Brandon Christy

Producer and writer for Robbie Williams

 

For various years producer Brandon Christy has been working extensively with L.A. production/writing team The Matrix on various pop and rock artists. Last year he began dipping his toe in the world of film music, writing and producing for the movie Muppets Go to Oz with Ashanti and Queen Latifah and remixing Michael Giacchino's (Alias, Lost) score for the Disney/Pixar movie The Incredibles. Recently he gave the NBC entertainment news show Access Hollywood a new version of their theme, he wrote several years ago and wrote/produced The Actor for the RudeBox album of superstar Robbie Williams together with Craig Russo.

 

What are working on at the moment?

I am about to start scoring a series called Psych (USA Network) with two friends and colleagues, Adam Cohen and John Robert Wood, as well as the music for a sitcom on ABC called Crumbs.

 

Did you use Melodyne on these or earlier projects?

I have used Melodyne on all my vocal projects and am just starting to experiment with using it on instruments and drum loops. It's such a huge advance in audio manipulation. I feel that I have only scratched the surface of what it can do.

On one of our pitches for the Crumbs theme song, we actually transposed a female vocalist's performance up a 5th in order that we could try her vocal over another pre-existing track in another key. The client literally didn't notice. In the mix, it sounded completely natural.

Working with Robbie Williams, Melodyne allowed us to capture and use a fantastic one-take vocal performance which is basically what you hear on the RudeBox record. The MelodyneBridge worked flawlessly in the Pro Tools environment.

 

Can you tell us a bit more about the work with Robbie Williams?

Craig Russo and I had a really good time working with Robbie even though he was right in the middle of preparations for his world tour. By the time we got to cutting vocals, his attention was being pulled in 20 different directions and we were lucky if we got two or three takes from him. Melodyne allowed Rob to concentrate on what he does best – character and performance – and allowed us to capture a real moment – a great pop singer, brimming with energy and enthusiasm just minutes after having written a song, giving an outrageous and creative performance straight into Pro Tools. Instead of having an exhausted singer who feels like they're being milked, Melodyne gives us the opportunity to capture an artist 'in the moment' and doing their thing without being slowed down by minor tuning, timing and volume details that can be invisibly and seamlessly tweaked later.

 

How did Melodyne change the way you work with audio files?

I am much less stressed out about what goes down on tape/disk because I'm aware of how radically I can change it when I get it back to the studio. Fixing on a key is no longer a big issue. As long as we're in the ballpark, I know we can transpose the vocal with little or no artifacts later.

 

How is your workflow with Melodyne? How is it included in your setup? Any tricks and tips?

I use Melodyne with the MelodyneBridge working in Pro Tools 7 on an HD rig. With Melodyne, I am able to concentrate on the singer's performance without being held up by technical minutiae. Far from vocal sessions being a bit of a chore, I find them faster, more enjoyable and I get better results.

One tip is to tell Melodyne the vocal range of the song before it detects the melody. This really helps it avoid any misreading of strange harmonics in the performance.

 

What do you like especially about Melodyne?

In my early years, I used to sing a lot. These days I work more in production and with others singers' vocals. Working with Melodyne almost makes me feel like I'm singing again. I get to make a lot of stylistic decisions and mold performances in ways that I think help the track. I can make a super-accurate singer sound relaxed bluesy and vice versa.

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