When scrutinizing the credits of many Bottrill-related projects, one might also discover that he has provided a touch of his own musicianship. Take for instance Passion. He is credited for providing ‘drone’. Perhaps the most peculiar example of his involvement as a musician lies within the morbidly dark and humoristic track from Ænima entitled “Message To Harry Manback”. The track features delicate, sparse and melodic piano playing with atmospheric beach sounds, which ironically is accompanied by… a death threat. Bottrill reminisces, “It was me playing the piano. The threatening Italian person was leaving a real answer phone message on Maynard’s roommate’s machine. Basically it was from a guy who had recently been kicked out of the house for being the guest from hell.”

The manner in which Bottrill deals with natural sounds via his world music experience combined with dexterity in the high-tech realm suggests that he should be dubbed as a ‘World Engineer’, one that merges the ‘best of both worlds’ for which the Tool project acts as a bonafide example of. And Bottrill agrees. He considers Ænima as a monument that rests on his curriculum vitæ as a producer, engineer and mixer.

Danny Carey of Tool c Syd Kato

When the name Remy Zero is brought up, Bottrill’s voice melts with adoration and respect. If you have not heard their 1998 album Villa Elaine, or if you perhaps have not heard of them at all, well... now you will. “Remy Zero are from Mobile, Alabama,” Bottrill vehemently states for the record, “They’re great songwriters who make really great interesting and credible pop music in the same area as Radiohead and are a little like the Verve. They have an amazing singer that could bring tears to your eyes. When I heard their demos it captivated me so much that I stayed in LA for 9 months just to work with them, and LA isn’t my favorite place. When my friend offered me the gig I had already been itching to go back to England! I did some production and recording and Alan Moulder did some remixing on the album. Sadly, hardly anyone got to hear it as they got lost in the shuffle and weren’t really promoted when [their record company] Geffen was swallowed by Interscope.”

As of the past few years, Bottrill is increasingly being summoned to mix pre-recorded projects. Therefore he keeps his cochlea well-groomed for the occasion and for accuracy. He notes the advantages to only being brought in only to mix. “You’re able to come at it from an objective viewpoint. You have no agenda attached to any of the parts because you haven’t sat in the studio for 3 days working on it. Its another chance and angle to alter what you’re doing as you finish things off. Of course, sometimes its a distinct process when you’re working with a lot of programmed music and reprogramming and changing structures is part of the process. These days there is less of a line drawn between the record and mix process.”

The fundamental components of a Bottrill mix is a grand sense of unification, transparency, a virtual three-dimensional presence, and when context dictates, force. In fact, the mixes appropriately sound so sterile that one wonders whether he wears a white lab coat when executing a mix just as his British predecessors did in the early 1960s. “What is really important is to make sure there is clarity of hearing all the parts in a song. Each thing has a meaning and music is the sum of all those parts. If you are unable to hear some of the parts then it makes half of them irrelevant, so, you’re not getting half of the music. Dimension is very important. It has to spread across the speakers but the depth has to be there. It’s all about being able to catch and feel where things are recessed and when they should be up front. Both are difficult to achieve. What I usually do for depth is to use short and long reverbs, wide panning, dry on the left or right and making it reverberant in the middle or back. Somebody once said to me that they felt that when they listened to my mixes they could reach around behind the speakers and reach into the mix. When I start off a mix I’ll try and listen to the style of music that the people are doing. I find out what else the band listens to and listen to that as well.” The prerequisite for any Bottrill mix session involves particular gadgetry along with what the studio has. “I’ll try to get gear I’m comfortable with using, like an Eventide H-3000 harmonizer and a DSP 4000 - for reverbs I like the Lexicon 480-L and AMS gear. I bring my own Anthony DiMaria stereo compressor, some nice mic pres and Pro Tools plug-ins like the Waves [series], especially the limiters, as they allow for extreme volume. Also, I have recently tried the Wave Mechanics soundblenders. Very creative plug-ins. Autotune is always useful, as is Soundreplacer and Ampfarm.” Technical specifications aside, Bottrill deems that an environment and the ‘make do with what you have’ ethic takes pecedence. “I try to work in a studio for its sound and with what it already has so my sonic interests are kept up.”