Amber Music Applies Vinyl to Royal Caribbean Spot for JWT New York

March 16th, 2011 by Trenton

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Commercial music company Amber Music (NYC, LA) recreated classic recording techniques to produce the music for the new :30 TV spot “Life” for Royal Caribbean and agency JWT New York.

Amber Music went old skool for Royal Caribbean.

Amber Music producer Leo Sidran re-recorded the original 1941 track, “Are You Having Any Fun?” by Joe Loss, and employed vintage recording techniques to ensure that the track sounded authentic, as opposed to a new-age digital version of “vintage.”

According to Amber Music, Sidran took painstaking efforts to recreate the classic recording techniques that gave old records their unique, identifiable “crackling” sound. After re-recording the track in New York, Sidran cut it to acetate and created a vinyl for the track. “Each time you put the needle in the acetate, it starts wearing,” Sidran explains. “When you play it a few times, you get the old record feel organically rather than adding in fake scratches.”

Amber Music also used ribbon microphones, and recorded all of the musicians at a greater distance from the microphone to mimic the distance created when entire bands and orchestras were recorded on a single microphone. “The bass and treble both changed noticeably, and there was a light analog compression that happened,” Sidran adds.

See the spot, and video of the vinyl mastering facility here.

CREDITS:
Client: Royal Carribean
Title: “Life” :30
Airdate: Currently airing
Music: Amber Music, Bicoastal
Senior Music Producer: Michelle Curran
Composer/Producer: Leo Sidran
Song Title: “Are you having any fun?”
Artist: Joe Loss
Agency: JWT, NY
ECD/CW: Richie Glickman
AD: Michael Ashley
CW: Dinesh Kapoor
Senior Producer: Kristen Barnard
Music Producer: Dan Burt
Director: Raymond Bark
Production Company: Gartner, Santa Monica
Editor: Tom Schachte
Post Facility: Blue Rock, NY