PRIMAL FEAR - Signed, Sealed and Diabolus! Page 3
by Martin Popoff

"I think I got a really good powerful sound for them," reflects Fraser. "Listening to their other records, I thought the other records sounded good, but I think my record sounds a little bit thicker and possibly clearer, and you know, at the same time, a little punchier. And I think you get a really good sense that everything is up there in the listening range. You know, you can hear it all, right there."

"Actually, Mat had hooked up with him," relates Scheepers on the fortuitous turn of events. "We were searching for a good name in the industry and also a guy who delivers, and he definitely does. What we hear now is outstanding; he does a great job. So Matt got in touch with his manager and we had a deal in the end. You know, you have to hear everything and see everything in a summary. You can't just think about one or two instruments or guitar and vocals and solos. He does a lot for the summary, you know? He has his special way of working, which... he doesn't want us to see in there. He sends us out and says he needs his space. And this is totally normal. You don't want to have five people standing around looking over your shoulder all the time. Because for me, mixing is being creative, also like a musician."

"He recommends something and we give our input, what we want to change, whether we want an effect here or there, or less effects there. He's just mixing the whole day, and we come in then and check it out, what we like or not, and in the end, we give our comments to it and he changes it again. But it is usually very small things going on in the end. What basically takes a long time for mixing is the initial setup for each song, or if there is a track like Diabolus that has more than 120 tracks (laughs), it's hard to coordinate everything."

Is part of the job with mixing, checking if the songs sound good on various types of stereos?

"Not this time. I mean, we don't compare so much like we did in the former days, the early days. Because we can now really trust our ears, and of course Fraser's ears. He's pro, 100% pro. He did a lot of things - AC/DC, Metallica, Bryan Adams. If there was something wrong, he would hear it first."

PRIMAL FEAR - Signed, Sealed and Diabolus! Page 4