Peter Cobbin & Kirsty Whalley
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INSIDE TRACK Secrets Of The Mix Engineers: Peter Cobbin & Kirsty Whalley Underpinning the biggest spectacle of 2012 was probably the largest multitrack recording ever made. Just how do you mix a thousand-track project? PAUL TINGEN carried 34km into the sky by balloons. case of ‘And I Will Kiss’, the track against The enormous scale of the ceremony which Pandemonium unfolded. n July 27th 2012, 85,000 people has been illustrated in the press with many Here, too, the statistics are in the stadium were joined by mind-bending statistics, such as a staging mind-boggling: 1200 musicians were O four billion television viewers for area of 15,000 square metres, a 23-ton recorded in dozens of sessions, yielding the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympic bell, a stadium flying system that two dozen Pro Tools projects containing Olympic Games. Perhaps the most could carry 25 tonnes, a mile of costume several thousand tracks in total. Three memorable section of this unique event railing, 7500 on-stage volunteers and months’ work on a 1000-channel desk was that called Pandemonium, which saw a whopping 284 rehearsals. On a more was needed to condense all this material 2500 volunteers recreate the Industrial technical level, flyers and press releases into a 200+ track mix session, and then Revolution, complete with 30-metre-high also boasted of the million-Watt PA to several different stereo and 5.1 mixes. belching chimney stacks. It culminated in system, with 500 speakers, and 317km of All just to create one 17-minute piece the forging of five enormous floating rings, cabling. The music, too, was forged on an of music. If there was a Guinness Book forming an Olympic logo which was then epic scale, and never more so than in the Of Records entry for World’s Largest 118 December 2012 / www.soundonsound.com Kirsty Whalley and Peter Cobbin in the Penthouse Studio at Abbey Road, where ‘And I Will Kiss’ was mostly mixed. Photo: Peter Cobbin Isles Of Wonder double album. A wealth Wonder project, with most of their efforts of top-flight artists were involved in this going into ‘And I Will Kiss’. section, including Paul McCartney, the With the help of several engineers, Arctic Monkeys, Mike Oldfield, Emeli including Lewis Jones as Pro Tools Sandé, Dame Evelyn Glennie and Dizzee recordist, Whalley and Cobbin set about Rascal, but pride of place went to Rick adding to, and replacing elements of, Smith, who wrote the epic ‘And I Will Kiss’ Smith’s demo. To this end they produced as well as ‘Caliban’s Dream’, the track four recording sessions in Abbey Road performed while the Olympic cauldron Studio 1, one with the 116-piece London was lit. Both titles are references to Symphony Orchestra On Track, one Shakespeare’s The Tempest. consisting of four recording blocks (as per Musicians Union regulations) Too Much Pressure with Dame Evelyn Glennie, one with Both Cobbin and Whalley work full-time violinist Sonia Slaney, and 12 recording at Abbey Road Studios. Whalley, a former blocks with a handful of professional Guildford University Tonmeister graduate, percussionists headed by Paul Clarvis is a freelancer, while Cobbin, an Australian and Ralph Salmins. Another four sessions engineer/producer who moved to the took place in Abbey Road Studio 2, with UK in 1995, is the studio’s Director of the 28-piece Grimethorpe Colliery Band Engineering. Whalley and Cobbin have brass ensemble, a 20-piece choir, eight been involved in plenty of gargantuan, male vocalists, and a 40-piece steel band high-profile projects, including mixing called Nostalgia. There were also several the soundtracks of several Harry Potter on-location recording sessions at 3 Mills ‘And I Will Kiss’ was the musical backdrop to the and Shrek movies and of Ridley Scott’s Studios, in a rehearsal place in Dagenham, Pandemonium section of the ceremony, charting Prometheus, but the scale of the Isles and in the Olympic Stadium itself, with the impact of the Industrial Revolution. Of Wonder project left even these two the 965 drummers who performed on the dyed-in-the-wool professionals gasping for night — most of them volunteers. Recording Session, ‘And I Will Kiss’ would breath. “We were slightly overwhelmed ‘And I Will Kiss’ was the ultimate win hands down. at times,” said Cobbin. “The pressure was kitchen-sink production. During the The emphasis on music was the work enormous. I’m starting to feel tired again production period the structure of of director Danny Boyle, Artistic Director even talking about it!” the musical piece constantly changed of the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, ‘And I Will Kiss’ started out as a demo in response to demands from the also titled Isles Of Wonder. He asked that Smith had created in Logic in the theatrical production, which was to long-term collaborator Rick Smith of Underworld studio, featuring synths and involve what Boyle memorably and aptly Underworld to act as Music Director, and programmed drums and his Underworld called the “biggest scene change in Smith in turn enlisted Pete Cobbin, Kirsty partner Karl Hyde on vocals, guitar and theatre history”. Whalley and Allan Jenkins as Associate bass. Whalley and Cobbin first heard this Cobbin begins the story: “The Music Directors. Cobbin and Whalley demo in late 2011 or early 2012, and Opening Ceremony was divided into also mixed most of the music for the first their first recording session for the track a cultural section and a section that half of the event (before the athletes’ took place in March. From April until July we called Protocol, which contained all parade), which appeared on CD1 of the 27th they worked full-time on the Isles Of the must-do events that the Olympic www.soundonsound.com / December 2012 119 INSIDE TRACK PETER COBBIN & KIRSTY WHALLEY • ‘AND I WILl Kiss’ ‘And I Will Kiss’ was the musical brainchild of Underworld’s Rick Smith. Photo: Peter Cobbin Broadcasting Service took control of: the the professional drummers [Paul Clarvis, athletes’ parade, the flag bearers, the Mike Dolbear, John Randall, Frank national anthems, and so on. LOCOG Ricotti, Ralph Salmins, Corrina Silvester [The London Organising Committee of and Ian Thomas], the thousand volunteer the Olympic and Paralympic Games] drummers, the singers, and Dame Evelyn had a free hand for the cultural section, Glennie. Of course, the music had to which was an opportunity for Britain reflect this cast. So while the theatrical to make a statement about itself. mass movements and choreography Danny Boyle came up with many of the were being rehearsed, we began to add ideas for this, and for us the Industrial all these other musical elements. It was Revolution section, and with that ‘And a massive undertaking. And so what I Will Kiss’ was the most significant item. started as predominantly an electronic The idea was not only to symbolise track ended up as something that still the transformation of Britain into an had its techno origins, but also grit and industrial nation, but also to show the edginess and a feeling of epic human social changes our society underwent energy and acoustic space.” during that time. The set and the scale of everything was so large, with none Hit The Bucket of us knowing, for example, how long it As part of the process of making would take to transform a stadium full the music “reflect the cast”, Smith of grass into chimney stacks and water and main percussionist Paul Clarvis mills and so on, that Rick and Underworld worked together on some of the drum had the big challenge of coming up with arrangements, and were involved something that was flexible and could be in training and recording the 965 adjusted as needed. We needed a piece volunteers, who all played upside-down of music that could be rehearsed to, buckets. Whalley explains: “In Abbey with 1000 marching people, that could Road Studio 1 we recorded Paul and the be extended or shortened as needed handful of professional percussionists and that had space for what we called playing several drums throughout the the Poppy section, a quiet section in the whole track, like kick drums, small and middle during which the fallen in the wars large taikos, snare drums, cymbals, oil were remembered. cans, djembes, and other things. We “The map that Rick had come up with also tracked them playing many layers turned out to be excellent, and his basic of the various metal and plastic buckets mix of his track was pretty good and that were used by the live volunteers representative of the final result. Rick’s on the night. There were probably 20 demo was a techno-based track, and in or so different kinds of percussion, each discussions with Danny, ideas emerged recorded a few times, so just that one of certain live elements that could be recording session added up to a Pro added, like the string orchestra, the steel Tools session of more than 400 tracks! band, the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, We recorded in Studio 1 because we 120 December 2012 / www.soundonsound.com INSIDE TRACK PETER COBBIN & KIRSTY WHALLEY • ‘AND I WILl Kiss’ wanted a large sound. The room is great for recording a symphony orchestra, but ‘And I Will Kiss’: The Mix Session becomes even more alive when you have just a few players in there, because there This is the composite Pro Tools session that is a premix of some of the overdubs Paul Clarvis was used to create the final mix, distilled from played, which are just underneath. Below is less absorption. over 20 separate sessions used for recording that are Pass 1-4, which are Evelyn Glennie’s “During the project the various and submixing individual elements.