"In the Air Tonight" - Phil Collins (Mix Analysis)

Engineer – Hugh Padgham
Producer – Hugh Padgham, Phil Collins
Mixing Engineer(s) – Hugh Padgham
Mastering Engineer(s) ?
Studio Recorded – Townhouse Studios
Studio Mastered ?

The track that I chose for this mix analysis was Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight.” It was produced by Hugh Padgham who has also worked with artists like Yes, Paul McCartney, and Elton John. Phil Collins met Hugh Padgham while working on a Genesis album.

Overall, I like the mix. There is a lot of reverb, which was typical for the time period. Phil Collins had originally recorded a demo of the song in his home studio. The drums were programmed from a Roland CR78 drum machine, which is ironic since Phil Collins was known primarily as a drummer. Instead of redoing the songs completely, the album version was based off of the demo tracks that Phil Collins recorded in his home studio.

The signature “big drum” sound wasn’t necessarily achieved by how you would think. The Townhouse studio where he recorded didn’t have a huge live room. There was, however, a talk back mic in the live room so that the engineer could hear the musician. It was heavily compressed so you could easily hear the performer. Somewhat randomly, Phil Collins was talking then started playing the drums. Hugh Padgham heard the drums, heavily compressed, through the talk back mic and thought they sounded cool. They took that signal and ran it through a noise gate, and mixed it back with the original signal. The sound became a signature for Collins and pop songs of the 80s.

The vocals were actually mixed with a limiter on Collins voice. He set the attack very slow and the release really fast, so only part of the word could get through before it got cut off. This gives more emphasis to the front of the words.

In order to get the signature drum sound at Towson, we could put a room mic as far away from the drum kit as possible. We could then take that signal and run it through some of the plugins on Pro Tools – a reverb, then a noise gate with the cut off time set really short.

Mix Analysis:
:00 – Drums start, sounds like two kicks panned hard left, right
:06 – Guitar Chord rings out
:17 – Low Synth
:17 – Guitar Lead, lots of reverb
:26 – Keyboard Synth (Prophet 5)
:37 – Vocals, Reverb, Delay
1:08 – Guitar Chord rings out

Source: http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_phil_collins_air/index.html