FILM SCORING MECCA | Recording Engineer at Abbey Road Studios

Welcome to FILM SCORING MECCA – a series tailored and curated by composer Adriano Aponte for FST. Presenting amazing and insightful articles about professionals working at top level in the film music industry. Today we have the amazing Andrew Dudman, senior recording engineer at Abbey Road Studios in London. 

SENIOR RECORDING ENGINEER

I had classical music training as a child, playing Viola, Violin, Piano and Singing, but also enjoyed scientific subjects at school. I found a couple of short work placements at small studios as part of my GCSE & A Level Studies that convinced me to look for Recording/Engineering degree courses at University. I was lucky enough to get onto the Tonmeister Course at the University of Surrey, where I focused a lot on Recording, but also, being a viola player, I did a lot of performance. During the 4 year Tonmeister course, the whole of the third year is spent on work placement, so during years one/two I made it my focus to get the Abbey Road placement as I knew that the variety of music there would suit my tastes, but especially all the orchestral/Hybrid work for Film and Classical recordings.

A full-time job became available at Abbey Road just before I was due to head back to University for my final year.  I decided that I really should have a finished Degree as a fall back, but I was again massively fortunate that my predecessor for the work experience role needed a job post graduating. He didn’t see engineering as the career for him, so he took on the available job temporarily whilst researching other careers and this kept the position open for me a year later when I graduated.  After that it was a case of working hard and building up a client base of engineers/composers/producers, who first wanted me to assist on sessions, and then when opportunities arose, to be able to step up and engineer. 22 years later, I find myself as one of the senior members of the engineering staff.

Work hard and build up a client base

ROLE DURING THE RECORDING SESSION

I am responsible for the recording process – firstly making sure the prep is correct, by liaising closely with the clients/composers, then planning studio layout and microphone setup. We then spend quite a few hours setting up the studio plugging in Mics/Headphones, setting up the control room and working with the ProTools operator as they build all the recording sessions.

During the recording sessions, I sit at the mixing desk, getting a good working balance (most projects are mixed separately afterwards). I control the click levels to the musicians so there is no spill into the room and then help with any production needed in terms of suggesting musical style and spotting mistakes/noises etc.

KEY SKILLS

You need good organisation skills, great personal skills as we work with a wide variety of clients, ability to concentrate for long periods of time, flexibility with adjusting my approach to the sound to give clients exactly what they are looking for.

Flexibility with adjusting your approach to the sound to give clients exactly what they are looking for

TECHNOLOGY TODAY

Most of the sessions are computer based these days although we occasionally integrate tape machines if recording band instruments. 

Technology means that you don’t have to commit to anything till the end of the process. We can record many more channels of mics and recall mixes almost instantaneously. This makes the mixing process incredibly flexible, but much more complicated to manage and needs a lot of processing power for the massive film sessions. Remote sessions where the clients can’t travel are much easier to carry out these days – 20 years ago; we sometimes had satellite trucks in the car park to guarantee a connection!

The hands-on process hasn’t really changed much as we still use all the same mics and the mixing consoles are all very similar despite being much more flexible.

WORKING FOR FILM, TV OR OTHER MEDIA

Sessions tend to run in pretty similar fashion. Production music will more often than not stem out the musicians more to give more useable versions when mixing. Almost all sessions are clicked out, unless recording in a more classical style.

AAA FILM SCORING SESSION

Security is a massive issue with the AAA film companies, and there tend to be many more people involved in the sessions. The major benefit of these sessions is the budget. You are able to have more recording and mixing time to get the most out of a recording.

ISSUES DURING THE RECORDING SESSION

Hopefully with a well-planned session there is nothing that needs fixing, but often you are making last minute decisions whether to tacet instruments or stem out sections to give mix control.

Plan well the recording session

FAVOURITE MUSIC GENRE

I particularly enjoy working on media based projects, as musically they’re always different from each other, from straight orchestral to hybrid or fully electronic scores.

BEST & WORST EXPERIENCE

The best (and daunting) experiences are when working with musical heroes.  There are a few projects I’ve worked on recently where I wouldn’t have believed of there ever being the possibility whist I was studying at University – for example recording new Star Wars themes for John Williams, or a whole album in a day for James Taylor Quartet (JTQ) whose gigs I used to go to while at Uni. I try to look positively on every project, but the worst times in the studio are when mistakes are made – rarely thankfully! But we are always triple checking ourselves so any potential mistakes are spotted in advance or always fixed.

Try to look positively on every project

ANECDOTES AT ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS

What happens in the Studio stays in the Studio!  But seriously, we try not to broadcast stories about sessions as we always have to think about the clients’ confidentiality. 

There was one very surprising moment though where we were hosting a musical/fashion event and suddenly one of the acts was a naked dance group-improvising dance around the studio.  We also had a few 8 foot tall Mr Men wandering around during an advert session and Mr Bump got stuck in the door between the Control Room and Studio!

MISTAKES TO AVOID

Preparation and planning is key and making sure that everyone involved during the session knows the plan. Triple checking that the musicians’ parts are correct and have been copied out professionally so no time is wasted.

Triple check that the musicians’ parts are correct and have been copied out professionally

A NICE PRE-MIX

Liaise with the engineer early on so that you can give him what he wants in terms of instrument splits and sound worlds. Some projects may need reverb/FX baked into pre-mixes and others need as much separate control as possible. Most importantly when delivering the separate elements of a premix, they should sum to equal the demo that everyone has been used to hearing.

When delivering the separate elements of a premix, they should sum to equal the demo that everyone has been used to hearing

FUTURE CAREER

Try to get as much experience sitting in on sessions as possible by using contacts.  It’s important not to be too pushy though as you don’t want to alienate prospective clients.

Try to get as much experience sitting in on sessions as possible by using contacts

KEY OF SUCCESS

Ability to get on well with people, attention to detail and positive attitude!

Attention to details and positive attitude

Coming up next in the series: FILM SCORING MECCA | BAFTA Breakthrough Brit composer Nainita Desai