Page 2: Inside Track: Andrea Bocelli 'Fall On You'

'Fall On Me'

• Written by Chad Vaccarino, Ian Axel, Fortunato Zampaglione and 
Matteo Bocelli.
• Produced by Bob Ezrin.

This section of a Pro Tools Edit window shows all of the active audio tracks that were used in the final mix of 'Fall On Me'; most of the orchestral tracks had already been bounced to a single stereo track.

Surprisingly, the final Pro Tools session for 'Fall On Me' contains only 25 active tracks, plus about the same number of inactive orchestral tracks. The active tracks consist of, from top to bottom, five mix print and master tracks, two tracks of Andrea Bocelli vocals, three tracks of Matteo Bocelli vocals, a piano track, an orchestra live track, a low strings aux track, five instrument overdub tracks, an orchestra 'AIR Reprint' track (which is muted), plus three reactivated orchestra tracks, one with 'cello and two with bass. At the bottom are three aux effect tracks, with Valhalla Plate, Audio Ease Altiverb (on the Haydn Hall preset), and UAD EMT 140 reverbs. Notable in the session is that by far the most plug-ins are used on the two vocal tracks.

Cortelyou: "Other sessions look pretty similar, though particularly the tracks with programming are a lot denser. I normally put the vocals at the bottom of the session, just above the aux returns, but in this case, because the vocals were so important and we were looking at them so much, it was annoying to scroll down all the time, so we put them near the top. Although we were working on the vocal tracks for most of the time, we also were working on just the sound of the strings, or listening to the interplay between the piano and whatever else was going on. So we'd sometimes mute the vocal to see what was going on underneath, making sure there were no conflicts, and that we captured all the little runs and passes. But the vocals were definitely the main focus."

Vocals

Although relatively few plug-ins were used elsewhere in the mix, both Andrea and Matteo Bocelli's vocals received fairly extensive treatment. This screen shows the EQ plug-ins applied to Andrea's voice."There are five vocal tracks because Andrea and Matteo sang some doubles, and also when we were in Nashville, some production decisions were taken about where to use Andrea's and where to use Matteo's vocals. Matteo re-sang the first chorus, which is the third track. We used slightly different EQ than on the previous take. The vocal chains we used on the two of them are different from any other vocal chain I have done! Andrea's vocal chain starts with the Massenburg Designworks EQ, with just a low cut and adding some high end. Next is the Eiosis e2 de-esser, cutting around 6kHz; the UAD Fairchild 670, not doing very much, only compressing in some hot spots; the Manley Massive Passive EQ boosting some high end; and the Maag EQ2, doing a sub low cut and adding some more air.

The small amout of compression used on Andrea Bocelli's vocal came from the UAD Fairchild emulation."All three aux reverbs were used on Andrea's main vocal track, as well as on Matteo's vocal tracks, because the reverbs each have different characteristics and it was all about getting the right blend. The Haydn Hall makes it sound a bit more like in the big hall at AIR, and the Valhalla Plate is a little brighter and not as dense. The EMT adds some warmth. We always played around with these three to get the right combination of colours. I had this vocal chain on Andrea's vocal in every song on the album, though there will have been slight differences in settings.

A similar, but not identical EQ chain was applied to Matteo Bocelli's vocal."Matteo's vocal chain was very similar, apart from that I replaced the 670 with the Neve 33609. It was definitely a process to get the right chain and the right settings to make sure Andrea's and Matteo's vocals worked well together. We had to make sure they retained their own sonic characteristics, and at the same time that they fit with each other. We also worked a lot on that with Ed Sheeran's and with Dua Lipa's voices, which were each recorded on completely different setups. Getting each to match with Andrea's vocals took a little bit more work."

Instruments

"I believe we used the demo piano on this song, and all we had on it was the Avid EQ7. Next down in the session is the 'live mix' orchestral stem from AIR, which also has the EQ7, and by the time we got used to that, we found there was a bit of a build-up around 300Hz, which we dipped with the Massenburg EQ, which is my go-to EQ. I love it for carving, especially on strings, as it's so transparent and doesn't get phasey. Then there's the Waves PuigTec, for some shimmery top‑end air, and it also has a send to the Valhalla Plate, which is incredible. It's one of my favourite reverbs, and costs just $50! Once again, trying to find the right environment for everything was a big deal. It had to sound natural and also have the air that fits the song.

"Below the orchestral stem is a 'Low String' aux track, to which the 'cello and bass tracks further down are sent, and on which I again have the Massenburg EQ. Next down are some overdubs — the orange tracks are horns, and there's an articulate high string pass and a concert bass drum pass. The blue track below that is the 'AIR reprint' track, the print of Bob sending our mix again through the Neve at AIR, which we didn't use. So it's muted. The greyed-out tracks are all the individual orchestral tracks, which all went through the 'String Pass A'. You can still see all the plug-ins we applied to that, which was us trying to get the sound right! The 'cello track further down has the UAD API 560 and again the Massenburg EQ, and the two bass tracks have the Massenburg as well. We fit these tracks in with the main orchestra track."

Master Bus

"The master track at the top is coming off the Burl summing mixer and Lavry converter, and then I print it on the track below that. If I am doing an Alice Cooper track or something like that there might be a couple of plug-ins on it, maybe an EQ, or if it is in the box mix an SSL two-bus compressor, and I will then print that, and that's what I send to mastering. But on this case I had nothing on the two-mix. Purely for playback for clients I do fake mastering by sending the track to the aux below it with the Slate FG‑X, so it gets a little bit of a level boost, a little bit of a mastering polish, so clients don't go into their cars and say: 'Hey, why is it so quiet?'

"We used Bob Ludwig to master Si, and he is a genius. When we first started out we wanted to make sure that we were getting the most out of the gear that we were using. So we printed through the Burl Mothership, which is a fantastic converter, but it also adds a little bit of colour. We did a shootout with a few different converters, and we ended up with the Lavry, because it sounded identical to what we monitored right off the summing mixer. We also sent mixes printed through the Avid IO, the Burl and the Lavry to Bob Ludwig, and he was very helpful in getting the right converter for the A-D stage, and he agreed it was the Lavry."