Lewis Capaldi
Have you ever been to the Masonic lodge in Covent Garden…? We spent a day there capturing a performance by Lewis Capaldi for the launch of his 1st album. Sometimes it’s not just the technical that’s challenging when recording live music on location, but also logistics. Driving vans into Central London, followed by long load in’s through ornate and listed buildings, all before the technical challenge of a long walking shot wirelessly recorded. Live piano was captured with beautiful ribbon mics accentuating the ambience of the church like space. ALX worked with Lewis again going into album 2 at the vevo studios in London - it’s never a dull shoot with Lewis!
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Ed Sheeran
With Ed releasing his new album “subtract”, Mahogany were selected to create 8 live performances in one day for a number of media outlets. ALX sound covered the sound recording of all performances, liaising with Ed’s team to create seamless sound recording and monitoring across three locations. Set up’s varied from solo performances with hidden mics to a 10 piece band with strings, drums, multiple vocals and Aaron Dessner on piano. It was a challenging but rewarding day that required meticulous planning and proficiency with various digital audio systems. Everything was recorded, with multiple redundancy’s, edited and delivered in the one day.
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Burna Boy
The U.N, as in THE United Nations, was a surprise client to see on an email but we were immensely proud to help facilitate this last minute performance for the Nations United film. Called with only 48 hours notice to prep we spoke directly with the band and MD, made all technical arrangements and captured a full multi track recording. In keeping with the short notice delivery was 24 hours later so mixing took place the same night as the shoot and the final mix and master was delivered to edit 6am the next morning.
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Ed Sheeran
Dodie
After first working together at The Great Escape in 2017 and subsequently on multiple Vevo sessions, we were very excited to be approached directly to record and mix a special live performance video series for the ‘Hot Mess’ EP. Alongside Director Tash Tung, Creative Director Greta Issac and Dodie herself, we worked out the solutions to capture the ideas, recorded everything in the space live, and mixed the performances with Dodie via both in person and remote sessions.
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Koffee
Another ambitious campaign for Vevo Lift involved recording and mixing Koffee; performing with The Compozers over multiple floors in an amazing central London location. Everything was to be loaded in, sound checked, recorded and broken down in 2 days which required careful planning and particular attention to RF for IEMs and Wireless mics. The end result received a nomination at the 2022 UK Music Video Awards.
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Sigrid
Working with Sigrid and her touring team on a number of shoots we’ve witnessed the highest level of professionalism and musical ability you could hope to find. From The great escape via DSCVR artists to watch to most recently a Vevo Studio Performance, we ensured a simple integration of Jan Halsvik’s touring desk for In Ear Monitoring whilst using the permanent infrastructure at Vevo Studio for capture. Always amazing performances, recorded entirely live and mixed in post by ALX Sound.
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Koffee | Vevo LIFT
Carly Rae Jepsen
True Pop royalty- we first worked with Team CRJ for an exclusive Vevo Performance before being tasked with maybe the most ambitious ALX Sound job to date - a live performance in Lapland (a real place it turns out!). After some Zoom meetings with the production company, director James Barnes and CRJ’s stage managers, we successfully sourced all hire equipment, arranged trucking to Finland, met it the other side and built an outdoor recording set up next to a lake in northern Finland. A truly memorable few days.
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Dylan
In 2022 Kaizen Collective and Universal Music asked us to capture, mix, master and deliver a full recording of Dylan’s headline show at Koko. We had done a similar recording the year before for her headline show at The Garage, as well as partnering on a Vevo DSCVR session and mixing the MTV Push performance. Alongside recording for the live video (which was directed by Jack Kirchner), we also delivered 6 mixes for the re-release of the album. From The Garage to Koko, next stop…Wembley?! Fingers crossed
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Bastille
One of the highlights from 2022 was the addition of Coal Drop Sessions to ALX Sound regulars; your favourite bands, on a canal boat. Genius! A particularly special moment was recording Bastille playing the OG classic ‘Flaws’. They were rich with harmonies and somehow managed to not get distracted by the ever growing crowd following along on the shore. There’s certainly some logistical issues to contend with working on a boat, but we’ve created a rig that’s highly portable and can be entirely run on battery power.
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Dylan
Sam Fender
We’ve recorded and mixed live sessions with Sam twice, one of the most proficient musicians you could hope to meet. The emotion pouring out of his performances are unmissable and it was a privilege capturing him playing powerful songs with his band of school friends. Possibly the only genuine ‘One Take Wonder’ in ALX history as well.
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Cat Burns ft Sam Smith
Working with Amazon Music and director Charlie Sarsfield is always fun, and with Charlie, often a technical challenge due to his ambitious ideas. So when asked if we could manage Cat Burns and Sam Smith, traveling form outdoors into a building, recording live with monitoring via IEMs we of course said yes! It was a head scratcher to work out the rig but we specced out the best wireless available and with a little on the day troubleshooting had everything working to achieve great results. We worked with Cat again for the Brit Awards rising star performances capturing and mixing a beautiful solo performance.
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Kasier Chiefs
Getting to work with a band you grew up listening to is a great reminder of the joy of the work we do, and Kaiser Chiefs banging out Ruby was a real dream to record and mix after seeing them live multiple times as a teenager. One of the loudest acts - pure rock and roll!
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Cat Burns ft Sam Smith
Years & Years
We’ve worked with Olly and the rest of Years and Years on a number of occasions, from their early days doing Vevo DSCVR, to a more established Vevo Lift shoot and most affectingly for the Google Nest Sessions shot in Lockdown. Tasked with capturing and mixing session during a global pandemic was a technical challenge - we talked artists through various set ups via Zoom and What’sApp. Olly delivered a beautiful performance which required some post production but the end result felt especially moving.
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Tom Grennan
Tom first came to Vevo DSCVR and we’ve worked again with him and his team to record and mix performances for Vevo, Sony and as part of the St Patricks Day online special when Lockdown prevented the usual festivities. Always a fun and passionate musician to work with.
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Denzel Curry
Recording Denzel was one of the easiest sessions to record due to his impeccable delivery and consistent performances. One of the most talented vocalists we’ve ever worked with who delivered perfect performances back to back to back.
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Tom Grennan
Headie One
Headie was the first artist to ever grace the Vevo Rounds stage and excelled in his performance. Recorded and mixed for Vevo DSCVR.
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Shaybo
Queen of the south! We first worked with Shaybo for Vevo before getting involved with the MOBO awards to record a special nominee performance directed by Charlie Sarsfield. This provided unique technical challenges due to the layout of the building but through careful use of wireless for both monitoring and recording we were able to capture the incredible live performance which was later broadcast as part of the MOBO live stream.
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Craig David
The legend! The most positive and uplifting artist you could hope to work with and undeniably a fun experience to find yourself editing and mixing Craigs vocals.
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Shaybo