Interview - Tom Elmhirst
With a long, varied discography of successful releases, MTM asks this highly acclaimed mix engineer about his experiences over the years.
T om Elmhirst has made his mark as one of the most sought-after mixers in the world. His career, now spanning more than a decade, began as a recording engineer in 1999 when he was offered the chance to work with Bush at Hookend Studios alongside Steve Albini: “Albini was like this skinny wizard with his box of mics,” Tom recalls over a decade later. “He was cutting two-inch tape all day on Razorblade Suitcase. The speed that he worked at was a real eye-opener.”
It was through this work – and frontman Gavin Rossdale’s need for someone to run a Pro Tools rig – that he went on to mix a few tracks on the Bush album The Science Of Things. “Although I was doing more engineering work at the time, I was fascinated by mixing and was certain it was what I wanted to do.”
After this, Tom spent a year mixing a number of projects with British producer Cameron McVey. This involved working on a Mackie rig, which required a different approach due to the lack of automation and the limited number of faders. This led to Tom mixing a few tracks on the first Sugababes album, Overload, the success of which in turn led to mixing for Busted.
“Hits are important when you’re trying to establish yourself as a mix engineer,” says Tom. “The success of that work led to my work on Goldfrapp’s Black Cherry album, which although wasn’t a huge commercial success, gave balance to my CV and was more indicative of my personal taste.”
The hit machine
Tom went on to mix a few tracks from the first Amy Winehouse album, Frank. After the release of the album, he made sure he followed her progress – his tenacity paid off when, while on his family holiday, he received a call from Darcus Beese asking him to start on a record later that week, resulting in the successful album Back To Black: “That’s when I met [Mark] Ronson, who I’ve gone on to do a lot of work with. He’s a phenomenal talent, open and easy to work with.”
True to Tom’s views on the importance of hit records, he has since gone on to mix for Paolo Nutini, Hot Chip, Adele, Jónsi [of Sigur Ros fame], Cee Lo and many others. He has a clear attitude towards his work: “My ideal is to work with artists who are brave in their sound and have commercial success too. I hope to represent every record in the light it should be heard or was intended to be heard.” Based on the successful artists he has worked with and their unique sound compared to the more predictable music in the charts, Tom can fairly be said to have achieved this aim.
Metropolitan life
Tom has been working from the same studio at Metropolis for around seven years now; his assistant, Dan Parry, has been with him for around half of that. “When I started to get busy, it made sense to stay in one place,” he explains. “Dan is extremely efficient and deals with a lot of pre- and post-session demands for me.”
The studio is based around a Neve VR72 desk: “I prefer faders over a mouse,” says Tom. “I’m talking about balance because that’s the main trick to it all, so I keep it a tactile experience. The room sounds great as well – or, shall I say, doesn’t have a sound.”
As a legacy from his days of working with the analogue formats, Tom likes to keep things simple. Dan often prepares a mix at the start of the day by logically ordering tracks on the computer screen and sometimes pre-bouncing certain elements based on his knowledge of Tom’s preferences.
“The discipline of tape, limited tracks and planning ahead stayed with me from my apprenticeship at Sarm Studios. I don’t like looking at hundreds of tracks on the screen. I find I can get into the mixing faster by committing to bounces.”
At midday Tom will arrive, jump into the mix and have automation running by 1pm. “Drums and vocals take the most time as they are usually the loudest, most intricate elements in a mix.”
He does have compressors and outboard that he gravitates towards for certain items, but likes to shove up the faders first and just listen for what the artists is trying to say. “I used to work and listen to a track all day long, but by the time I’d have the drums sounding good I would have no feeling for the song, so these days I find it’s more productive to work in bursts.”
Total recall
Tom completes a mix per day, on average, but he does have methods in place for recall, should it be required: “Dan will print master versions and stems plus anything else he thinks we’ll need for any adjustments in the future. There is some degeneration when playing back the stems and a full recall does often sound better, but the stems are there for flexibility – if something does need a tweak later, by that time the mixing board will be occupied running another mix.”
In order to perform his tasks quickly, efficiently and – above all – to his exacting standards, Tom obviously has a good working regime. Again, he refers back to his days back at Sarm Studios as his source of discipline: “Nothing I have worked on since Sarm has come close in terms of pressure and the ability to function under stress. Average hours were 10am to 4, 5 or 6am, six days a week. It was straight in at the deep end and I was constantly shattered. The admin was also immense as we used pencils and tracksheets to record details all at the same time as trying to look after your producer and artist’s needs. And you couldn’t flap – if you screwed up too much you’d be out. As a result, you were left with people who were pretty ambitious.”
Regardless of the immense workload, Tom demonstrates his dedication to his trade when recalling his occasional days off while at Sarm: “We’d spend them maybe analysing a recent Clearmountain mix, wanting to know how he was getting those sounds, that width and depth to his mixes. This was still the era of house engineers who were experienced and passed on know-how. Now, with only a handful of big complexes still operating, those days are almost gone. It was a brilliant experience at Sarm and I am grateful for that.”
Clever Trevor
It was at Sarm that Tom also worked with pop production legend Trevor Horn, whose production discography includes Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Seal, Pet Shop Boys and Simple Minds, not to mention, of course, the bands he was actually a member of – The Buggles and, later, Yes. “TCH [Horn] loved technology and its ability to help make better records,” Tom remembers. “It’s important to realise that records are not just a live performance, they can be whatever you want them to be. Technology just opened up more possibilities over the years and made them quicker to achieve.
“If you dig around the cupboards at Sarm you’ll find Synclaviers, Linn drum machines and all sorts. We had the first Euphonix, the first J-Series in the country and the first Soundtools. The possibilities of editing became limitless. Soundtools developed rapidly to become Pro Tools but initially it was only a stereo editor that crashed all the time.
“Trevor was always known for his grand productions,” he continues, “and so if he walked in and said he wanted a certain bar going into the M8 as a 5/4 bar, we knew we’d be there for hours bouncing between a 3348 and a 24-track DASH. As Pro Tools developed and Macs stopped crashing, they became viable as standalone multitrack recorders. It was a slow evolution, though. Cutting a drum take into 16ths would be painful as each crossfade would slow the system down to a snail’s pace. A three-minute drum track would take maybe 30 minutes to put all the crossfades in. We don’t know how good we have it now.”
Tom says that he can receive projects in a variety of recording formats, from huge multitracked songs with 20 tracks for drums alone to a handful of elements and a more modest mono mic drum recording. He states: “Spill is a production choice and certain genres sound odd when recorded in total isolation. Plus the interaction of a band playing as a whole hugely outweighs the ability to manipulate it afterwards.
“Dap-Kings, who play on Ronson’s productions, are serious spill fiends. The room they use in Brooklyn is perhaps only 15x20 feet and they track drums, bass amps, upright piano and guitar amp together without screens. Funnily enough, the spill has sonic advantages, too. If you push the piano up in the bridge, for instance, you are also getting more room on the other instruments as well. But you need very good musicians as you can’t fix stuff easily once it’s recorded.”
Performance and isolation
With his history in commercial studios, we wondered why Tom hasn’t gone down the road of having his own premises or home studio. “I like to go to work, so no home studio!” he smiles. “Plus, Sarm had a very healthy assistant culture and I wouldn’t have a career without it. I watched brilliant and not-so-brilliant engineers for years and I can honestly say I learned just as much from both.
“I also like to support the concept of commercial studios,” he says finally, pointing out – quite rightly – that, “there are now only a handful of studios offering that experience. How are the hundreds of graduates rolling out of music technology courses going to find employment?”
This feature first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 93
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