MIX Magazine – Cliff Martinez – Traffic

For Traffic, Soderbergh showed Martinez a rough cut of the film with a temp score. “Steven wanted a score similar in style to sex, lies, and videotape, which was slow, ambient and had a conspicuous absence of melody, harmony and rhythm. It was an unusual approach to take back in 1989, and I was a little surprised that Steven wanted to go down that road again with a $50 million dollar picture.”

Martinez estimates that about 60% of the music for Traffic was “recorded” via samplers in his studio. Pianist Herbie Hancock and guitarists David Torn and Michael Brook were recorded in their respective home studios, while Flea and percussionists Alex Acuna and Paulinho Da Costa were recorded at Media Ventures in Santa Monica. Because it was primarily an ambient score, Martinez and scoring mixer Alan Meyerson decided to add space and size to the sound by pumping the elements into a live space and recording the ambience. This enabled them to create a full, warm surround mix without using much in the way of electronic processing. They chose the famous Capitol Studios for the task with excellent results. The score was mixed by Meyerson at Media Ventures. – by Robyn Flans

Full article at MIX