Sam Phillips - Martinis and Bikinis

[Lee Knight]

I'm driving the other day listening to one of my all time favorite albums, Martinis and Bikinis when it hits me, you're doing this thing at Gearslutz! I truly love this album. Great songs, great group of players, and a fan-freakin'-tastic mix.

There is an obvious slant towards Beatles mids and compression. How much of this was you in the mix? Did you do anything to the small string ensemble for that Elenor Rigby vibe or was this in the tracking? Colin Moulding's bass work is so cool and you really managed to get that whole kit and bass guitar to pop like some of the Bealtles stuff... care to elaborate on what the tracks were like before the mix and just how much of that cool compression etc. was done at mixtime?

[tchadb]

Originally Posted by Lee Knight

I'm driving the other day listening to one of my all time favorite albums, Martinis and Bikinis when it hits me, you're doing this thing at Gearslutz! I truly love this album. Great songs, great group of players, and a fan-freakin'-tastic mix.

There is an obvious slant towards Beatles mids and compression. How much of this was you in the mix? Did you do anything to the small string ensemble for that Elenor Rigby vibe or was this in the tracking? Colin Moulding's bass work is so cool and you really managed to get that whole kit and bass guitar to pop like some of the Bealtles stuff... care to elaborate on what the tracks were like before the mix and just how much of that cool compression etc. was done at mixtime?

T Bone let me go on Sam's Records. So I tended to go wild on those mixes. In fact he came in the first day and asked me to mix what would be the first single of the album and then left. I never, ever got to mix singles, so I worked on that song doing everything I thought would make it a single mix.
When T Bone returned three hours later he had a listen, for about 45 seconds, then stopped the tape machine and said,"This isn't what I hired you for, I hired you to be YOU. Give me mixes like that and I'll fire your ass."
Out came the Spectrasonics 610's.
I wrote somewhere else in this forum about the 'Black Sky' bino mix in response to 'what was the longest time on a mix'.
Can you find it? I don't feel like writing it again.
THX

[kansascitydon]

That's a great story. I'm a big fan of your work, and T-Bone's... and I have all of Sam Phillips albums.

Curious though about the original question. When you say "out came the 610's", is that the primary culprit in the creation of what was referred to in the original question as "beatles mids and compression". I don't know if I'd put it exactly the same way, but I don't know how else I'd put it either. There's a kind of sonic thumbprint on this album that's a bit different from other stuff of yours that I love equally well (Los Lobos, Vega), particularly in the top end of the drums.

Btw, when I was on the road with my band, I had a big argument about those drums with my drummer. He said they "stripped the personality of the player out". He was a real modern-drummer-reading-anal-retentive-fusiony-technical guy at the time, working his way backwards into the roots rock we play(ed) together. Years later, I played it for him again, and he said he was an idiot, that now he loved the sound of those drums.

So, any more specific thoughts on the overall sound of this record in the top end/hi-mids? was it mastering, mic choice, or something in the mix?