Budget Options for Recording Orchestras - Part 3: London & Los Angeles

London and Los Angeles are the absolute best locations to record any film or game soundtrack. The level of musicianship as well as stylistic understanding of such music as well as technical level are the best in the world and the results you get from recording there are beyond anything that you might get anywhere else.

However, of course, these recordings come at a price. The budget you need to plan in for such a recording are significantly higher than anywhere else.

Another thing to consider are in both cases strict regulations of what you can record imposed by the musician's union. Most great musicians are organized in a union in these countries so there's no real use in trying to get around the union regulations by hiring non-union musicians.

Such union regulation mainly define what liberty you have when recording music. For instance there is a strict limit of how much music you can record per session (usually a max of 20 minutes per 3 hour session). Also there are extra fees for musicians who play first chair of the section or double on any instruments.

Probably the biggest limitation is that you are not allowed to overdub the same musicians without paying them more than twice (+110%). So recording a small string sections two times to layer the recordings on top of each other comes at the double cost. Of course, the idea behind that is understandable as it is in the interest of the musicians to hire more musicians if you need a bigger sound.

All these issues are usually handled by the fixer but still are a limiting factor that you should calculate.

But particularly the very liberal regulations for these things in Eastern European countries has put quite a bit of pressure on the recording facilities in the US and UK. In fact, for years there has been an exodus of orchestral recordings particularly from LA. Even famous studios like Todd-AO were closed and the frequency of recordings in LA has decreased tremendously.

The general devaluation of orchestral music plus the increasing quality in cheap Eastern European countries combined with the more liberal handling of buyout rights as well as lack of musician unions has lead to a significant change in the orchestral recording world.

There seems to be no end to the current development yet and with musicians unions in the US and UK insisiting on their regulations it is tricky to stop or reverse this.

Yet, as mentioned above, from a qualitative standpoint, both locations are significantly superior to any other location.

One of the deciding factors is the insane sight reading abilities of the players who are in many cases able to deliver not only a useable but actually great first take which in return will of course speed up the recording process.

From the sound quality, the stand out sections are always the brass. Their ability to create the "film benchmark" sound is unmatched. A big factor is the Marching Band tradition in these countries where young musicians early on get used to playing outdoors and loud and punchy. In other countries like here in Germany, such a tradition is not as wide spread.

London Symphony Orchestra, Abbey Road

In 2010, I had the great opportunity to record my Violin Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studio 1 which to this date remains THE benchmark for a recording session experience for me.

Knowing that the LSO would be recording the piece I decided to write a piece that from a complexity level I would never dare to write for instance for Prague. And yet, even the run through takes were great already. One moment I vividly remember was hearing one of the horn players doing their warm up and already being louder and more "epic" than a 4 horn section in Prague.

Abbey Road studios is THE legendary studio where many of the greatest scores were recorded by some of the greatest film composers. The hallways are full with posters and photos of legendary scores and albums that were recorded there.

Studio One particularly has a very special sound. It is to my knowledge the biggest purpose built studio in the world. The surface area is in fact not super big (for instance Teldex in Berlin has a similar surface area) but the ceiling height is huge giving the room a really insane volume.

This comes of course with a quite considerable reverb. The room sounds absolutely marvellous but you have to take it as is. There's not much you can change in the ambience during the mix.

Up to this point I was doing most of my recordings in the considerably smaller Smecky Studios in Prague. Recording at Abbey Road had a few surprises for me that I didn't expect beforehand. The sheer size of the room has a massive influence on the volume of the brass section. While in Prague, I always had the problem that Trumpets at ff would literally bury anything else, a Trumpet ff in Abbey Road was in some moments softer than I had anticipated to a point where it almost lost its leading quality. The sound basically vanished in the huge room.

The room size of course also has influence on how much detail you hear. Anything that is supposed to sound intimate and detailed gets washed over in the studio. However, things that are supposed to sound epic and grand sound absolutely fantastic in this studio.

If I ever have the budget to do so, this would always be my first choice of recording, even before LA. This probably has a lot to do with this experience and the romanticising of the history of this studio. But personally, I also like the sound of Abbey Road a lot.

Budget Estimate

To put some real numbers into the calculation here is an estimate that I requested in 2016 for a recording in London for a project that eventually fell through but the numbers should be rather accurate still:

The price are per one three hour session:

Musicians

Line-Up:  26 (14-12) Violins – 10 Violas – 8 Celli – 6 Double Basses – 2 Flutes – Oboe – 2 Clarinets – Bassoon – 4 French Horns – 3 Trumpets – Timpani – 2 Percussion = 66 musicians 

66 musicians @ GBP 120 per 3 hour session x 1:  GBP 7,920.00

Leader's fee @ GBP 120 per 3 hour session x 1: GBP 120

Doubling / Solo fees (notional, only charged if used): GBP 600

Porterage / Percussion Hire (notional, only charged if used): GBP 1,300.00 

Conductor fees @ GBP 210 per hour x 3 hours:  GBP 630.00 

Subtotal:  GBP 10,570.00 

Booker's Fee @ 10% :  GBP 1,057.00 

Total:  GBP 11,627.00 

(+ VAT if applicable)

Limitations:

• Double-Tracking attracts a fee of 110% of the session fee for the 1st overdub, if required & 110% of the session fee for each subsequent overdub, per person. 
• Filming of the session may incur additional fees and a week’s notice is required in order to obtain clearance from the Musicians' Union - a quote will be provided on request. 
•  No overtime or double-tracking quoted for. - Maximum recording is 20 minutes of music per 3 hour session. The full track length must be included in this minute allowance i.e. not just the performance time
• 100% cancellation fees are payable if the session is cancelled or moved once confirmed. 
• If you wish to record tracks for different artists during the same session, the artists MUST be on the same record label, otherwise another session fee per musician is incurred. 

Studio (Abbey Road Studio 1):

Studio rent: GBP 3.000-3.500

Protools: GBP 500

Engineer: GBP 600-900

Total ca. GBP 5.000

TOTAL per Session: ca. GBP 15.000

The next parts of this series will put this number in perspective but be assured that this is considerably higher than any of the next options.