R.I.P. All Schmitt, 91, Legendary Studio Engineer. At least 150 gold and platinum records to his name. Frank Sinatra, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Paul McCartney, Elvis Presley, Brian Wilson, Joni Mitchell, Rod Stewart, Neil Young, Steely Dan, Jackson Browne, Toto, Quincy Jones, Hot Tuna, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Jefferson Airplane and dozens more are included in his long resume.
"Peg – Steely Dan "Aja" 1977
One of Al Schmitt's crowning achievements was his work on Steely Dan's Aja, one of the best sounding albums in the history of popular music. Here is a great story Al Schmitt told about his mixing work on this album. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker dropped a tape for him at Sound Labs Studio 2 in Hollywood and asked him to mix it:
"I put the tape up and it’s 'Peg.' I get a mix on it and it sounds pretty good. I know there’s going to be a lot of things that have to be done, but I get the mix up—and then I turn the monitor off, and I hit the playback. I’m watching the meters on the Quad 8 board to see how the meters are reacting and everything. Then I turn the monitor back up, so here’s this mix coming out of the speakers. And little did I know, they had come into the room [while the monitor was off]. They were standing behind me and Gary [Katz] said, “Fucking hell Al, he can mix them without even hearing this shit!”
