Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1277927
8 S U M M E R 2 0 2 0 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y Scoring Mixer Tommy Vicari CAS Encourages Us to Overcome the Obstacles For more than 50 years, I have been an active contributor at all levels of our audio recording industry. "I have survived the changing waves" fits my profile perfectly—so I thought until these last couple months! "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans," John Lennon sings in "Beautiful Boy." Within the first week of lockdown, three major green-lighted projects in film and TV were canceled. One after the other—New York, London, and Los Angeles. For an independent, this is major. When we received the "stay at home order," I was in the midst of mixing a Euro Disney theme park show for composer Jonathan Barr. Jonathan needed to get on a plane ASAP to Prague before all flights were grounded. I was left with the decision to completely halt the mixing or to finish it. I chose the latter. Masked and gloved, my assistant Spencer Guerra and I plowed through to the end of the mix. With the advantage of technology so readily available, mixes were sent electronically, approved by the composer, and signed off by Euro Disney France—while we were on the other side of the world. For the next two following weeks, I found myself bewildered and not knowing what my next move was! Stopping completely was not an option. It is never an option. With no prospect of work resuming anytime soon, thinking outside of the box was the only option. As luck would have it, at the same time, a project I produced 30 some years ago was re-discovered—perhaps "discovered" would be a better word as it was never heard the first time around. In Live Nation's June Amplify Music Mag, an article was released stating: "WORLD GOES ROUND, a supergroup which formed in the late '80s but whose recordings were never released … released a never-before-heard track titled "Big House" on Viper Records..." Who knew? The band was ahead of its time but perfectly suited for today's world. Now, with the demand of future release dates and the need for songs, I had no studio to record nor mix. I have built many studios for many artists over my career, but somehow never found the time for myself. Plus, the idea of working from home was never appealing. This was no longer an option. I decided to join forces with Marshall Barnes to set up a complete home studio. Marshall began touring the world at the age of 18, working along DJ AM, Steve Aoki, and Travis Barker among others. His song placements have made it from TV to the big screen, including Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far from Home, Hustlers, and Blockers to name a few. We share a passion for mixing in the analog and digital world. By converging our generational experiences, we brought our own unique tools to the process with one goal in mind; to produce, record, and mix music for all genres. That is pretty exciting. We wanted to be ready to record sessions and mix any projects. So, we designed a hybrid studio, equipped with a NEVE 5060 center console, which gives us the best of both worlds. We installed a number of different audio workstations, including Pro Tools, Logic, and Abelton, equipped them with lots of plugins and sample libraries, and got some analog synthesizers for good measure. We topped it with some of my favorite PMC 228 monitors to achieve our sonic goals. As timing would have it, Big Phat Band, with whom I've recorded and mixed several albums, decided to produce a complete COVID-19 big band recording. The entire band recorded their parts from home, sent me the recorded files, and I mixed it as if recorded together in the same room. Right before lockdown, Maurice Patist of PMC selected our latest album, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band The Gordian Knot, to mix in Dolby Atmos. Mixing an 18-piece big band in stereo tends to limit some of the nuances that expand the arrangements in the Atmos platform. Steve Genewick and I mixed it at PMC's Highland Park Studios and completed the final touches in mid-June for an upcoming release. Artist Filippo Perbellini from Verona, Italy, with whom I produced his last album, Almost Midnight, which was recently released in Japan, is currently working on new material which will be up on our board as soon as the WORLD GOES ROUND project is completed. From Sherman Oaks, CA, to Carlsbad, CA, Boston, MA, to London, UK, to Verona, Italy, we continue to work through this pandemic and beyond. If I had any words of wisdom to share, it's that the music keeps on playing—even if they are simply labors of love. Overcome the obstacles! Tommy Vicari CAS L E T T E R T O T H E E D I T O R