Sacha Puttnam - Spirit of Cinema

Just as lockdown hit in April I was approached by Sacha to help him edit some tracks on his album. He had recorded the orchestra and piano at Henry Wood Hall among other places. The album is a collection of piano and orchestral versions of the big tunes from his fathers (David Puttnam) movies (Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express, Memphis Belle etc) and he wanted me to do some edits and change some tempos etc. protools handled it like a dream and then I went on to mix the record.

After I picked up the hard drive with the data from his house just before the lockdown, we have done everything else over the internet using the Audiomovers plugin and dropbox. Audiomovers lets me send the output of Protools to his browser once he has clicked on a link I have sent him. We can then both listen simultaneously to the mix in out own studios and chat over the phone or zoom etc.

It works a treat!!

Mixing an orchestra was an new experience but so much fun. The subtly that is required is quite staggering. There is so much spill on everything that it has to be treated more as a whole. I have to say it was recorded beautifully - made my life so much easier. Altiverb was a very close friend on this project which helped the various overdubs sit in with the rest of the orchestra - thank god for the impulse responses of the space that the recording engineer made - life saver!!