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Gianluca Massimo on recording Coldplay’s ‘Moon Music’ on AIR Studios’ Neve consoles: “It has become a classic”

Italian-based AIR Studios engineer Gianluca Massimo is a skilled recording and mixing engineer with a versatile body of work spanning film, TV, and music genres and formats. His recordist credits include Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department and Red (Taylor’s Version), as well as the orchestral version of Paolo Nutini’s Take Me, Take Mine for Amazon Music. 

He joined AIR as an assistant in 2019, where he built a strong foundation in recordist and assistant roles on award-winning scores including Hans Zimmer’s No Time to Die, Alexandre Desplat’s Pinocchio, and Rob Simonsen’s The Whale. As a score editor, he has worked on iconic film and TV titles including Stranger Things, Good Omens, Elvis, and he was recently an additional score recordist for 2024 horror film, Nosferartu.

Here, he delves into his role on Coldplay’s recent song, All My Love, and the band’s 10th studio album, Moon Music, how he tackled recording a live Yungblud session, and working on AIR Studio’s iconic Neve consoles, which are essential to his workflow.

You were the strings engineer and recordist for Coldplay’s recent track, All My Love. How did you approach recording the strings for this track at AIR Studios?

That track specifically was very interesting, because the track was pretty much ready from the get-go. Songs tend to change a lot during the recording process, but that one never really changed, because it is basically a classic. We originally recorded strings months before, with a normal layout and a normal-sized orchestra, and then when we got to finalise the song, they were looking to make it more intimate, and we ended up re-recording the strings because we had a relatively big ensemble before. So we replaced what we recorded months before with much smaller sections. 

It's about 11 players, but it was all a bit last minute, so we had the whole room set up for the band. We had to mic the drum kit, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, piano and the vocal booth. The room was pretty much all taken but we managed to carve out a little space and approach it as a very simple way of recording it, even mic-wise. So we were not going bananas with a gazillion mics, but were using the right things in the right spot, and the result is stellar. 

I love remembering what happened in that moment when we approached that song with that little ensemble: they started playing, we got the levels right, and in the room, there was this sense of, ‘it's a classic’. It has become a classic and the song has taken off. It was a beautiful sensation.

In the room there was this sense of: it's a classic.

Strings are often the emotional backbone of a track. How did you ensure that they carried the intended emotional weight in this song?

My background is being a rock and roller, but I've done classical studies as well. There is something about an ensemble and an orchestra – there is a life to it that is really hard to get from any other instrument or any other band. 

There's so much you can tweak within the ensemble to get the sound right – and what you want is incredible. You have such a great palette of colours and techniques that you can really dig into even when you're recording, because it's all well and good to have the part written and done, and usually the arrangers do a stellar job, but there might be some finessing here and there that actually makes a huge difference. 

Well, in my opinion, it is a huge difference. Other people might say it is not that big, but in my opinion, there is a big difference when you feel that everything is sitting in the right place, in the right spot.

Coldplay’s Moon Music album marks the band’s 10th studio release. What was your role in this project?

On this record, I worked as a recordist, as an engineer for all the strings, and as an additional engineer for all the rest of the band stuff. Studio 1 at AIR is an amazing drum room. Michael Ilbert, who's a stellar engineer who works a lot for Max Martin and who has been in the game for a very long time – we tackled loads of things together. Of course, he had a vision, and then it's all about, ‘Let's make it work with what the studio's got’. We kind of divided the work.

Can you walk us through a typical recording session for a high-profile project like Coldplay's? How do you prepare, and what’s your mindset during the session?

There's a huge difference between a band session and an orchestral session because bands don't really have specific times. They could show up at any time! They could stay in the studio up until 4am if they're inspired. When you work with an orchestra, it is very different. They're unionised, so times are very strict. They're very precise, so there are two different approaches. 

I would say what's common is that you need to have the time to set up and properly check everything. When it comes to bands, that becomes a little bit more articulate, because you tend to have loads of outboard in the way, which is all stuff that needs checking. Something could be a little faulty or a little noisy so the chain becomes a little bit more complicated, so there's more to check.

Whilst for an orchestra, depending on many things, you might have a decent amount of mics and not much use of outboard, even though it depends from engineer to engineer. I would say getting absolutely ready, knowing that your lines are working. Everything is working. Your outboard is fine. The console is fine. The mic is fine. The ProTools session is well built and you're all set to go. So when it comes to it, we're ready. We just need to make a couple of level changes, press record, and off we go.

There is an element of a Neve quality in the sound when you're tracking which is irreplaceable.

Being at AIR Studios, naturally you have worked across both The Hall and Studio 1 using the Neve 88R and Custom A7971 (Montserrat) for many years. Do you favour one over the other?

They are two very, very different consoles. The 88R is way more complex, especially as it's an inline console, so it's easier to get into convoluted setups without much faff, which is great. Then the Montserrat console in Studio 1 is way more simple. It's not an inline console. It's got 24 busses, but then, because of its simplicity, there's so much you can achieve just by getting your head around it. 

Whilst the 88R, it's got a workflow that is – I'm not saying it's pretty much set – but it basically is. You can still go around things, but the simplicity of the Studio 1 Montserrat console gives me that feeling of having even more flexibility because you need to think about how to maximise what you've got.

Both consoles have a reputation for their unique sonic characteristics. How do they differ in their tonal qualities, and how do you decide which one to use for a particular session?

The 88R is equipped with 48 channels of the AIR Montserrat preamps, which have been modelled on the AIR preamps that were built in ‘78, which is the one that we've got in Studio 1. We tend to use those as much as possible because they're cleaner, and you can push the gain a little more than the 88R preamps. It's mainly about what the room is going to give more than what the console is going to give. Then, of course, there are some projects where you have a 90-piece orchestra, so you need the floor space as well as the channel count. 

The 88R is a 96-channel, while the Neve Montserrat is a 56 that gets up to 72 with a few Focusrite channels. So, I would say more than the sonic characteristic of the console, it's more about the room the console is in, because we can tie stuff through. It would be great to do something in The Hall and then use the studio in the control room, but that means that someone will have to pay for most of the studios for one day, which is basically never done because it becomes financially difficult!

It is the cleanest console that I've ever come across – it's possibly the cleanest console ever, full stop.

Are there specific genres, instruments or projects where you find these consoles excel the most?

It's hard to tell because it's pretty much everything! The vocals sound great, and the acoustic guitar, drums and percussion sound great. Strings sound awesome. I was brought up on and I studied on SSL, but there is an element of a Neve quality in the sound when you're tracking, especially the preamp, which is just irreplaceable. I can't think nowadays of recording a drum kit without a Neve console, to be honest. Of course, if I have to do it, I can, but I think it makes a tremendous difference.

Coldplay’s music often has an expansive and cinematic quality. Which Neve console did you use for this project and how did it contribute to capturing this essence for their new album?

That album was basically all done in Studio 1 on the Montserrat, except strings for WE PRAY, which were done in The Hall on the 88R. Everything else was done in Studio 1 and that console played a huge part because it's an incredibly clean console that sounds amazing. The EQ sounds amazing. The preamps are so precise. There is a quality on the signal you're receiving. 

It's worth mentioning that, for instance, the preamps are in the room, which is the same for The Hall really, but it derived from the technology that was brought in 1978 with the AIR Montserrat console. The preamps are in the room, so there's never more than 10 or 20 metres in length between the microphone and the preamp, meaning there's no loss of information. That means very precise transients. So the drum sound is really punchy and precise – it really cuts through.

You can tell that it is all very alive and sparkling and not just sitting back, which with other preamps, sometimes you might feel. So that was a huge help. The fact that it is simple means that we could go from the drum setup to putting in a string set-up and just distribute it to the console. Also if we've gone over some channels that we changed, it’s much easier to recall what would have been done before for the other things.

on sessions where you literally have no time, having that immediacy of the Neve Monserrat it is just priceless.

Yungblud’s live session for Coke Studios was also recorded by you at AIR. Live sessions bring unique challenges; which console was used for this one and how did the console perform in capturing the raw energy and authenticity of the live session?

That was in Studio 1 on the Neve Monserrat, which again, proved to be spectacular. It was a very challenging session because we had two days to record it and film it. It was drums, bass, electric guitar, two acoustic guitars, four backing vocals, four brass, piano, grand piano, eight-piece strings, four percussionists, two main vocals – it was huge. The amount of stuff we had to do was just insane, but we managed. 

This console allows you that flexibility and even the EQs are just so nice to use; the points that you can select are so musical that you instantly know where to go with everything. And that might seem silly, but on sessions like that where you literally have no time, having that immediacy in what you do and going with it is just priceless. That is what allowed us to actually make the session happen because it was so full on, there was so much happening and so little time to do everything. Having a console like that was a blessing.

Were there any specific techniques or settings you employed on the console to handle the dynamic range and spontaneity of the performance?

Yes! Another huge plus about using the Studio 1 console is that it has a noise floor to signal ratio which is insane. It's 125dB. It is the cleanest console that I've ever come across – it's possibly the cleanest console ever, full stop. It meant that I didn't have to push things too much, especially when we were tracking all together, which, of course, was unusable, but still, they had to listen to each other. So the dynamic range of the console absolutely helped a lot in giving a lot of room afterwards for the processing needed during the mix stage.

Not having time meant I couldn’t really engage with outboard either. I had one hour to do drums and bass, so I couldn't really engage with outboard, fine-tuning, EQ, and that kind of stuff. So it was great to have a console that actually will take a huge amount of dynamic range, so you don't have to faff around too much with the preamps or, ‘Where is it going to sit?’. You can get to a good starting point that will give you all the flexibility to tweak it at the mix stage.