Mikael Count Eldridge - Musician and Producer
DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, John Cale(Velvet Underground), Lyrics Born, New Order, No Doubt, Radiohead, Run DMC, Galactic
Originally from Austin Texas Mikael “Count” Eldridge is a musician drummer and singer and of course producer(vertebrae music productions).
In the 90ies he moved to San Francisco, working at various record labels such as polygram, verve, popmafia, and ubiquity. He also plays in the trip pop band Halou, produces(he is the owner of vertebrae music productions), does recordings and performences.
Give us a little backround on your career: How did you get involved with music?
I was interning at Toast Studios [now gone] mostly just so I could produce and engineer my own band, Halou. I realized from previous bands I was in that I simply wouldn't be able to trust anyone else engineering my bands because the sounds we were going for were just too different. Most engineers were just too set in their ways and would dial up very nice, traditional sounds and it was too hard to explain to them. So I learned how to do it myself.
What made you choose a career in audio engineering and music production?
I never intended to produce or engineer other bands. I learned for my own recordings. But pretty quickly I was getting hired to work on other people's records and remixes and it was more enjoyable than I thought it would be. And it was better than what I was doing for a living which was working for a record company.
Once you got to San Francisco, how did you experience the beginnings of your audio engineering career - your first release, project?
My first real projects other than my own were engineering and doing pro tools for Philip Steir. He was doing cool remixes for people like No Doubt and New Order etc so I got to start off doing some pretty significant projects. Then I began to do my own projects with acts like Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, and DJ Shadow along with a ton of remixes.
Give us a short impression on working with John Cale, how has it been working with him?
He was absolutely great. He's the coolest guy over 60 you'll ever meet. And he trusted me and gave me creative license to really manipulate the sounds as far as I wanted. He knew I was into really tweaking things and he let me do my thing.
A bit about sound engineering: Which changes did the digitalization of sound bring; what do you see as the main advantage of plug-ins, compared to outboard gear?
Well, I started at Toast which was about the worst control room I;ve ever heard. The monitoring sucked and the acoustics were terrible. So right off the bat I saw the potential for never having to recall mixes.
The problem was that we had a very slow computer and didn't have the best plug ins available. But Toast was very very early getting up and running on pro tools. Most other studios didn't have pro tools yet. Even though we didn't have great sounding plug ins, I could see the potential so I used it heavily very early on. People laughed at me for doing so much in the box when I had a neve and tons of outboard gear in the same room.
But I learned how to get things to sounds really good without outboard gear well before anyone else I know of. So when I started working on smaller budget indie projects, I was able to get great sounding mixes in my home studio- especially once I got a great computer and the best plug ins available. Its funny because back then people used to argue about analog mixing vs pro tools and everyone but me would say that pro tools didn't sound good. But I always told them that it was all about who was doing the mixing. After all, I've heard really terrible sounding mixes which were done in great studios utilizing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gear.
Can you describe how these changes have taken influence on the creative process?
First of all, I mix as I go. I am constantly mixing even after I only have a few recorded parts. It allows you to really tell what is still needed during the production process. The people I used to work with would often bring in a track that they thought was 100% finished only to decide that once we started mixing that it needed something. Now we can make these decisions as we go.
Tell us a little about recent projects: What have you been up to lately?
I just finished DJ Shadow's latest record along with some remixes for the Bee Gees and the Rolling Stones. Then I went straight into producing the new Galactic record. The Galactic record was great. I was a fun challenge to get a super 'analog', 'live' band to sound the way we did. All was done in pro tools. Its a very analog sounding record.
We hear you use RND Plug-ins; did you use them on these projects? How do they help you with your work?
These RND plug- ins were listed in the pro tools plug ins list and I just glanced at them very quickly and realized someone had finally developed he plug in I have been talking about for years- a compressor that compresses differently at different ranges. The DYNAM-IZER is something I had hoped someone would make 10 years ago. Its a plug in that no other device does. Its great for very dynamic, full range things like acoutsic guitars, cello, and voice. Its also great in salvaging poorly record things.
What is your experience with RND Plug-ins? Any favourite features?
I'm just getting my feet wet with some of the other plug ins but the DETAILER is also excellent. Its been very useful for me to put as my last plug in on some of my group busses like drums and grouped vocals etc. it really helps to bring out the presence in a way that eq doesn't do. And the spatial enhancements are great. This is one of the only spatial/stereo enhancements that I like. Most sound strangely phasey but this one just makes things sound wider and more pleasing
Tell us a bit about your future plans: What projects do you have coming up?
Right now I am about to start a new Lyrics Born record and my next Halou record. I am also mixing the score for a horror film that my cellist Zoe Keating did.