a seminal moment.

Sonically?

Yes, sonically. There were definitely some issues with the TDM systems, although I remember running some tests with David Lebolt [of Digidesign] here in New York. I put a mix up on the console at Sony; we were listening to the two-mix in the box and the two-mix on the console. It clearly sounded different and most people’s preference was for the console. Then Dave suggested that we actually zero out everything and make sure the values we were ascribing on the console and the box were equal. Once we did that you really couldn’t tell the difference. That was in the old TDM system. That was an illuminating moment for me. I thought, “Apples and apples. All things being equal, you can actually fool yourself into thinking that one is better than the other.” When you come from the analog world you expect that when you push a signal through a console that it will impart a color on the sound, and it does. If you like the way a Neve sounds versus an SSL, your body becomes attuned to what that sound is and you know the shortcuts to take to get that sound. In the digital world it’s just a blank canvas, so it doesn’t really do anything. This is going to sound almost counter intuitive, but it doesn’t impart anything on the sound. There’s no coloration except perhaps things you don’t like. You have to figure out what processes to engage that will get to where you like it musically.

It seems to me that a subculture of professionals has realized to look for that coloration in the design of plug-ins. I feel like the Crane Song Phoenix was a brilliant contribution.

Absolutely. It’s a brilliant plug-in.

And now SSL is building a harmonic distortion into their Duality console to give it that vibe where it didn’t exist.

And you know, the Sony Oxford plug-ins have the same thing. It has that warmth controller, like the Inflator – it definitely does some interesting kinds of compression algorithms. At the end of the day it’s really you in front of a set of speakers. You have to figure out, “Do I like this sound or do I not like the sound?” If you reference back to things that you also liked from your past, then you can make adjustments based on what you feel are musically important decisions to you. Part of this process that I’ve evolved into is just necessitated by where the industry goes. You can’t be a mixing engineer these days and only mix in one environment – it’s just not practical unless you want to be working once a year. I’ve always enjoyed new technology and I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of figuring out a way in which I can use the technology. I don’t necessarily have to be the best in the world, and I’m clearly not. I don’t have to be the fastest on every piece of gear either, but I have to be able to know in my own mind. I have to know I can use that piece of gear and get a sound as a satisfactory result; not just for myself, for the artist. I’ve worked with Greg Calbi, Bob Ludwig and a number of other mastering engineers. When I started mixing in the box Bob was always very gracious in allowing me to send him mixes in progress. He would then comment on them. We used to do that in the old analog world. I definitely encountered some funky situations in various studios where I felt like something was not right and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I just needed him to identify that my instinct was correct – that I needed to go to a place where I felt the comfort level was okay.

Right. “Was there really a bump at 120 Hz or not?”

Right. ”Here’s the same song mixed in two different rooms, and it was really easy to mix in one and not easy to mix in the other room.” I’d ask Bob to tell me which one was which; he would immediately peg it all the time. I wouldn’t give him too much information, so that he wouldn’t automatically default to the one I wanted. It was the same with digital when I started working in Randy [Ezratty]’s room. The room was not very big and it definitely had some standing waves. Once I figured out what I needed to do to make it work we started figuring out a way in which to make my mixes (in the digital world) be as musical as they could be, and not a subset of something that I wanted the mixes to be. I came to this and said, “Oh this is what’s working for me – these speakers, these plug-ins. I think I can work in this environment.” So I’m not afraid of working in the environment. It’s just a different thing.

You’ve had a pretty awesome career and have been successful in a lot of different ways. You’ve made artistic, commercial and even spiritually successful records, in terms of what they’re able to emote. I’m paying you a compliment, but I’m also asking you to reflect on how you think it happened.

Some days I wake up and wonder, “Do I have a career anymore?” Some days you wonder. I think there are lots of engineers that would have the same thought.

It’s nice to hear you say that, because I’m sure it goes through everyone’s mind.

Yes, it goes though everyone’s mind! When you’re not busy that day or even that hour, you’re thinking, “Who else is doing it?” But somehow people seek you out. I think there’s enough work out there for people. Maybe the economics of scale are not the same as they used to be, but there’s still enjoyment in making records. It’s a great process. Walking in, hearing a song and suddenly being allowed to contribute something creative to a project is a real honor. Watching the reaction to that is what really keeps me going. If there were projects that I didn’t like, I was honest enough to say that I didn’t like them. That’s also part of it: not taking work just because you need to be busy. There’s a financial requirement; sometimes turning down a project because you didn’t feel inherently or intrinsically connected to the music can be a tough decision.

Yeah, that’s a risk as well.

There’s always a risk that you say, “Oops, I should have done that record. It was huge.” But maybe you didn’t connect with the people. It’s about relationships. You go into a record and you want to feel that when you come out of the other end of the process – be it a week or three months later – that you still like and respect the artist you work with and that they have a mutual admiration for what you’ve brought to [the project]. For the artist, from their perspective, it’s like this is their one opportunity to make that record – they want to avail themselves of every minute of your time and ability to do it. You have to temper that to the fact that this is another record in your career. While you want to be giving there’s also the practicalities of burn out. You’re actually acting in a way that’s counter-intuitive to what the process should be. I think there’s a certain level of enthusiasm that you bring to records. I have a natural curiosity – not necessarily effervescence, but certainly people seem to be very comfortable around me when I’m in the working environment. I tried to figure out what was important to artists. The ability to listen to an artist, what they’re going through and what they’re trying to get across in a sterile environment is important. I’m very aware of that connection and how to help navigate that particular dynamic. I really try to bring a level of honesty to my work that I feel the artist would appreciate, regardless of how candid it is, without being hurtful. I was given opportunities and I was able to prove that I was capable of a certain skill-level. I was enthusiastic enough to learn more, so people kept giving me the opportunity to do that on the next record. Artists, managers and labels talk – eventually, once you’ve done enough of those kinds of projects, people notice. It might be something that went very smoothly. It might have been something inherited that had been a difficult project, fraught with problems. I’m not a great self-promoter, but I’ve always firmly believed that the best promotion is the records I’ve worked on. Regardless of whether they’ve been successful in terms of sales, I think they’ve been successful in the initial determination – to make a record that had artistic integrity, that fulfilled the vision of the artist, that had the potential to be commercially successful, that was sonically pleasing and wasn’t a mirror image of something I had done in the past. Trying to navigate all those different aspects, somehow I managed to still have a career twenty-seven years later.

www.killenmix.com

Special thanks to Zack Dinerstein for his help transcribing this interview. www.farmelo.com