United Recording Masters “Logan” Soundtrack Album
The soundtrack album for “Logan,” the new hit film finale of the Wolverine franchise, was recently mastered at United Recording’s new mastering studio in Hollywood. On hand for the sessions was Academy Award® nominee Marco Beltrami (Scream, World War Z, Hellboy), who also composed the music for director James Mangold’s previous Wolverine film. Joining in the sessions were music producer and longtime Beltrami collaborator Buck Sanders, music mixer John Kurlander, and Grammy®-winning United mastering engineer Erick Labson.
“When I first watched Logan, I was really impressed with its originality,” Beltrami stated. “Although it’s a Marvel superhero movie, it is also many other movies as well, all tied up into a delicate balance of brazenness and subtlety. Jim is a master at moving fluently between genres and subverting them to present a new emotional landscape. It was in trying to define this landscape in musical terms that I found my puzzle.”
Oscar®-nominated composer Buck Sanders (Hurt Locker, No Escape, Warm Bodies), who served as the Logan score producer, has carved out a niche as one of Hollywood’s top musical experimenters. He is also Marco Beltrami’s right-hand man on nearly 20 years’ worth of prestige films and genre classics. “Mangold’s direction was focused on intimacy and mood rather than the usual massive superhero film score sound,” Sanders said. “He encouraged experimentation, particularly with the instrumentation that includes Hammond B3 organ, glass harmonica, and dueling drum kits. Usually, before the cue writing really begins, we make a lot of sounds for the palette to work with before any ensembles are recorded. For Logan, we really focused on capturing the performances first and using them to create accompanying electro-acoustic sounds. They can more easily follow the dynamic and expressive playing of the musicians.”
Four time Grammy®-winning music mixer John Kurlander (Lord of the Rings, Hurt Locker, 3:10 To Yuma) said, “In the recording and mix process, director Jim Mangold challenged us to come up with recording techniques and sounds that complemented the desolate, rust-covered imagery of the landscape onscreen. We avoid traditional orchestral miking techniques and instead used 3D binaural options. Carbon spot microphones were also utilized extensively. The versatile acoustics of the Newman Scoring Stage at Fox and The Village were very helpful in achieving our vision. Likewise in the mixing, we enjoyed a freedom to break from several film scoring traditions.”
Buck Sanders added, “Erick Labson has been mastering Marco’s scores for 20 years now. While Marco, John and myself have always been more than happy with his mastering skills, the Logan soundtrack mastering was easily the most transparent and natural sounding we’ve heard to date. I asked Erick if he was doing anything different this time around, and he said they had upgraded all of their analog, AES and WC wiring with solid core copper / silver outer coat cables. It made a huge difference. The extra gain and subtle widening of the stereo field that Erick added was very organic to the score. It really felt like a subtle amplification of the original intent.”
Logan stars Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Richard E. Grant, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant and Dafne Keen. The film is set in the near future, following a weary Logan as he cares for an ailing Professor X in a hideout on the Mexican border. The Logan soundtrack digital release was on March 3, 2017 by Lakeshore Records with physical release following a few weeks later.
Article Source: United Recording
Image sources: http://www.imdb.com & United Recording
