NEW YORK — For the recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concerts, Music Mix Mobile used plug-ins from Waves to meet the challenge of taking live recordings straight into post-production with all the processing parameters intact. The Oct. 29 and 30 concerts were aired on HBO starting Nov. 30. Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Simon & Garfunkel, Dion, Stevie Wonder, Sting, Smokey Robinson, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Aretha Franklin, Lou Reed, Ozzy Osbourne and U2 were among the performers for the two-night event at Madison Square Garden.
The Music Mix Mobile team included industry veterans John Harris, Jay Vicari, Joel Singer, Mitch Maketansky and newly-added West Coast-based partners Bob Wartinbee and Mark Linett.
John Harris and Jay Vicari, working out of their M3 truck and also using their M1 Flightpack system, handled the broadcast music mix. Technical Producer Gayle DePoli supervised the audio and Firehouse Productions provided the sound system, with guest Front-of-House mixers for each respective act. Carl Glanville did the remix in post-production for the broadcast on behalf of Music Mix Mobile.
Waves’ SSL 4000 Collection and V-Series provided vintage EQ, compression, dynamics and other processing, modeled on classic SSL and Neve consoles. Along with signal processing, the Waves bundles also gave the process a workflow boost.
“The whole premise was that we would take the capture of these performances seamlessly from recording to post-production, and the Waves was key to that,” said Joel Singer, co-founder and vice president of engineering for Music Mix Mobile. “The settings on all of the processing were part of the Pro Tools sessions, so John and Jay were able to hand the sessions over to Carl just as they had recorded them. When Carl hit play, all the sounds were right there.”
Music Mix Mobile has used Waves plug-ins at other recent broadcast events, including the CMA Awards, the Foo Fighters on VH1 and U2’s performance from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. “We couldn’t do everything we’re able to without the Waves plug-ins — they make the job so much easier,” said Singer. “They’ve become part of our workflow.”
Singer cited the Renaissance Maxx Bundle as a case in point, calling it “a staple of the vocal chain.” The Waves MV360° Surround Dynamics Processor, he added, “is an outstanding multichannel compressor that’s infinitely tweakable and lets us deliver consistency in 5.1. Waves have become our go-to processors of choice. They’ve become indispensable.”
For more information, please visit www.waves.com.
