CAS Quarterly

62 S U M M E R 2 0 2 1 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y Melodyne. Tim is a fan of the Universal Audio, Waves, and Plugin Alliance plugins. For reverbs, he likes Altiverb and Seventh Heaven Reverb from LiquidSonics. Tim added, "Security was crazy. We had to use encrypted drives supplied by Disney, and the entire studio had to be disconnected from the internet [to avoid hacks]." He would like to thank music editor Dan Simmons, as well as Derek Lee, who did the editing for the cast album. TONY VOLANTE: Re-recording Mixer "Working on Hamilton was perfect for me because it was right in my wheelhouse. It combined all the things I had done over my career; mixing music with a film element. I was able to use all the expertise I learned over the years and put it into this one project. It was a lot of fun!" Tony shared this right at the start of our interview. "I started in the music world, mixing records for 15 years in New York, Boston, and L.A. I started at Pyramid Sound in Ithaca, where I mixed punk music, jingles, and commercials." Tony would stay after work and mix his own projects. He then moved to Soundtrack in Boston. From there, he went back to New York and tried to find work in film. He eventually got into post and mixed the indie film Welcome to the Dollhouse. He continued with records as well, but eventually post work took over. Tony met Chris Richard, who had produced Broadway shows, and was invited to mix Shrek on the stage. Tony also worked as a consultant on Kinky Boots. "Chris called me up and said, 'I have another project for you: Hamilton!'" Tony mixed it at Harbor Sound in New York. "It wasn't more challenging than the average feature. The performances were amazing and it was very well recorded, so it was not challenging to get it sounding good; it was just a unique project using tools from mixing both music and film." Director Tommy Kail's vision of Hamilton was that he did not want a typical live capture of a Broadway show. "He made it clear, right from the start, that it was unique in what they were trying to do. He wanted to be cinematic." Every character was panned across the stage as they moved, including background singers. "This creates a panoramic space, which makes the whole thing come alive. "The workflow was unique because the job was so enormous. The tracks were fabulous. They recorded at 96 kHz, but to run that many tracks (close to 200) with many plugins was a big challenge. The audience was all recorded live, with 6-8 stereo mic pairs, including a set in the dome of the theater. Tim Latham did a great job mixing stereo in his studio and I up-mixed it to 7.1. We knew that eventually there would be an Atmos mix. "I used the same session, adding some plugins of my own so that my mix would layer on top of his. I did not have to do any pitch correction. I worked on it for about four weeks. Once I finished the 7.1 mix, the project was put on the shelf. With COVID, Disney pulled up the release date. I was unavailable, so I recommended that we use Rob Fernandez to finish the Atmos mix and complete any remaining fixes." I had noticed that the mix used much more crowd in the surrounds than a typical television show. "The biggest challenge was trying to find the balance between a 'live' and a studio album, but when you open the crowd mic, it sounds like a party!" Tony explained. "You also still need clarity in the lyrics. The balance would change between songs. Some of the songs were more like a music video and were mixed more intimately." Asked about plugins, "It was the first time I used UAD plugins, which Tim had used. They were all plugins that emulated older analog gear, like the UREI compressor. I did not need to add much reverb as it was already in the mix, but occasionally I used Altiverb to match the space. I had 6-8 reverbs set up, but they were used sparingly." Tony also used iZotope to deal with some noise issues on the set. "The song 'Wait for Me' is very dynamic, starting soft and going very loud. At one point, there is one of the loudest moments in the show, and I thought it sounded great, but I looked at my compressors and they were all lighting up like a pinball machine. This reminded me of a story working with Japanese artist Makoto Kubota. I asked why he traveled all the way to New York to mix, and he replied that the engineers in NYC care less about the meters and more about how it sounds. In Japan, everything had to be technically perfect! "A lot of hard work went into this show, and it was a team effort with everyone chiming in. Tommy Kail, Alex Lacamoire, Nevin Steinberg, and Dan Timmons were there throughout the whole (L-R): Re-recording mixers Tim Latham and Tony Volante

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