Two Composers, Two Continents
Two Composers, Two Continents throws open the doors on the world of Film and TV composers Jeff Meegan and David Tobin.
In this light-hearted podcast, the long-time music collaborators share stories from their careers, break down their production music albums, and are joined by guests from all corners of the music industry.
Expect behind-the-scenes insights, tales from recording sessions, album deep-dives, composing mishaps and plenty of laughs from over 20 years in the industry!
Whether you’re an aspiring composer, a film-music enthusiast, a music student, or just curious about the music industry, this one’s for you.
Two Composers, Two Continents
The Making of Who'd Have Believed Part 3: Post Production
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The 3rd and final podcast in our series documenting the start to finish process in writing, recording and producing “Who’d Have Believed” from our new big band album “Keep on Movin’”
In this episode we cover the post production process!
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All right. Today is the final in a three-pod series where we talk about the start-to-finish process of a song called Who to Believed from our recent, our most recent, current Big Band album called Keep on Moving.
SPEAKER_00Keep on Moving. Keep on Moving. I'm Jeff Megan. And I'm David Tobin. And this is Two Composers, Two Confidents. So why don't we talk about the story so far? Okay, where are we at previous episodes? So first off, we talked about uh we we came up with a concept for the song, which you then sent me. Birds and bees, flowers and trees, like everything that belongs together. We arranged it, we messed around with it, we created a demo, we've wrote three different intros for it.
SPEAKER_02Birds and bees, flowers and trees, like everything that belongs together. We're meant to be oh who to believe.
SPEAKER_00Figured out how we wanted the band to sound approximately, sent it to our publisher who loved it.
unknownBoom.
SPEAKER_00Sent it to our orchestrator, Martin Williams, got an orchestration back, put it through music prep, got it to a recording state, recorded at an Abbey Road Studio 2, and then went to LA, worked with Sarah Naimitz, got a fantastic vocal. We're ready for post production back from LA.
SPEAKER_02After all that process, it's been over a year now, probably. Oh yeah. How do you feel?
SPEAKER_00We talked a bit a little bit at the last episode about how I felt coming directly back from Sarah and how you felt as well. Right. And at that point, there is an element, a tinge of sadness because this process is is it's not that it's over, it's just that the, you know, half the fun is the journey of the creation. You kind of feel that. But at this point, I'm just excited to open it up. I want to hit play. And I just want to hear it. I want to sit in my studio with a cup of tea when nobody's looking, just not be bothered. I want to hit play in Pro Tools at this stage. We've gone through two different programs. We've never talked about that, but we've written it in one, it's then been recorded in another. We're now in the city.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's the third program because we probably started it in Logic and then it went into surveillance. And now it's in the right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're playing tennis through through digital applications. So we're in Pro Tools, I have hit play, and I just want to listen. And there's always the little bit of finagling of of um making sure things are laid out so I can hear them, right?
SPEAKER_02But we should probably So yeah, I was just gonna say. So let's let's talk a little bit about uh about the editing and what it means to edit and what the process is all about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, let's overview post-production starting with editing. Okay. So you've got the editing by which at this stage we're choosing from the multiple recordings we've done, the takes, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And during that process. Well, we'll talk about what it means to edit in a second, but let's say that we're gonna edit and what else we've got here.
SPEAKER_02Then we're going to edit, and then we're gonna send it off to the mixer.
SPEAKER_00And but i in between that you've got to prepare it so that it's ready for him. So he understands what you want and it's laid out, you know, you've cleaned your bedroom and you've left the socks on the floor. And and then you're sending it to mix in post-production, and then there's a lot of production in terms of producing what you're hearing.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Ross Powell Absolutely, as far as the mix is concerned. Yeah. There's uh there's a bit of a to and fro there. And then it goes on to mastering, which we don't we don't have much to do, anything to do with the mastering process at all, really. But so that's that's it. So we got editing, mixing, and then mastering, and then it's done.
SPEAKER_00Just like that. Boom. Artwork, lyric choices, naming things. But okay, editing. So chapter one. Okay. Chapter one, the edit. What are you looking for when you're editing something? I was fascinated when we talked about this previously, that we don't approach it in the same way, which which was new to me after 15 odd or more years. Yeah. Um I'll start with me and then I'll ask you about you. But for me, I I listen to it as a whole, and then I listen again and then I listen again until I I feel that it's not new. I mean, I know the song, but the edit, I know what I've got in front of me. Assuming that it's all left in a listenable state that I can hear.
SPEAKER_02So when we get something back, there's a uh uh temporary edit, if you will, right? The the comp last a comp of good takes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But it's in very broad strokes. Yeah. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But bearing in mind that if you've recorded at Abbey Road, the comp the composite that that's been made is going to be different from uh Sarah Namitz. Comp. Well, yeah, there isn't a lot of people. There isn't. So the vocal, there may have been 20 or 30 takes of certain things on the vocal. Yeah. And so what you're listening to may have been something where we've said which we talked about last time, can just do something out there. Right. So I might be listening to something wild and wacky, which I know isn't likely to be where we end up. So my first process is to um get an approximation, just a rough approximation, to listen. Then I generally turn the vocal off. Once I've heard the vocal and I've heard it and I I I I I get it, I understand where we're at. Yeah. At that stage I'm listening to the band. And it for me it's the rhythm section. I want to know how tight the performance is. Because whilst I can move notes of the bass or or mess around with the placement of the guitar if there were timing issues, because what are we looking for here? We're looking for bad notes, we're looking for tuning issues, timing issues, ensemble issues, noises, like room or on instruments, coughs, farts, burps, whatever. Right. But but really it's all about the quality of the approach of the performance. This is what it comes down to. It could be perfect. Yeah, really. So firstly, I'm I'm listening through all of the takes and saying, before I start making something, did they already do this? On one of the takes, do I listen left to right and think, yeah, but what I've ended up making, they did. They already did. So I listen through. Gotcha. Each take. Yeah. Each take. Wow. Yeah, well, you know, I'm here and that's your job. Yeah. Kind of being paid to do that. So I uh I uh uh yeah. I listen through the takes, I then get the closest one to what I'm looking for that's usually all about attitude and performance. Right. And invariably as you start listening, and there's more of a microscope on on what I'm listening to. Right.
SPEAKER_02Um Well, that you know that's so interesting that you say that because I think once you start working on something, you start on a real baseline level, right? And then you start making changes. Yeah. And then it gets a little deeper, and then all before you know it, you are on a microscopic level, right, where you're like, well, geez, you know, I didn't hear how the the tail end of that note dips down a little bit. Yeah. I wonder if there's one where it doesn't do that. I mean it gets really, really specific on things. And I've got friends who work a lot of it probably doesn't really matter in the end.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but uh talking to people in in other creative disciplines, if you will. I know people talk about this 80-20 rule of y, you know, 80% of what you do, you get it to that point, and the last 20% is just to make sure that you feel that it's right. Uh and I genuinely don't care. It's a hundred percent about how you feel for me. I agree. You know? You get that? Yeah. Oh yeah. So I'm I'm listening for for the performance, and then I'm listening. We're not creating perfection. I don't feel it i the imperfection is the joy, you know. But there is a level of of if it's out of time between instruments, if the ensemble is not quite right.
SPEAKER_02I mean, i it is amazing how specific and how different things can be. Even when you first hear something, and they may essentially sound the same, but when you really start listening to something, and maybe the balance of the horns is is, you know, just one guy was blowing a little harder than someone else, or you know, someone something that just sticks out a little bit, you know.
SPEAKER_00They're but the whole point of the prelays that we talked about in the last episode and and those being recorded to a uh the noise of a click, a click track, is that each take pretty close. And when you're working with the world-class musicians that we're working with, they're hitting at the same point each time. They're pretty darn.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's pretty darn.
SPEAKER_00And what that means is that you can move from take to take to take to take to take, even if it's for small moments, just for seconds, right. And if necessary, you can create something. If you need to, if you want to. Right. And sometimes we do. And on this, the intro goes through.
SPEAKER_02We used four different takes in going between four. Yeah, four bars, maybe? Five bars. Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. I mean it's all some of them are really specific, just one B. Okay, here we go. Take four. Take two, take three. Take two, take four.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. We should tell the story about the edit. Oh, uh for a glimmer of your smile. Yeah, this was a song fourteen, fifteen years ago, yeah. On our first Audio Network Big Band album. Right. We were working with Donna Byrne. Donna Byrne. Fantastic. Donna Byrne, yes. Well, you tell it. You're actually better storyteller.
SPEAKER_02And we were in uh in Boston at Crit Harmon Studio with her in the room. And we walked out feeling fantastic. We got everything we needed, there's no question about that. But this particular at the end of this song on this edit, uh or on a few of the takes, we didn't none of them really had exactly what we needed.
SPEAKER_00She sings just for one glimmer of your smile. Uh-huh. Jeff said. Smile. Wait a minute, it doesn't do that. So we thought, no problem, we'll just put another one in.
SPEAKER_02Some of them were missing, like we'd got the word. Glimmer of your glimmer smile.
SPEAKER_00And then we realized that mile didn't work. So we tried taking the s from another take. So we ended up with smile.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and here it is. Here's the bit right there. Each one had a little thing missing. So we went fishing through the whole track for T's and D's and S's and all kinds of stuff.
SPEAKER_00There's a point where literally just went and got a sound. We went through the whole song just to find put it in, and then it went just from one. So we then had to match it down until it was exactly the same. And nobody else would notice or care, and that's what I was talking about. There you go. But that's exactly right. But I felt it was it was uh it needed to be done.
SPEAKER_02You know, for for us it needed to be done.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but if you don't love your art, then you're not gonna suffer for it. Yeah. But um So let's go back here. So we've created the edit uh of of those instrumentally. I've talked long and endlessly about my process. But yours.
SPEAKER_02Yes. So when I open it up, I I I generally I'll start well, it it's different, but I I need to get a vocal that I can listen to. So I'll start with the vocal, usually. Um that it it really depends. I mean, sometimes we've done these in two stages where we will have already, you know, we will have edited a lot of the band tracks or the the music before we even get to the vocal.
SPEAKER_00We have to, right?
SPEAKER_02Because she's got to sing over something that is uh you know pretty close to what it's gonna be. But this time in particular we did not. We were we had other stuff going on. It was like, well, it sounds great. I mean, th this the the board mix was fantastic. So uh we didn't get to it until we had everything, right? So but I start with the vocal because I need to be able to listen to it. And maybe I don't go fully in depth, but at least get something that's listenable. Um and then I kind of start where I hear something, you know. I will if I hear a piano thing that bothers me, I'll start with the piano. And I just, you know, I don't have a a process that says I'm gonna start at the top and go to the bottom. It's just where I start hearing things like that. Yeah, I don't either get molded, you know. Your habits, right? Um I don't I don't even go through and listen to all the takes. Do not. No, no. I will listen if I think there's a mistake, you know. Um and the only things that are really uh that have a lot of variation in them are the rhythm tracks, because like you mentioned uh before, the the guitarist he really just has slashes and chords on his part, right? And maybe a hint of an idea of where we'd like it to go. Uh the pianist is the same thing. Maybe he just has slashes and he's comping over the band and under the vocal and throughout the thing. Yeah. So those are the the places where there are possibly some real decisions to be made. But um, so yeah, so I just kind of organically go through it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sometimes for me it's also the band in the in the shout section, in that really big section in the middle where you've just finished the vocal and into that instrumental moment and at that stage it's how much swagger out that lead trumpet got for me, how much is going on there. Yeah. And we might have take after take of that. Yes. And I listen through those just to know, you know, on which one does he really say or she really say listen to me.
SPEAKER_02Yes. So while I don't consciously go through every take, once there's uh something to address, then obviously you have to listen to every take. But only in the finite things. And then it's you know, if you're funny what you discover that, you know, take three swings a little bit more, but if everyone's not doing take three, then you know, i you can't just flip over willy-nilly sometimes to use the pianos take three because it's not jiving the way with the rest of the band, you know.
SPEAKER_00Um, you tend to switch all of the band, everybody, horns, everybody on take. No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_02No. But really, if you listen to a whole piano take where he was really in in it for that take, that won't necessarily jive with whatever you know, the rest of everyone else's track two that's already sounding great. You know. Got it. So you may just be able to take the what you need. Um I mean there's a lot there's a lot of choices and decisions to be made during the editing process, that is for that question.
SPEAKER_00How long, if you if you were putting a stopwatch on a track like Who'd Helieved, how long are you sat there from I'm hit play to I'm gonna pass this? Because we should say before you answer that question, every single edit and scene. Every every single edit, you do your edit, I do mine, you start at one, I start at seven or eight. We get to the end, and then we switch. We pass it. So everything has gone through both of us because we'll both have a different view or look at things in a different way. So we we do that. But going back to the I don't know.
SPEAKER_02I don't think it's easy to say.
SPEAKER_00I think it depends upon the tune and uh But on something like this, are we talking five minutes or four hours? Or what are we doing?
SPEAKER_02I think more likely four hours, absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, half a day maybe on an edit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Um that's that's probably not you could spend a half a day on a vocal, right? Yeah. Yeah. And uh you know, we wrote something down here which I think is kind of important to say that it's the ends, not the means, we're not purists. And I I really feel like that. Um in this sense, like, and maybe it just comes down to vocals, but or or solo instruments. Um I believe in fixing timing and tuning. I mean, without question. Um I think that if there's a fantastic performance that goes a little flat, like noticeably, like it's gonna bother you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I have no problem fixing that in the st because what you can't fix is attitude, right? Right. And so I'm much more interested in in the beauty of the imperfection, but got the attitude, and then does it need fixing? Does it drag me out of that moment? Right. And then, okay, well, I'll push it. It's still got to sound acoustic and real and a believable. Yeah. Okay, this isn't a T-Pane kind of thing where you know you suddenly say, Okay, well, I can hear the autotune working. Right. It's gotta be real. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But equally it y you don't want it to drag you out because you suddenly, okay, the tuning was an issue or it's out of time.
SPEAKER_02I don't yeah, I'm I'm not a purist in that, oh I can't I can't touch this because it wouldn't be it's not natural, you know, it's not what was actually done.
SPEAKER_00No, and in the early days for me, I would feel like, okay, if I were making an album and this was not for film or TV or media use, then I probably wouldn't touch this. I'd probably leave it alone because because that's not a thing. I don't know. No, that's how I felt before. Before. Gotcha. I don't think my process would alter at all now, whatever I'm making an album for, because I think it it feels right to me. Yeah. Thank you, yeah. Because uh yeah, I I think i i I was a convert to your way of being. Uh I was much more of a purist. Were you? Yeah. I think so. That I I wouldn't naturally have done that.
SPEAKER_02But now Yeah, because I kind of feel like, yeah, it's a recording, right? This is something that people are gonna listen to years and years from now. And no one is gonna know or care if you tuned some stuff and fixed some timing to make it sound fantastic.
SPEAKER_00Well, ultimately for me, I want this thing to sound like if this band had had come and you would you'd put them into a a concert situation, they're playing a gig and they just knocked it out the park live. Fantastic, yeah. How would that have been? And that's what this is. So it's not unreal, yeah, but it's the best performance that those people could have given at any one time. Absolutely. That's a really good way to do that. And that's how I'm that's what I'm always aiming for. I like it. So let's move on, Jeffrey. Mixing. How do you get across to to our mix engineer Ren Swan, what you're looking for?
SPEAKER_02So uh yes. So Ren Swan is the mix engineer, Grammy winning uh Ren Swan. We are so blessed to be able to work with such incredible talented people. Ren is just he's fantastic at what he does. And and I we have done many albums with Ren as the mixing engineer, and so we kind of have a sound that we knew we were we were gonna go for. Somewhere down the road in the past, we probably sent him some temps of some tunes like we really like the way this big band sounds and this recording, and can we mix it like this? But I mean, luckily at this point, we're we're fortunate enough to be able to pack it up very nicely. We make all the edits, we make we folderized everything for him, um, and we we make sure that I mean this is gonna get really technical. We leave all audio out that we don't need anymore, right? Uh just to shrink the session size. Yeah. Um and then we'll send it off to him.
SPEAKER_00And then And sometimes there are bits where we love a take, and whatever we do, I can't quite fix the perfect edit. And so I'll leave it for specific. Yeah, somebody who knows what the hell they're doing when they're editing, right? But I'll leave a specific could you work, could you help us here? Because I I don't want to change this take, I just don't. I like this, but it's got an issue.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Wren has a mixed space in the same building as as our co-producer uh Allie Johnson. So I I know that he will have seen the brief. You know, he knows where we've come from when we're recording it, when we're when we're writing it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But Ali will have helped him.
SPEAKER_02Ali would definitely have gone in there and and and put his brilliant ears on it and made some great suggestions, absolutely. I know that before he Ren started sending us stuff that he and Ali had already talked, right? I mean they had they had gone through probably a couple iterations. Because I think we've got like version four.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we get a file at the end and it said v4. Yeah. So we know he sent it, had it back three more times, three times before that. How do you find the process? You get a mix from Ren. I'm assuming, like me, there's a little bit of excited trepidation that you're going to listen to this in its other than the mastering of of Chris Brooke, in its close to the case. It's pretty close to done, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You know, so often the board mix sounds so great and you listen to it so long because we we uh edit and we listen to over and over again, and you know, then you're this is the mix you get straight out of the studio. Straight out of the studio. And it's raw and it's beautiful. Um and then when it hits the mixing process, sometimes it's a little shocking because you're like, whoa, this is different than what I've been listening to for the last four months or whatever. Right. Um but I mean we could quickly get over that. I mean it's usually like, wow, this is really this is going great, you know. But there's always there's always something to comment on.
SPEAKER_00Um just because I find it quite a frustrating process. Yes. Yes. I would find it a less frustrating process if I was in the room with Ren. Right. Because we're gonna have a number of comments about all sorts of things and they may be very general or they may be really, really specific down to EQs and frequencies and words and fields and all sorts of things. If I was in the room and could say, can we do that? and you hear it and say, try that. But it's like having a conversation over email.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00And you're waiting for a response because Ren's busy or because it just takes a while. So you're writing down your notes and you're sending them. And Ren is incredibly fast that thanks got it and send you a new version. And perceptive, yes. But still it's a one-sided list. And we make endless lists of thoughts and I make mine and you make yours and then you tell me that mine are wrong and I say okay and sorry it has to be done. But but it is frustrating.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And um and because you it you're so close to the end. That's what it is. And but you know you're right. It really is because you're not in the room. Because we know what it takes to do these things, right? I mean we we have some experience mixing ourselves. So what you would do is just so easy just to go, I wish I could just move that knob or tweak that thing and then it wouldn't even have to be talking about it. Or even just can we bring that down? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But it is it's a it's having a having a a a sort of slower process. Yeah. But just because of the nature of working remotely. Right. Right. But I think probably easier for us than some people because we work remotely anyway with each other. Well that's true. That's good part. I'll send something and wait you'll send something and wait. But still so we've got I mean I I know we could we could show it but we've got uh lists of where edit lists of what's been done on the track and how it goes and then we'll get it back and we'll say actually now hearing it like that, could we tweak this and then you get it back. And I mean Ren it's it's like also like being a a bit of an arbitration service because i he's listening to our ideas. Well and then he's got other people in his other ear you know yeah he's going to have to then present this to the team and the team uh at Audio Network are then going to say yes but we want to change this and then he'll send that back to us and we may say yeah but if you change that we want to change this. Amazingly patient man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But at the end, how do you feel? Like you've gone through which really is probably a couple weeks of back and forth. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And not every day but you know how do I feel I feel a whole range of emotions. I feel I don't want to use the word euphoria. I need your your thesaurus I need your rhymes but but euphoria sadness that it that we're there. Certainly emotional absolutely emotional hearing a song that we've then been on maybe a year and a half maybe something like that. Hearing it just it's it's a moment. It's like it's this thing that you've created and you've you've put your heart and soul into and then you hear it and think I would have paid money to listen to that had somebody else released that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah yeah it is that there's that that final moment when you listen to the mix and you have no more thoughts you have nothing you want to change and it's like it's like suddenly the puzzle piece just went boop right in and you're like do you ever get that feeling I cannot believe that it's done. It's just it really is an emotional Yeah I don't know I don't know whether you get this.
SPEAKER_00Do you ever get the feeling because you're in your room by yourself and I'm in my room by myself. No we might be listening at the same time if we get in the afternoon. But do you ever get that feeling that you hear it and then you want to tell somebody I don't know. I get that I I've listened to it from the rooftops you mean? Well I'm just I'm in a room in I I'm in a rural part of Yorkshire. Hey Yorkshire you've got never listen to this stop what you're doing just just listen to this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And but I get that feeling that I want to you know I want to ring somebody up and say you've got to hear this or whatever. And especially if you're not awake that by that point.
SPEAKER_02Actually it's funny I I mean I do certainly I want people to hear it but I don't feel that need. I just feel such a sense of satisfaction like it is such a journey and it's such a long thing. And then of course you know because life goes on right you listen to it and the moment you know by the end of the day when I get upstairs and I'm you know with the family again it's like oh you guys gotta hear the mixes because they're so good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then putting it on for the family in the evening I'll go into the house and how are you doing? It's finished. Do you want to hear this thing? Right. And we'll sit round and have a listen to it. Yeah people they'll come down in the studio same thing. Yeah oh it's fantastic. Yeah. It's been a journey you know what we should do? We should then say obviously it goes through um a mastering process with Chris Brooke. We didn't really touch on that because we don't really get involved in it. But what I should say about Chris's mastering that that matters to me is that it doesn't go through a process that grossly changes the sound which for me would be miss the point of mastering but still it's it's beautifully done. It senses everything better. Yeah yeah so we should probably do some thank yous.
SPEAKER_02We want to thank Sarah Namitz for her wonderful vocal Lydia for her great vocal on the demo as well to all the players in the band.
SPEAKER_00And we should talk about our orchestrators to Martin Williams who uh orchestrated this tune to Callum Owe who was just sensational to Charlie Harrison who was also just fantastic.
SPEAKER_02To Allie Johnson for his helping us produce this executive producing it being an all-around amazing dude andrew sonnix as well being the the grandmaster of Master Dudes everyone everyone at Audio Network for all the hard work they put in for all of our projects throughout the the years.
SPEAKER_00And our engineer Stefano Civetta who is just sensational to work with we had such a blast doing it.
SPEAKER_02Ranswan of course for his brilliant mixing as usual.
SPEAKER_00Yeah and as we just mentioned Chris Brook for his mastering and to all of our friends at Audio Network we genuinely we are always just so grateful for all of the opportunity to do this and for the help the support absolutely the cash thank you so much thanks for letting us use the music as well and yes thank you for the music and hey thank you David Tobin it's a wonderful journey and you too Jeffrey Megan and this has been our series on who to believe check out keep on moving and we'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_03See you next time Birds and bees flowers and trees like everything that belongs together we're meant to be unloadably can slum we dance we've been an hour and a quarter but let's do it here we go here's the final product so here's the last edit coming up here this is what we were doing people say we don't suffer for I can't decide whether we're incredible editors or the shittiest producers in the world