Los Angeles, CA (February 2, 2016)—Mastering engineer Brian Lucey of Magic Garden Mastering in Los Angeles worked on Ringo Starr: The Lifetime of Peace & Love Tribute Concert, a fundraiser for The David Lynch Foundation, and now a release on Communion Records.
The January 20, 2014, performance honored Starr along with a host of guest vocalists. Bob Clearmountain mixed the performance recordings, which include some of Ringo’s biggest hits from his solo career and with the Beatles.
“This record featured players like Peter Frampton, Don Was, Steve Lukather and Kenny Aronoff—and that was just the backing band. So I knew the performances were going to be incredible,” reports Lucey, whose credits include The Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys, Ray LaMontagne among many others.
On Ringo Starr: The Lifetime of Peace & Love Tribute Concert, Lucey knew there would be sonic constraints that he needed to work within. “There’s an expectation of realistic frequency balance on a live record that you have to respect,” he observes. “But many live records are done in an overly clean and sterilized way.”
Guest performances included Betty Levette, who brought the house down with her rendition of “It Don’t Come Easy.” “You have Brendan Benson, Ben Harper, Ben Folds, and of course Ringo all on there. And, there’s Joe Walsh’s guitar tones, which you could hear a mile away,” Lucey adds, “but getting his voice and guitar, which are both very high-mid aggressive, to fit on a record with all these other singers took some finesse.”
He continues, “There’s no reason why a live record shouldn’t come across like being at the event. I like low midrange and low end, and I look for ways to push that part of the spectrum because that’s the part that the listener can really feel. It gives a record that powerful, connective quality that I think is really important.”
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