The historic event, which saw the original supergroup of Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce reunite on stage for the first time in 36 years, was being filmed by Done and Dusted for future DVD release. Sanctuary has a long history of working with the production company on groundbreaking musical events, and once again was the first choice for providing the soundtrack to the proceedings.
Inside the Sanctuary Manor One truck, recording engineer Alan Douglas - Clapton's studio engineer - was at the helm of the 48-channel E Series SSL desk, recording all four concerts in their entirety to ensure plenty of options would be available in post production. Sanctuary technical manager Mike Silverston looked after the Sony HR DASH machines, while engineer Ollie Nesham took the role of sound unit manager to oversee the live recording.
Sanctuary took passive splits from the onstage monitor console, which went into custom API remote mic amps, enabling Douglas to control the gain, pad and phantom from the truck and drive line level down the 100m of multicore. In total there were about 40 lines from stage.
The band recording was supplemented with around 10 audience mics, a mixture of Neumann KM140s and Sennheiser 416s - to provide ambience. "We rigged a special sling fitted with a Schoeps CMTS 501 stereo mic above the front of house position, which works really well and gives a sense of the room's dimensions, with a few spot mics around the space, so when it comes to mixing it will allow several options such as close up audience sound, crowd ambience and dimensions of the Albert Hall," says Nesham.
The concerts were recorded onto a 48-track, 24-bit, 96kHz Pro Tools HD rig, and everything was backed up to two 48 track Sony 24-bit HR DASH machines, a recent acquisition for Sanctuary, who strongly believe in backing up all recordings onto tape.
Several days of rehearsals were held at Sanctuary's base at Bray Studios prior to the Albert Hall dates. "It definitely helped being able to rehearse at Bray beforehand as it meant we could just run back to the office to pick up extra microphones and other equipment that Alan requested," says Nesham. "It was also great to be able to listen to them rehearsing before we even started on the gigs."
This was no normal concert, as evidenced by the crowds of slightly more mature fans camping out in sleeping bags behind the Albert Hall. Sanctuary encountered a phenomenon that hadn't manifested itself to such an extreme throughout years of recording prestigious events, the presence of frustrated fans pressing their ears against the truck during the show, hoping to hear a little of what was unfolding inside the venue.
With tickets reputedly changing hands for up to £2,000, it¹s safe to predict that the DVD will accomplish record breaking sales on release.
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
