The Psychedelic Furs 'Heartbeat' Julian Mendelsohn remix Session

Back in the mid eighties I started at West Side Studios in west London as an assistant engineer. Here's a remix I I had the honour to assist on. The engineer was the brilliant Aussie Julian Mendelsohn. Julian was from the Trevor Horn stable of genius engineers at Sarm West. I think these guys, including Gary Langan and Steve Lipsom were the very best engineers of that time, making some of the best sounding pop records that still stand up today. Frankie Goes To Hollywood 'Relax', Yes 'Owner of a Lonely Heart',  Scritti Politti 'Absolute', Propaganda 'Duel', Pet Shop Boys 'What Have I Done to Deserve This?' to name a few examples. 

This was the second session I assisted on with Julian. The first one was for a mix of an upcoming Irish band that never made the big time but nevertheless had a pretty good U2-ish song to mix. The session would be my first time being allowed to assist on a mix session. I was nervous about not knowing the SSL computerised mixing software well enough (not that I needed to worry with Julian at the Helm) so when the tape for the session arrived the afternoon before, I decided to stay on in the studio that evening after the session I was working on finished and mix it myself to really figure it out.

I stayed up all night and finished just in time to go out of the studio, grab some breakfast and go straight back to work with Julian. Maybe not the smartest idea because Julian’s session went pretty much all night to - but this was pretty much par for the course for a studio assistant….one time I worked three 24hr sessions in a row. I was pretty darned happy with my mix and naively was wondering how much better could Julian’s mix be than mine! Oh boy! 

The first thing that Julian did was ask me to plug up just about every bit of gear we had in the studio before he’d even played the multitrack - loads of reverbs and delays especially. I thought this was a bit over the top but I was about to learn a lot from watching Julian work. The main thing for me was his superb use of all those delays and reverbs. When the the track was playing, it didn’t sound overly splashy or ‘wet’, yet when Julian stopped the tape, a mass of reverb and delays kept decaying for what seemed like ages. They didn’t clutter the mix at all, but just made it sound full and exciting. 

After Julian wrapped up the mix in the late hours of the next morning, I did an A/B comparison between his mix and mine…..oh boy indeed. Mine sounded bone dry and nowhere near as exciting. A bit depressing but all in all it was a a great learning opportunity…..although bloody exhausting.