Engineer Jimmy Douglass
Interview Excerpt
After learning at the knee of the legendary Tom Dowd during Atlantic Record’s glory days, Jimmy Douglass has gone on to become one of the most sought after engineer/mixers in R&B, Hip Hop and Rock. One of the few engineers who can cross genres with both total ease and credibility, Jimmy has done records for artists as varied as Otis Redding, The Rolling Stones, Foreigner, Hall & Oates, Roxy Music and Rob Thomas to Snoop Dog, Jay-Z, Missy Elliott, Ludicris, Justin Timberlake, Timbaland ,The Roots, Destiny’s Child ,TLC, and Alliyah. But having old school roots doesn’t get in the way of Jimmy working in the modern world, as we’ll see.
You were a protege of the legendary Tom Dowd, right?
Yes, he was the man that put me on.
That must've been such a terrific experience.
It was a great experience except that I was a kid that didn't know the difference at the time because I'd never seen anyone else make a record. I didn’t even know what making a record was (laughs). When I first went into Atlantic studios, it was the first time that I was exposed to the whole concept of recording.
How did you get the gig?
I was living in a suburban town of Great Neck, NY and Jerry Wexler (legendry owner and staff producer for Atlantic) lived there. I was a friend and schoolmate of his daughter, so they gave me this little job of tape copying during high school to make some money for college. It started as a summer job but then I took it into the school year at night because I really liked it. What's there not to like (laughs a bit harder)?
Was this in the 4 or 8 track days?
It was all 8 track. I actually did a mix from a 4 track recording that I was very proud of (and they were proud of me). They let me do "The Best Of Otis Redding". They let me remix Tom's mixes, believe it or not.
When did you begin to engineer by yourself?
The first thing I did for real was with Jimmy Page (of Led Zeppelin). I taught myself how to edit and all this other stuff, but in their heads I wasn't ready to be an engineer because I was still just a kid in their eyes. One day Jimmy came in and none of the other engineers were around and everybody's freaking out because it was Zeppelin’s second album and they were hot. So Jimmy wanted to work but there was nobody around so they asked me to just sit there with him until somebody showed up to take over.
Jimmy had 10 reels of 1/4 inch tape filled with solos, so we just chopped away at the 10 until we came up with a final solo. I loved Jimmy Hendrix at that point more than anything, so it didn't exactly impress me that Jimmy Page was there to work. I was a kid of 16 or 17 where you do and think stuff totally differently, so I did the work with that attitude. They kept peaking in to see what was going on and me and Jimmy were having the ball of our lives! I was having a great time and I was doing a good job, so he was having a great time too.
This was the solo that goes in "Heartbreaker". It was the era when a record could come out within a week or two of completion, so the next week that record came out.
How have things changed between then and now in terms of you approach to mixing?
The urgency factor has definitely disappeared. Back in the day when you were using session musicians, they weren't coming back after you recorded something, so you'd have to get it down correctly and even mixed together (if on 8 track for instance) in the right balance. If you erase anything by mistake, you're screwed and probably fired.
Now we don't use a lot of musicians with the stuff that I do. Sometimes we don't use musicians at all, we use machines. Everything is totally replaceable. As a matter of fact, you can erase a part that somebody played and they'll just replace the part and nobody seems to care about what's not there anymore. Back in the day it was a major deal to replace anything.
And the rough mix thing is becoming the nemesis of all of us now. Record companies want change and yet they don't want change. They want it to sound like the rough, but they want it to sound different. Someone will hand in a ruff to a record company after taking a lot of time to make it sound good, then they'll hand it to me to do what I do. When I do what I do they'll say, "Oh, it doesn't sound like the rough" and I'll think, "How am I going to beat a ruff that somebody worked on for a month, in 6 or 7 hours?" So lately I've been starting to match the ruff. I never used to listen to them because I didn't want to be influenced because then I can't do what I do. Now it's the opposite. If you don't get close to the ruff, the mix will probably never be accepted.
How long do you usually take on a mix?
It's beginning to change a little bit but I'm a basic 10 or 12 hour man. Back in the day I could mix 4 or 5 songs in a day but I just don't know how to do that any more. But back then you recorded what you were supposed to hear in the end. Now people want to imagine things they don't hear.
You were telling me that the actual mixing session has changed. Give us an example.
One of the big things is that we might only actually spend maybe 4 hours of the 12 mixing the record because there are so many visitors and interruptions. People think nothing of stopping your mix and taking the time to play a whole record for a friend. I was in the groove, now I'm not in the groove any more and it takes some time to get back into it. We used to listen to records to get ideas or emulate, but you were always working the whole time you were there. Now we might end up staying to 5 or 6AM when we could've been done at like 1 in the afternoon (laughs).
Also there are so many people hanging around or coming around to listen. Back in the day, the only people hanging around in the studio were part of the band or had a really good reason to be there. Now there are people who aren't connected to the project that are giving their opinion who aren't really qualified to give an opinion.
Is the actual mixing of Rap different from R&B or Rock?
I mixed the Rob Thomas album and it was totally old school except that we had 3 Protools rigs and a Sonoma (DSD workstation for SACD) in the room. 2 rigs were running at 96k (there wasn't enough tracks on just one) and one was used to mix back to at 44.1k. It took a while but it was fun and came out great. We used a big board and a lot of tracks.
For Rap, I still use a board when I can, but in terms of mixing, the tracking is so generic and sequenced and simple that the tracks have no real harmonics or overtones. There's nothing that's different or blending or making things different, so it's really kind of simple. A lot of times I'll even use a stereo mix that the producer gave me because they can't find the original session to break the individual parts out, so all you're really doing is just putting the vocal on top. You have to try to make something sound really special out of something that's not.
Since you do all sorts of music, from Rock to R&B to Rap, is your approach the same or do you prepare differently depending on the project?
I've developed an approach to making records today. I approach it like fashion. This week tweed might be in, so even if I'm giving you the best silk in the world, you're not going to be interested. So the one thing that I do is something I call "tuning my ears". I listen to a lot of stuff in that particular genre to get to know what the particular sound of the day is. You want to sound contemporary and current but you can't know what that is unless you listen to the records that the audience is digging at the moment. I'm not saying to copy it, I just tune my ears to know what the parameters are. So I listen to the genre to go "Let's see what's considered cool today."
With some old school guys, they're still making the same kind of records, but I'm making young records and they’re being made totally different. All the things we're talking about I identify with because I was there, but they don't exist any more.
Speaking of which, do you mix in the box at all?
I mix in the box a lot lately because it's not about the sonics anymore, it's about the convenience. I can mix over the course of a month and every time I put it up it comes back right where I left it. That's the benefit. The quality of sound will catch up with you in time though.
Copyright © 2012 Bobby Owsinski Media
Author - Producer
Music and Technology Advisor
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