FEATURE
NOBODY
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BETTER
The sky’s the limit for the team behind Adele’s Rolling In The
Deep who, with the help of Karen Carpenter’s ghost, brought to
life a bona fide classic James Bond theme song.
Story: Paul Tingen
If you had to ascribe the archetype for a
‘classic’ James Bond theme song partnership,
you’d be a fool not to put down the martini and
coolly bet the farm on the Bassey/Barry double. A
classic James Bond theme song has drama, tension,
an orchestra, and preferably — no offence to
McCartney, Tom Jones and Chris Cornell — a Bond
girl. Not the hapless heroines and femme fatales
who take Bond’s fancy, but seductive crooning
beauties like Shirley Bassey and Nancy Sinatra.
Adding herself to this historic roll call is Adele,
who along with her writing partner/producer Paul
Epworth has managed to create one of the most
‘classic’ Bond theme songs since Diamonds Are
Forever, and claiming their place as the modern
day Bassey and John Barry.
When it comes to Bond theme songs, success
isn’t a guarantee, it’s a prerequisite. Even for
someone that sold 25 million copies of her last
album, there’s a lot of pressure following in the
footsteps of best sellers like Tom Jones, Paul
McCartney, Duran Duran, Tina Turner, Sheryl
Crow, Madonna, Chris Cornell, Alicia Keys
and Jack White. Skyfall, however, exceeds all
expectations. The track begins with restraint, just
with orchestra and then solo piano, later joined
by bass and electric guitar, over which Adele
sings the first two verses. Drums, bass, and a
huge orchestral arrangement come crashing in
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at 1:24 for the first chorus, immediately raising
the level to 11. Yet somehow the track sustains its
momentum until its ending at 4:50. Critics have
widely praised the song, calling it a “majestic
ballad”, a “classic James Bond song”, and noting
“the rousing instrumentation elevates the vocals
to soaring heights.” The song’s commercial
reception has been exceptional, with the track
reaching number one in more than a dozen
countries. After the seemingly non-replicable
success of her album 21, Skyfall was in every
respect a perfect next step for Adele.
WIN FOR THE TEAM
The success of Skyfall could largely be attributed
to the old adage ‘never change a winning team’.
Adele co-wrote the song with Paul Epworth,
who also produced it, and it was mixed by Tom
Elmhirst — both men had fulfilled the same roles
on smash single Rolling In The Deep. In an anteroom in Air Lyndhurst in London, where Epworth
was working with Paul McCartney on the British
legend’s forthcoming solo album, he explained
how Skyfall came into being. Which takes us back
to the second half of 2011.
“Initially the film’s producers were sounding Adele
and I out. Then they gave us the script to read,”
recalled Epworth. “It got to a point where it said,
‘Title Music’. And I was thinking, ‘Shit, this will be
a tough one.’ Adele wrote the lyrics for the song
right after she’d read the script and texted them to
me. So they came before the music. We actually
sat down and discussed what the emotional
quality of the song should be, and we decided that
it had to be like two people standing back to back
against all odds with everything coming down
around them, and then to have an all-conquering
ending. For me it was a challenge to do something
that was so specific to a brief. I spent nearly a year
on it in terms of thinking about it and learning
what the other Bond songs and film scores were.
All the James Bond music has a certain modality
to it, like the C minor 9th chords and all those
John Barry and Monty Norman inflections which
are indicative of 1960s jazz arrangements. I spent
a long time figuring out these chords and how to
put them together.
“The chords for the song came to me when I was
working at Henson Studios in LA and had this
weird eureka moment. I had been talking to one
of the assistants in Henson and he was saying,
‘Legend has it, Karen Carpenter haunts the place.’
About an hour later I was on my own noodling
around on the piano in the live room and began
feeling like I wasn’t necessarily alone. I don’t want
to make out I saw a ghost or felt a presence, but
I found myself playing chords which I’d never
played before, in a key I never use, with inversions
and voicings that I had never discovered until
arrangement, but all the band parts were replaced.
We also recorded the climactic call and response
vocal parts at the end, which was Adele’s idea.
She demoed that in Beethoven Street and then we
thought, ‘Why not go all Ennio Morricone, and
add a choir?’ That was done by the Metro Voices.
Adele and I really thought about the dynamic
shape of the song, and we had this idea for the
arrangement at the end of the track to create this
huge, grand ending. The swell of the first chorus
was like the euphoria of standing against the odds,
while the second half was like a death knell, and
then a rebirth at the end.”
Epworth recalled that he had recorded Adele
at Beethoven Street using a Rode Classic
microphone going into a Telefunken V72. At
Abbey Road she was recorded with a Neumann
U49, but he wasn’t clear on other details,
saying, “I’ve never been less hands-on with the
engineering of a project, because the intricacies
of the music required so much of my attention.
At Beethoven Street I had been assisted by my
assistant Joe Hartwell Jones, and the whole
approach was very throwaway, much in the
same way as with Rolling In The Deep. We had
also used the Rode on that song, and because
it sounded so good we used it again. The first
Abbey Road sessions were recorded by my
assistant Matt Wiggins, although I did guide him
in the sounds I wanted.”
WIGGINS RECALL
“
In my mind I imagined
Karen Carpenter handed
me the chords
”
that moment. It was really spooky. Maybe in my
mind I imagined Karen Carpenter handing me
the chords and that was the inspiration. But if
you go back and listen to them, they do have that
resigned melancholy the Carpenters specialised
in. In any case, I felt lucky the chords came in a
way that I would remember.
“You can hear that exact piano part at the
beginning of the song. I continued to work out
the chords and the song structure, and I had this
descending motif in the chord sequence that
sounds like something is falling.
“I then put a demo arrangement of the whole
song together in my studio, Beethoven Street, in
January. I played everything: drums, bass, guitar,
and piano, though Nikolai Torp Larsen came in
to redo the piano. I had to find a way to make it
swing and played this drum arrangement that was
almost like a Bernard Purdie shuffle. I also wrote
an orchestral arrangement and demo-ed it with
samples and MIDI. After that I called Adele and
asked her if she wanted to come over and have
a listen. She came in and immediately cut her
vocal. Most of the vocals you can hear in the final
version are that first take. She heard the music
and just sang the part. It was pretty amazing. I
also had never imagined that she would do those
Shirley Bassey jazz inflections so well. It shows
what a great singer she is.”
TAKING THE ABBEY ROAD
The next steps for Epworth and Adele involved
replacing the demo arrangement, completing
the singer’s vocals, adding backing vocals and
editing the song to make sure it had the desired
structure and length. This was done over three
days of sessions at Abbey Road Studio 2, during
May. The musicians were Leo Taylor on drums
and Tom Herbert on bass (both from the band
The Invisible), James Reid on guitar, and Danish
pianist Nicolaj Torp Larsen on piano.
“James is an old friend of mine,” explained
Epworth. “Nicolaj plays with The Specials and
he’s an amazing pianist. We cut the band live to a
click track. They played basically the same parts as
were on my demo, embellishing things a little bit
here and there. The orchestra was still my MIDI
Matt Wiggins cut his engineering teeth at The
Pool studio in south London. Epworth used to
visit the studio regularly and it was there they
first worked together. He then went on to work
with Epworth on records by Florence + the
Machine and Bloc Party, and began assisting
Epworth full time about a year ago. Wiggins
recalls, “We spent much of the first day at
Abbey Road Studio 2 with Paul in the live room
conducting and producing and getting his vision
across, and everyone playing the parts over and
over again. After that we recorded the band in
just a couple of takes. We also recorded several
overdubs, because while the feel is better when
everybody plays together, you get more precision
with individual overdubs. The guitar and bass
amps were placed further away and baffled, so we
had enough separation to be flexible, with spill
only being a problem on the piano.
“The desk in Studio 2 is a Neve 88R and because
we were at Abbey Road, there’s a lot of EMI stuff,
compressors and EQs and so on, and we went
mad with those. I had a Neumann FET47 and
AKG D30 on the bass drum, and a Shure SM7
and Sennheiser MD441 on the snare, Neumann
U67s on the toms, Neumann KM84s on the
ride cymbal and hi-hat, AKG C24 for overheads
and Coles STC4038 and a couple of Schoeps
M50 mics for the ambience. There was also a kit
side mic, the Coles STC4041, which has a really
gnarly sound. I always set up loads of mics, but
don’t use everything. We had a rack of Neve 1081
preamps and for the most parts used those and
then went through the desk, using EMI gear like
the TG12345 Curve Bender EQ on overheads
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Leo, Tom, James and Nikolaj laying
down the basic tracks at Abbey Road.
and plenty of other things on the way in,
like API 550B EQs, and Fairchild and
Distressor compressors.
“The bass was recorded with a DI and an AKG
C12, and then treated with compressors such
as the Distressor, Fairchild, EMI RS124 and
Teletronix LA-2A, and EQs like the API 550B
and the Pultec EQP-1A. We had three guitar
amps set up, but only used two, and we recorded
them with Shure SM57s and DIs. The piano
was recorded with two Neumann M49 mics
and a Sennheiser MD441 and captured the
piano room with an old RCA 44BX. I also put
up a Shure SM7 so I could listen to what Paul
was saying while I was in the control room. As
for Adele, we began by recording her with a
Neumann U47 but then changed to the M49,
because it sounded better. Her vocals then went
through the Neve 1081 and then a Urei 1176
compressor. The choir consisted of just four
male singers, who were recorded with the piano
mics, being the two Neumann M49s and the
RCA 44BX, but placed just a bit further away to
capture more of the room sound.”
J.A.C.’D UP ARRANGEMENT
Following the session at Abbey Road studio 2,
recalls Wiggins, “Paul and I spent two to three
days editing the song and doing monitor mixes,
to give the mixer, Tom Elmhirst, an idea where
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Paul wanted to go with the song, and then Tom
took it to the next level. The work I did was all in
the box, the main area of concern was ensuring
Adele’s vocals sound consistent throughout the
track.” After Elmhirst completed his mix, at
his room in Metropolis in London (see below),
Epworth presented the song to the Skyfall
producers, who gave the song the final go-ahead
and the budget to re-record the MIDI strings and
brass with a real orchestra.
Epworth elaborated: “I was hoping that Thomas
Newman [who composed the Skyfall movie
score], would do the string arrangement, but his
schedule was so crazy that we went with J.A.C.
Redford, who is a great arranger and composer in
his own right. J.A.C. and I sat down for a day with
the MIDI parts that everyone had lived with for a
while. He ran with it and turned it into something
amazing. His arrangement was a hybrid of my
MIDI parts which had existed from day one, a
conversation we had about how I intended to hear
those parts, and J.A.C.’s detail, colour, voicings
and dynamics. He was very receptive to my input
and we changed a fair amount of it again when we
recorded the orchestra at Abbey Road Studio 1 in
the beginning of September.”
Wiggins added, “They were recording the cues for
the movie score, and we got to use the orchestra
for one afternoon. It was incredible. Paul was
pretty involved with the arrangements during
the recordings. Simon Rhodes was the engineer,
and I sat in. After the session we went through
everything to be able to send it as quickly as
possible to Tom, who by that time was in New
York and was planning to start the mix the next
day. The session was in 96k and quite large, so
we had to start uploading the 5.1 orchestral
stems that same evening. When they record an
orchestra, stems are always routinely created,
both in stereo and 5.1. We later sent the entire
session over so Tom had all the individual tracks
to work with as well. Tom then made everything
sound great. It’s a really dynamic song, and the
dynamics that he created were phenomenal.”
TYING STRINGS TOGETHER
One of Britain’s star mixers, Elmhirst was until
last Summer based in Studio C in Metropolis
studios in London, but moved in July 2012 to
Electric Lady Studio C in New York. “I felt I had
become a little bit too comfortable in London, so
I wanted to shake it up a bit,” explained Elmhirst,
adding that he bought an identical desk to the
one he had at Metropolis, a Neve VR72, at CRC
studios in Chicago. He also had his extensive
collection of outboard gear shipped from London
to New York, including pieces from Shadow Hills,
Manley, EMI and plenty more. The only genuine
gear change involved him abandoning his beloved
KRK9000s, because he had problems finding new
drivers, in favour of ATC SCM50s. “I love them,”
enthused Elmhirst. “They’re great. They and my
Auratones are the monitors I use the most now.
“I mixed the Skyfall session in two parts,” said
Elmhirst. “I first mixed it in London, which was
the band recorded in Abbey Road with MIDI
strings and brass. This was the bulk of the work
and it was a complete mix in itself. Many people
would have been happy with that version. The
strings sounded great, even though they were
programmed. Once they got the go-ahead and
scored and re-recorded the MIDI material with a
90-piece orchestra at Abbey Road, I did a second
mix, using mainly stems from the first mix and
of the orchestra. I had a strange day in New York
pondering whether to mix the whole orchestra
again, but I ended up working in the box with
the provided stems, only bringing some of the
“
Then they gave us the script to read... It got to a
point where it said, ‘Title Music’. And I was
thinking, ‘Shit, this will be a tough one’
”
original tracks back in when I wanted to have
more control.”
you can get screens that are absolutely massive,
but for me it’s still about clarity of thought.
There’s a significant difference between the premix session screen shot sent by engineer Matt
Wiggins, which shows some extensive, sprawling
guitar, vocals and choir tracks recorded in Abbey
Road. Elmhirst’s own screen shot, by contrast,
is exceptionally tidy and compact, with the final
mix at the top, and then an aux track, the band
in stereo, an instrumental version track, timpani,
new percussion, piano, brass, horns, strings, and
Adele’s vocals all neatly arranged. “We do a lot
of bouncing,” explained Elmhirst. “What I’m left
with is one page of extremely clear information
that makes it easy for me to work. I can’t work by
looking at page after page of stuff. Obviously, the
one page idea is slightly redundant now, because
“My assistant, Ben Baptie, prepares my mix
sessions, organises everything and does a lot of
the bouncing, so when I first look at the session,
I’ll immediately be able to understand it and
assign outputs on the console without complex
bussing. It’s my job as a mixer to get to the core
elements and concentrate on those. I always
equate going into the studio to going into the
ring with Mike Tyson, which means I have to
give everything every day. You can’t do it halfhearted. And when I sit down, I want to be able
to go straight into it and reduce any complexities,
problems, and distractions, so I can focus on
what is essential.”
ELECTRIC LADY VOCAL
The essentials of Elmhirst’s mix of Skyfall involved
a particular focus on the vocals, the orchestra, and
most of all, the dynamic shape of the track as a whole.
Elmhirst explained, “Adele’s vocals were a constant
fiddling process. Because her vocal was recorded in
sections in different places, and not in one take or on
one day. I had to do a lot of work to unify it sonically.
That’s why I brought back the original vocal during the
second mix at Electric Lady, rather than just using the
vocal stem. I used a Decapitator, because it can put an
extra harmonic in there and change the timbre. It’s not
driven hard, so there’s no distortion. Other plug-ins I
used on her vocals were the Waves De-esser, UAD 1176
compressor and UAD Pultec EQ, and the Digirack EQ.
The outboard was probably my Urei 1176, Tube-Tech
CL1B, a Neve 1081, and reverbs. Doing her vocals took
a lot of time!
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DOUBLE REVERB
“My two main reverbs in the session were a
Trilliam Lane spring and UAD EMT140 plate.
These two often are my general reverbs. The
spring is quite particular and would not have
been used on everything, but the UAD EMT is
really good and would have been used on many
different things, including the vocals. During
the first mix session at Metropolis I would have
operated them from the console, but once I was
in the stem session they would have been on
a bus in the computer. Aux 2 is the TL and Aux
4 the EMT. The song lent itself to a more divaesque vocal sound for Adele, and the reverbs
helped here, but I also wanted it to sound like
Adele, which is quite simple, without too much
processing. She had to sound quite grand and
classic, but at the same time, natural.
STRUNG OUT
Elmhirst’s house warming at Electric Lady
“The orchestra stands very proud in the final mix. In
the pop world an orchestra can be quite lush and nonaggressive and non-attack-like sounding, with a lot of
bass, and all that stuff gets lost in the mix. It can be a
battle to get the orchestra to cut through. This being a
Bond song, the orchestra had to be a real feature. That
wasn’t too hard, though, because there was very little
fighting the strings and the brass, apart from perhaps
the guitar and the piano. But once the drums kick
off, the main areas of interest are the vocals and the
orchestra. I wanted to keep the drums in there and for
it to sound chunky, but there’s a lot going on and it’s
not easy to discern everything. It does become a wall
of sound, even as everything finds its place.
“At Electric Lady I used the Waves Q10 EQ and Q4
parametric EQ, and the UAD Neve 33609 compressor
and 1081 EQ on the real orchestra to try and replicate
what I had done to the MIDI strings in London. They
were really well done, so I kept some of these MIDI
orchestra parts in the final mix. The Q10 dips out
specific frequencies that were bugging me, 1074,
3175, and 5301Hz, with very narrow bandwidths. I do
that a lot. High mids can really bug me, and I often
find myself fighting this harshness in the 2-5kHz area
in pop records. It looks drastic, but it doesn’t sound
that drastic. I use EQ much more frequently to reduce
things than to boost. I didn’t use any outboard on the
strings during the New York mix session, but they’re
bussed to an aux track (NUST) where I did a lot of
riding and also had some EMT140. But the orchestra
was well-recorded; they know how to do that at Abbey
Road, so the volume automation was the main thing.
In general, the dynamics were the hardest and most
important part of this mix. I had to make sure that
things kept on going and kept on building.”
Elmhirst
used Waves’
Renaissance Bass
to intensify the
bass guitar.
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Squeezing every bit out of those ghostly Karen Carpenter
piano chords makes the intro really stand up.
“
”
STRONG BOND
I felt I had become a little bit too comfortable
in London, so I wanted to shake it up a bit
BUS COMPRESSOR
“I had the UAD SSL bus compressor on the final stereo
mix. I really like it and I used it because of the weird
hybrid I had in New York of stems, original parts, and
the new orchestra. So all the tracks were bussed to
an aux, on which I had the SSL compressor to hold it
all together. Everything went through my EMI Curve
Bender EQ and the Manley Vari-Mu compressor
boxes. 1:47
The latter
Ear Monitors Australia #44outboard
1/12/05
PM is quite
Pageslow,
1 so the SSL
would have done most of the work. Finally, things went
back into the same session via my Cranesong HEDD.”
Surveying the end result a few months later, with a
track that is regularly described as “the best James
Bond song ever,” and that also made serious dents
in charts around the world, Elmhirst reflected, “It’s
quite tough to create a James Bond track to order,
but I think they did an amazing job. It touches
on many things, including the nostalgia of John
Barry’s string moves, yet at the same time it’s
contemporary. They did that brilliantly.”
So did Paul Epworth know he was onto a good
thing during the making, or did the response take
him by surprise? “I knew,” said Epworth. “I always
felt like we were doing the right thing. I found
chords that I would not normally play, and that
was a real learning process for me as a songwriter.
But I can give chords to people all day, and in the
end it might not mean anything. It was Adele’s
lyrics and vocal performance that made it all
count. That’s what makes it worth everything.”
“My EMA in-ear monitors are really good when it
comes to pitching my vocal. And the vocal sounds
great – it’s right up close. My in-ears let me go
anywhere on stage and I get the same result.”
Jimmy Barnes
custom moulded and
generic fit in-ear monitors
Ear Monitors Australia ®
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