Interview With A Legend: Al Schmitt

Peter Freedman catches up with Grammy™ winning engineer Al Schmitt at the Chateau Marmont, California.
Al shares his experiences and knowledge that he picked up working with some of the best in the music industry, including Mercer Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and many more.
0:00 Chapter 1 - Introducing Al Schmitt, multi award winning engineer
5:54 Chapter 2 - The influence of swing, bebop; and working with large orchestras
12:31 Chapter 3 - The big break: Mercer Ellington
17:24 Chapter 4 - Working at Capitol Records, using chambers for vocals
18:59 Chapter 5 - Microphone technique for vocalists
21:18 Chapter 6 - Engineering Nat King Cole's Unforgettable
24:50 Chapter 7 - Working with Frank Sinatra
28:04 Chapter 8 - Standing on the shoulders of giants
39:21 Chapter 9 - Paul McCartney: Kisses On The Bottom

[@powlobo.m.b.]

An absolute legend!!! R.I.P.

[@daveg56]

A fantastic interview with a legend. He's going to be missed, but has left us an amazing legacy which will be around forever.

[@vincentari6483]

sorry to be off topic but does anybody know a trick to get back into an Instagram account?? I somehow lost my password. I appreciate any tricks you can give me

[@asacase3545]

@Vincent Ari Instablaster ;)

[@vincentari6483]

@Asa Case I really appreciate your reply. I got to the site on google and Im in the hacking process now. Takes a while so I will get back to you later when my account password hopefully is recovered.

[@vincentari6483]

@Asa Case It worked and I now got access to my account again. I'm so happy! Thank you so much, you saved my account!

[@asacase3545]

@Vincent Ari glad I could help :D

[@GuillermoCarrasco]

Thanks for this wonderful interview...!

[@Beatledave7]

That was fantastic thank you!

[@bentyreman5769]

he's such an inspiring person! great interview

[@Hermiel]

What a guy.

[@jaggass]

Hard to believe he was 84 at the time.

[@AlbertoMartinezDelRio]

Legend

[@flanaganbrian1]

He said, "to make a long story short". No Al, keep talking,we're fine with that.

[@rodemic]

What you're describing sounds like the actual timecode output of the device, which is a loud digital sound. To get rid of this, you could use device that allows you to choose which channel you'd like to listen to (i.e. only the left channel so you don't hear the timecode sound.)

[@Hermiel]

Anyone have any idea who the engineer from Al's last story might be?

[@e.apollis2877]

80K SUBS, 3K VIEWS!!! BOY THEY LOVE THE RODE MICS MORE THAN AL!

[@rdubb77]

Giorgio Moroder, that 'disco guy'.....

[@phranzSPENCER]

sadly, the interviewer sounds kind of bored and uninterested