Recording - August 2010 - 21

songs, electric guitar for one, and we even had some surprises. As Marcelo Berestovoy (www.marceloberestovoy.com), another good friend and a versatile first-call acoustic and electric session guitar player, was listening to one of his takes for “Do the Howdy Do, “ Eliot stepped into the tracking room and blew us away with some outstanding, on-the-fly harmonica licks which were perfect for the song. The parts gave the tune the ideal vibe and figured prominently in the final mix. The songs recorded at E5 Music were saved to DVDs and taken back to my studio, where I opened them in Pro Tools on my G5. Using only the basic factory plug-ins the software includes (eq, compression, reverb), I mixed the songs with an inyour-face and no-frills approach. They needed to convey a live theater experience for the audience; they were not meant to sound like ultra-polished radio tracks. I wanted to avoid, as much as possible, the feeling of canned music being pumped into the 500-seat theater’s PA system. I was able to try out the mixes with the cast members singing over them during the last several rehearsals using a simple boom box. This proved very useful, as I was able to go back to the studio and do some final tweaking. I also recorded the rehearsals, so I was able to take the voices and fly them in to the mixes to get an idea of how they would fit in with the tracks. The final version of the opening song emanated entirely from the original demo produced in Ableton Live. I simply cleaned up the MIDI parts (fixing timing and velocity issues) and added the live oboe. Mixing this composition in Live was a pleasure, and the factory effects were very easy to edit and sounded great. I mixed the two instrumental pieces that I had composed and produced in Logic using the same sessions and keeping them in that DAW. I made mostly level tweaks, and adjusted some of the sound effects’ duration and presence. Curtain Call This cross-platform project evolved considerably from conception to realization, and the process was completely organic. The use of three main DAWs was not planned, but rather the result of an awareness of what each piece needed to accomplish and how the demoing and final recording and mixing had to be approached. Recording at an outside studio added a needed dimension to the process. The input of additional sets of engineering ears and musical fingers gave the music a fresh sound and avoided stagnating the production. The collaborative nature of the project required clear and open communication. Input from the playwright and the choreographer were essential, and even though I was the musical director and producer for the play—ultimately responsible for the quality of the final versions—it was a team effort. The performers’ input during rehearsals was also important, since they would be the ones imbuing the songs with life. Detailed demoing gave all the participants a very clear idea of what the music was going to sound like, from the very early stages of production. By the time the dress rehearsals rolled around, everyone knew the songs by heart, and performed them flawlessly on opening night and for the rest of the show’s engagement. The audience response to the play and the music was extremely enthusiastic and plans are in place for the production to be taken to other theaters in the near future. Multi-instrumentalist, producer, songwriter and composer Beto Hale is the former Editor-in-Chief for Recording Magazine’s Spanish-language sister publication Músico Pro. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, five-year old boy and two Vizla/Labrador pups, where he heads Let’s Mexam Music, Inc. a multi-faceted production company that has a busy music-related language translation division. Learn more at: www.betohale.com and www.letsmexamusic.com.
RECORDING AUGUST 2010

http://www.marceloberestovoy.com http://www.lynxstudio.com http://www.lynxstudio.com http://www.betohale.com http://www.lynxstudio.com http://www.letsmexamusic.com

Recording - August 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - August 2010