Sanctuary’s analogue mobile recording facilities chosen for RHCP in Hyde Park

Following on from their stunning analogue recording of the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Slane Castle last year, Sanctuary Mobiles was again at hand to record the band’s three nights in Hyde Park, played over two weekends in June before a crowd of 90,000 per show.
’Live At Slane Castle’, which became one of 2003’s best-selling DVD releases, clinched the decision to once again to go down the analogue route. The resulting album, Red Hot Chili Peppers ‘Live in Hyde Park’, was released on July 26 in Europe, Australia, Japan and New Zealand. Advertised before the concerts even took place, the band’s first official live album, which contains 27 tracks over two CDs, looks certain to become a classic, having shot to number one in the UK album charts straight after release.
Once again the Sanctuary Black Truck (Fleetwood One) was used, with four MTR90s whirring away throughout all three gigs to provide a 48-track recording setup with full back-up. Tim Summerhayes, Sanctuary Mobiles’ recording supervisor, kept the signal path as short as possible without compromising the recorded quality. The remote controlled API mic amps fed the signals direct to the tape via the truck’s 96-channel Euphonix console where a little EQ and processing was added where needed. With tapes running at 30ips, a vast quantity of stock was required, resulting in Quantegy cutting and shipping the reels to the UK especially for the project.
"We always use two-inch analogue in the recording studio with the Chilis; they love the sound, as do I," sid the band’s studio engineer Ethan Mates, who also works extensively on their live material. "The ‘Live at Slane Castle’ DVD was a surround sound project put together from just one show, so I ended up transferring the analogue masters into Pro Tools to have an easier time conforming to picture. However, as the Hyde Park shows were for an audio-only release, sound quality became a larger priority than in the past. To this end we recorded to 48-track analogue in the Sanctuary truck, using not only the Chili Peppers' normal stage mics but also several extras I hired to better recreate some of their studio sound."
After the shows, Mates returned to Los Angeles to mix them - again entirely in the analogue domain - using an SSL G series console and printing to Quantegy GP9 1/2-inch tape. The final masters were assembled from his 1/2-inch mixes at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood, also completely avoiding any computers, and transferred to 1630 tape for duplication at the plants. The whole process took just three weeks from showtime to delivering the masters to the duplication plant - an incredibly quick turnaround time made possible only by the Chili’s amazing performances.
(GB)