11/06/03

By Liz Cox

It’s a tough job but someone has to do it. When musicians of the calibre of Eric Clapton, Steve Gadd, Billy Preston, Nathan East, Doyle Bramhall II and Andy Fairweatherlow get together, you know you’re in for a real treat! This is the line-up for Eric Clapton’s latest album, as yet unnamed, which is currently being recorded on a Pro Tools|HD system. Co-produced and co-written by Eric Clapton and Simon Climie, the new album is proving to be a lot of fun to work on.

Simon has worked with Eric on several of his albums. “Eric really likes to experiment with songs and try them out in different ways.” Simon continues, “When recording, there’s also the reliability aspect to consider. If you’ve got the likes of Steve Gadd or Eric Clapton on the studio floor, it’s just not acceptable for something to go wrong or to not ever record something. We’re already up to a terrabyte of material for this album,” Simon comments, “as we’re working on two albums at once, with blues tracks and a lot of original material. I’m keeping everything I record - as much I’m amazed at the quality 96k recordings, I’m more amazed at the quality of the Pro Tools|HD system because, even running at 44.1, 24-bit, we just think it sounds phenomenal.”

Simon recently produced Michael McDonald’s latest album, ‘Motown’, which was released in the UK in May this year. “This was the first album I recorded using Pro Tools|HD,” says Simon. “Michael’s vocals are amazing! The album sounds incredible in 5.1 too and it’s selling like hot cakes in America - it’s through ‘gold’ already. All the reviews say that his vocals sound amazing – thanks to HD! We also worked with new arrangements of some great Motown material. The record company wanted Michael to duet with the original artists, so within the hour, we had time-stretched Marvin Gaye’s original vocal into the new Michael McDonald version and sent off an MP3 file for approval via DigiDelivery. They were amazed.”

Simon believes that the Pro Tools|HD system enhances creativity. “It gives me much more of an active involvement and affects the recording process in a big way,” he comments. “We do a lot of editing of the structure of the song as we go, such as making a double length intro or lengthening the guitar section, and I can even arrange the master track while I’m recording something else. I can go through the session and mute things without it stopping or crashing – I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing this in Logic, by the way! Traditionally, with a recording session, the band would go away while something was tried out but, with Pro Tools, you can do this on the fly. If we had to go back to the old way of working now and do an SSL-style recall, everyone would be so impatient and angry and you’d lose the moment completely. Pro Tools, a great engineer and the vibe of a big studio with a good live room, is the perfect combination and can only enhance the performance of the musicians. There’s no multitrack tape to worry about – I can just get on and manage the production. It’s pretty limitless.”

Simon continues, “You can almost be at mix status before you finish recording. The songwriting process is very organic in the sessions too, with great songs often composed in the studio. Eric is very choosy with his overdubs and will always resolve things down to the perfect melody. Many people will just show off when recording but Eric will work on a song until it becomes memorable and magic. With Pro Tools, you have the best of both worlds – you can capture the performances and then, if necessary, you can drop in and change things easily. I can’t think of a situation where the new Pro Tools|HD system hasn’t improved or enhanced what we’re doing. It’s allowed me to try things that I haven’t done before and, to be honest, I don’t think I’d be where I am now without it.”