Recording and Production in the News



Prism Sound and Maselec treatment for Coca Cola's 2012 Olympic track

As the UK gears up for the 2012 London Olympic Games, Coca-Cola has unveiled a global TV advertising campaign featuring a brand new track written by Mark Ronson and Katy B.

Anywhere in the World is an awe-inspiring anthem that breaks new ground by combining music with the sounds of five athletes competing at various sports to create a unique rhythmic beat.

Coca-Cola's Move to the Beat TV ad campaign, which was created by Mother London, was unveiled during the Brit Awards on Tuesday 21 February. The ad features Mark and Katy B, along with film shot during a festival-style gig held last summer, Also included is footage of Coca-Cola's five Move to the Beat athletes, each of whom was chosen for their sporting prowess and their inspirational stories.

During the recording of Anywhere in the World, innovative techniques were used to capture the sounds of the athletes so that the song truly represented the fusion between sport and music. These sounds include the heartbeat and breathing of Russia's Kseniya Vdovina as she ran on a treadmill and a track, Great Britain's Darius Knight playing table tennis, Singapore's archery hopeful Dayyan Jaffar shooting arrows at a target, the USA's David Oliver clearing hurdles and Mexico's Maria Espinoza demonstrating her Taekwondo shouts, kicks and punches.

Mark was assisted on this project by producer/engineer Joshua Blair. As Prism Sound equipment was an integral part of the recording, we decided to catch up with Joshua and ask a few pertinent questions:

"So Joshua, what exactly was your role in this project and how did it come about?"
"I got involved when Mark asked me to record the demo of the song as it was being written. Then, once the green light was given to the demo, I recorded all the keyboards, the vocals, edited all the sports sounds and did most of the programming. Officially I was the Recording and Editing Engineer, but I also stepped in with additional production when Mark couldn't make a session due to other commitments."

"Have you worked with Mark before? And if so, what other projects have you collaborated on?"
"Yes, I initially worked with Mark on the Duran Duran album All You Need Is Now, then on Mark's album Record Collection. We have also worked together on a number of other projects including a song for Erika Badu and Trombone Shorty, Rufus Wainwright's new album Out of the Game and Black Lips album Arabia Mountain."

"For this song, how did you capture the sports sounds and how did you subsequently incorporate them?"
"Most of the rhythm track is comprised of sports sounds and to capture these we worked with a broadcast sound engineer who has had extensive previous experience of covering the Olympics. He recorded the sounds on location in the countries where each athlete resides and, because he was given such close access, he was able to position his microphones as near to the action as possible. Once the recordings were made, they were handed over to me so that I could process the samples in Pro Tools and externally before loading them into Native Instruments' Maschine. On a few occasions I processed them directly in Maschine, but either way we stuck them in the drum machine and played them out from there."

"What about the vocals? Where was Katy B recorded and what role did you play in this part of the process?"
"The vocals were recorded at Metropolis Studios and Abbey Road Studios in London and for that part of the project I was the recording engineer. The vocals were then processed through UAD or Synchro Arts Plugins. Externally through a plethora of devices or left clean depending on what we thought sounded best."

"Likewise the mixing - where was this done?"
"The track was mixed by Tom Elmhirst at Metropolis Studios. Tom recently won a Music Producers Guild Award for his mixing skills and it was great that Mark turned up at the ceremony to present him with it."

"What equipment did you use during the recording process?"
"I used Prism Sound Mic Pre, EQ, and Compressors through Prism Sound ADA8-XR converters. We also used SPL Twin Tubes, Shadow Hill's Mono Gamma, Neve 1081, Summit Audio TLA-100A compressors, SynchroArts and UAD plugins, as well as various old reverbs etc. the list also included Radial DI's and a Telefunken U47 microphone."

"Prism Sound equipment obviously played a big part - what was it about this equipment that inspired you to use it?"
"I've owned a Prism Sound Orpheus FireWire interface for some time now and have always loved the consistent audio quality it gives me, both at home in my studio and on the road. For this project I chose Prism Sound equipment for the vocals because I wanted to have the cleanest vocal chain I could get so that I could capture every nuance of Katy's vocal and only her sound. I love the sound I can achieve with Prism Sound converters and I like to use them on all my projects."

Anywhere in the World will be released soon as a single, but if you want to catch a preview: