User Profile: Eric Fischer
California-based mix engineer Eric Fischer has a particularly diverse background. From studio installs and repairing consoles to spending years behind them making records for the likes of Nancy Wilson, Destiny’s Child and Sugar Ray he’s covered a lot of creative ground. Most recently he’s been busy mixing sound for picture. In addition to Cameron Crowe’s upcoming HBO Documentary “The Union”, with Elton John and Leon Russell, he also mixed Pearl Jam’s highly praised Pearl Jam Twenty documentary. Crowe’s chronicle of the classic rock band’s 20th anniversary kept Fischer’s hands full mixing over 21 cues in 5.1 as well as stereo music, dialogue and wild sound for the entire movie . Below, we talk with Fischer about this epic project, and his extensive use of Oxford plug-ins.
First, tell us a bit about your background.
I moved out to LA back in ’93 and got a job at a place called The Music Grinder in Hollywood. I was recapping consoles and also assisting and first engineering throughout the 90’s. I worked on a lot of R&B and Hip Hop stuff, which was much of what was happening in LA at the time. Then I spent about 10 years with a company called Vertigo Recording Services installing studios. That was great fun, but I missed the engineering side – so about 4 years ago I got back into it. I fleshed out my place here at home and started doing small movies and short films. That landed me where I am now, doing sound for picture.
Do you do surround work at your studio?
Yes, I do. I have a Pro Tools HD 5 system and that works great.
How did you get hooked up with the Pearl Jam project?
It was purely nepotism. Cameron Crowes’ production company is basically Cameron and my brother. So when they got close to being done with the editing of the PJ20 movie, Cameron asked my brother if I would be interested in mixing it. In the middle of that, I also did the Elton John/Leon Russell documentary for them. So it’s been a busy time.
Tell us more about the PJ20 project…
The cool thing about that is since Cameron is such great friends with the band, we had access to everything they had. There were ridiculous amounts of film footage – because over the years they kept everything.
But that also meant I had access to the multitracks for all the studio records. That included every multitrack that had been recorded for all the live material as well. So in addition to mixing the movie, I mixed 21 music cues from scratch for the film.
Sounds like a lot of work!
Yes, it sure was. I actually got started last December. So we spent about 8 or 9 months on the movie.
Is every music track stereo and 5.1?
The way the process worked was that most of the older stereo material, as far as the live recordings went, was either from DAT or hi-8 video. I would bleed some into the subwoofer and find a reverb that worked with what was happening onscreen. So we managed to make surround from even some of the oldest stereo footage.
So some was full surround and some was enhanced?
Yes, it was probably about 20 percent enhanced surround and 80 percent was mixed from the multitracks. About the first 20 minutes is almost all stereo source, but most of the live stuff from about ’96 on is all from the multitracks. It was a real treat and the whole movie is a great home theater experience.
How did you get into using Sonnox plug-ins?
I had always been curious about them. Bob Rice, a mastering and recording engineer friend of mine here in LA, hipped me to the Inflator. Through that, I got interested in the EQ and Dynamics.
They were all invaluable throughout the whole PJ20 project, and I’m not saying that just to say it! All of the dialog went through a signal chain that at the very least was Oxford EQ and Dynamics. I used the Inflator on almost all of the stereo material. Just about everything in the movie went through Sonnox plug-ins in one way or another. They are that good.
How about the multitrack mixes?
Oh yes. The live bass always started with the Oxford Dynamics. I also used it on some of the snare tracks on several songs, as well as some of the drum submixes and acoustic guitar tracks. I used the Oxford EQ on drum overheads and submixes too.
It’s nice to have the different EQ types where the gain affects the Q. I have the GML version of the EQ and used that quite a bit on dialog. Also with the EQ, I used a lot of filtering. That’s because a lot of that dialog was source material that we called ‘scrapbook stuff’. You know, like old interviews from cassette tapes and mini recorders, etc. As you might imagine, there was a ton of garbage on the low end to get rid of, as well as some hiss. The interesting thing is that with the Sonnox filters, there’s so little phase shift that the low-pass filters work great as noise reduction. You don’t get that horrible phase shift you get with a lot of lesser quality filters. The EQ did a great job of knocking off a lot of the top and tape hiss on the old interview footage. The EQ was really helpful it’s amazing.
How did you use the Inflator?
The easy answer is that I used it to clear up the high end on certain tracks by seemingly adding harmonic structure. It also helped make the bottom end of tracks more speaker friendly – especially with some the older material that was flat. That’s how I used it. It simply makes everything sit on the front of the speaker a little better. I love it. I have to say, the Sonnox plug-ins were a huge part of this film.
Interview and editorial provided by Rich Tozzoli