We sat down with Abbey Road senior engineer Andrew Dudman to discuss his role recording and mixing Alan Menken’s music with new song lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Andrew Dudman mixing in the Penthouse
Photo by Mike Higham
Mike and Andrew at the London premiere
Working closely with music producer Mike Higham, Andrew recorded the songs and score between 2020-23 at AIR Studios, British Grove Studios and Abbey Road.
2020
"We did some recording for the songs in Studio One and a few overdubs in Studio Three, but the majority was done at AIR Studios (orchestra) and British Grove (vocals & additional overdubs) in Feb/March 2020.
I was supposed to mix all the songs in the Penthouse at the end of March 2020, but only managed two days before COVID shut us down. I ended up mixing all the songs in my home loft studio space, so that they would be ready for Disney as soon as the lockdowns ended.
I was remote reviewing mixes with the director Rob Marshall in New York and music producer Mike Higham in Surrey using Audiomovers for the high quality audio and then Zoom for communication."
2022
"After the film was shot and during the editing process, we did various different blocks of work on the score, mostly at AIR, though John Barrett did a vocal session here in the Front Room, with mixing either in the Penthouse or in New York. I ended up spending five weeks there in two blocks of time last year."
2023
"As they finished up with the editing, we completed the score recording at AIR plus a choir session in Abbey Road Studio Two in February.
I then mixed these last bits of score in the Penthouse and finally finished the CD mixes and Atmos mixes."
Other Abbey Road staff involved in the recording at various points were engineers John Barrett and Gordon Davidson, recordist George Oulton, assistant engineer Neil Dawes and runners Alice Bennett and Annie Gasiorowski.