Since starting as an assistant at Utopia Studios in London at age 18, UK-born mixer, producer and musician Tim Palmer has amassed more than 40 years’ experience of working on mixing consoles, initially with tape machines. “For most of the early part of my career I rarely looked at a screen,’ he reflects. ‘I never had to look at audio waveforms or a computer monitor.’
Palmer won his first gold disc for co-producing a track on Kajagoogoo’s 1983 debut album, White Feathers, working in Utopia’s Studio A. The instrumental track, ‘Kajagoogoo’ was used in the John Hughes movie, Sixteen Candles, released that same year. ‘I also recorded a Dead or Alive album in that studio,’ he says. Among his many other credits, he counts Pear Jam’s Ten and U2’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind as highlights. More recently, there has been the title track from the new Tears For Fears release, The Tipping Point.
Palmer established his own Studio 62 in Austin, Texas, in 2009, up as an analogue/digital hybrid mix and overdub room. Recently, two new SSL controllers – a UF8 advanced DAW controller and UC1 hardware plug-in controller – have replaced an older set of faders on his workstation. ‘It’s so refreshing to not have to use your eyes and just concentrate on listening, and to be able to physically touch an EQ or a fader is a welcome return,’ he reports. ‘The quality of the build on these SSL faders has been really nice. They react really well to the touch, which is important to me.’
Palmer previously had a fader controller in his set-up, but the upgrade to the UF1 and especially the UC1, which provides dedicated hardware control of the SSL Native Channel Strip 2 and Bus Compressor 2 plug-ins via the SSL 360° software, has taken his workflow to another level.
‘Getting away from the mouse and being able to manipulate the EQ has been rewarding. It’s nice to be able to close my eyes, turn the EQ and say, “OK, that sounds good”. And having multiple bus compressors available to insert onto my sub-groups is an added bonus.
‘I use the Focus feature a lot,’ he adds. ‘Being able to hover over a parameter and turn an actual knob is a much nicer feeling than using the mouse. Most times, when I’m checking the final mix, I switch off the monitor and just sit and listen’ and not get drawn into what’s on the screen. It makes a bigger difference than you would think; you hear in a very different way.’
Palmer now has more power at his fingertips with the UF8 than he had at his first job. ‘When I began, in 1981, one of the first records that I ever got the opportunity to mix was a solo record by Rick Wright, the keyboard player from Pink Floyd. He wanted to work in Studio A at Utopia, which had an SSL without automation. So I cut my teeth mixing on an SSL, but in a manual, all hands on deck kind of way.
‘The funny thing is,’ he continues, ‘I’ve mixed and worked on SSL consoles ever since I began in the music industry 40 years ago, and this is the first time I’ve ever purchased anything from SSL. I was very fortunate to grow up in the generation where it was the studio’s responsibility to own all the gear. It was only when the music industry changed and Pro Tools arrived on the scene, that we mixers built our own studios. That’s when I began to have to buy my own equipment.’
After decades working on SSL analogue desks, Palmer is now comfortable with today’s hybrid workflows where, at Studio 62, his SSL controllers and his DAW sit alongside a modest collection of analogue outboard equipment.
‘I must admit to being a bit of a Luddite, in the sense that it took me a little longer than some to be convinced that this was the right path,’ he admits. ‘But once I got my head around it, and understood how it all works, I became a big fan of the new approach and gear. Now we can get the best of both worlds, and have less compromise.’
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