Apollo and UAD Bring Timeless Analog Sound to Broadway
Learn how Tony-award winning Stereophonic captured the tone of a vintage studio onstage.
With a staggering 13 nominations at the 2024 Tony Awards, including wins for Best Play, Best Sound Design for a Play, and Best Director, Stereophonic focuses on a music studio in 1976 where an up-and-coming rock band is recording their new album as they find themselves on the brink of superstardom.
To recreate the warmth and fidelity of the band performing in a ’70s-era analog studio live onstage, Stereophonic's audio production crew — sound designer Ryan Rumery, music director Justin Craig, and composer Will Butler (ex-Arcade Fire) — turned to Universal Audio.
Here, Rumery and Craig detail how they used Apollo interfaces, UAD plug-ins, and the Console app to capture the performers in realtime, as the magic happened on Broadway.
Can you tell us how Apollo interfaces and UAD plug-ins became central to your process for Stereophonic?
Ryan Rumery: From the start, we needed a common language for this ambitious thing that we were attempting to do. Apollo interfaces, UAD plug‑ins, and the Console app are the tools Will, Justin, and myself have used for some time, and we're all fluent in that “language.”
So, we were able to develop a really effective dialogue with which to communicate our ideas right off the bat. We could be on the same exact page from the start.
And we literally shared screens, so we could all be looking at the same inserts and send/returns, the buses, and exactly what the various UAD plug-ins were doing at all times, and what parameters we were adjusting — all the little nuances that go into a real recording session.
Have you ever worked like that before?
Ryan Rumery: I think this kind of close technical collaboration is somewhat rare. Many sound designers like myself prefer to frame this sort of work as a mysterious process that’s unique to them.
Sure, we’ve all got those little quirks that work for us individually, but I'm big into collaboration and sharing of ideas, and honestly, there’s really no mystery. A mixing choice either works or it doesn't.
Justin, what was unique about your role as Music Director in Stereophonic? This isn’t your typical way of presenting musical theater.
Justin Craig: Part of what’s unusual is that I'm both the music director and the co-orchestrator, alongside Will Butler, our amazing composer. For this show, like seemingly all things with Stereophonic, we were in somewhat uncharted territory.
What do you mean?
For example, usually when I'm in the MD role, I'm the bandleader by way of actually playing instruments. But in this case, the cast is the band, and I'm not playing anything. Nor am I really conducting them in any traditional sense. In my non-theater life, I produce and mix records, so I approached the Stereophonic project with a hybrid music director/music producer brain.
How did your "producer brain" tackle Stereophonic?
The producer part of me set out to create an authentic band, so I needed to understand the musicality of each actor, and play to their strengths and find musical phrases and parts that suited their individual skill sets, and that were also effective in driving the song’s emotional content.
One of the actors had a little experience on their instrument and others had to learn pretty much from square one. Vocal arrangements were a big deal and were key to defining the overall sound of the band, bringing out each character’s unique personalities, and for helping them really connect musically.
And, of course, we wanted to create a strong 1970s aesthetic. In short, helping our wonderful actors become a real band with their own sound was the goal. And Ryan was equally important to this process.
“UAD plug-ins are far more than just the ‘icing on the cake’ in Stereophonic. UAD is literally the cake and the icing.”
— Ryan Rumery
What were some of your reference points for the kind of classic analog timbres you were after?
Justin Craig: When we were just beginning to work on Stereophonic, and eventually at Playwrights Horizons off Broadway, I had a list of inspirations — definitely some Fleetwood Mac tracks, some songs by 10CC, Steely Dan, and some of the early Tom Petty records, as well. That great snare sound from the classic Al Green records was definitely on my mind, as well.
Ryan and I agreed that, if we're in a recording studio, and the engineers are doing their job correctly, it should already sort of sound like a record coming out of the monitors.
So anytime the audience is hearing something — any sort of playback — we felt that the guiding concept was that it should all have that classic 1970s studio polish to it.
Ryan Rumery: Fortunately, capturing those exact sounds is one of the greatest strengths of UAD plug-ins. They give you that same sound from the golden age of analog that evokes the mid-'70s incredibly well.
How are the sources routed and processed?
Ryan Rumery: I built the audio pathway so that everything we’re capturing on the stage goes into Apollo and through Console, just like we would for any recording session. Everything is bused coming into Console — vocals, guitar, keyboard, and perhaps most importantly, the drum bus. We really wanted that classic ’70s, velvety sound.
What plug-ins did you use to capture that vintage '70s sound?
Ryan Rumery: For starters, we immediately put the Studer A800 Tape Recorder plug‑in on the master bus, of course. Plus, we used lots of 1176 and Fairchild compression, and of course, the Pultec EQ collection — still the best EQ plug‑ins you can get.
Sometimes we’d record the guitars direct into a Neve 1073 and just turn the input gain way up for that fuzzed-out Beatles White Album sound. So cool.
Most plug‑ins can't handle that kind of approach. There will always be some kind of digital artifact that will tell the ear that what you’re hearing is not really analog. But that’s not the case with UAD.
Have you worked with any of the vintage hardware?
Justin and I have both worked with plenty of that original analog hardware, and the UAD plug-ins have a lot of the very same harmonic and timbral qualities as the classic analog equipment. There simply aren’t any other plug‑ins that hold a candle to UAD.
Honestly, I can't imagine what the show would sound like without Universal Audio gear. It would still sound good, sure, but UAD plug‑ins are far more than just the “icing on the cake” in Stereophonic: UAD is literally the cake and the icing. [Laughs.]
And it isn’t just the plug‑ins, but also the quality and reliability of running audio through Apollo's fantastic converters. There's nothing better. It’s fair to say that between UAD plug-ins and Apollo interfaces, that’s the whole sound of the show.
Stereophonic cast: Julieta Cervantes
Other photos: Justin Craig
— James Rotondi
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