Such dream space is the elixir Cirque du Soleil bottles and vends in its widely popular shows, extravagant productions that combine acrobatics, dance, costumes, music, theater, projected film, and traditional circus stunts. Of five different Cirque productions currently running in Las Vegas, the newest, LOVE, draws inspiration from none other than the music of the Beatles. Surreal interpretive vignettes unfold before the audience nightly at the Mirage hotel and casino, meshing with a never-before-heard remixed soundscape of Beatles music and dialogue. “A Day in the Life” features a fluid flying dance routine and an emotional death-by-car-accident sequence, while “Revolution” showcases a trampoline-driven display of raucous, youthful rabble-rousing. Whether displaying the joyful brilliance of “Here Comes the Sun” or the bittersweet melancholy of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” LOVE is one of the most unique, wonder-inducing productions we’ve ever seen.
With the exception of LOVE, every Cirque extravaganza uses live musicians and a bandleader who actively integrates music into the show, syncing sound to action on the fly. LOVE, however, called for a completely different approach. “After [Beatles producer] Sir George Martin signed on, it was decided that the show would exclusively use the recorded music of the Beatles from the tapes at Abbey Road,” says Gavin Whiteley, the veteran keyboardist and sound technician who holds the position of Music Playback Engineer for LOVE. “I was chosen because they knew that they would need someone who would have the knowledge and skill of a musician, but the experience of an audio engineer.
“LOVE’s musical directors are George Martin and [his son] Giles Martin,” Gavin continues. “They were the midpoint between the Beatles and the final music for this show — I’m the one who programmed the system that plays that music back for every performance.”
The Nitty Gritty
A music editing suite backstage in the Mirage was built to closely mirror the studio in Abbey Road where, starting three years prior to the opening of the show, Sir George and Giles began digitizing Beatles original analog recordings into Pro Tools for the first time ever. The Martins continued working up until the show opened, transferring the files to Gavin as they were completed. “I captured the tracks from Pro Tools running at 96kHz, 24 bits,” he says. “They went on to a PC running Magix Sequoia Version 8, which is very similar to Pro Tools. It’s a multitrack digital workstation used a lot in broadcasting and for post-production playback. The Beatles sessions were mixed up to 32 tracks, and in Sequoia. I edited those 32 tracks into multiple samples before transferring them as WAV files to TASCAM GigaStudio version 3.2. I built instruments in GigaStudio to play them back.
“We wanted to treat the audio as samples, so when we had to go from one point in the show to another, the sound wouldn’t just come to a screeching halt. We could have the decay time of the sample programmed to whatever it should be, then jump to another point in the show and have them overlap.”
Gavin constructed his system so GigaStudio is triggered by Realtime Music Solutions Sinfonia, a Linux-based MIDI file playback program normally used for Broadway-type shows. “It’s a very fast system and it offers some very handy tools for manipulating the tempo of MIDI files and creating customized vamps and loops,” he says. “So we use that tool to play back standard MIDI files that I built in [Apple] Logic. I can navigate the show very easily in Sinfonia, using it to play back the samples coming out of GigaStudio.”
To control Sinfonia and trigger samples in GigaStudio, advance to another song, or otherwise cue sections of the show, Gavin uses MIDI controller keyboards; at the time of the interview, he employed an Edirol PCR-M50 as his primary MIDI controller, backed up by a Korg microKontrol, though he plans to upgrade to twin Korg Kontrol 49s. Among other features he likes, the Korgs “have faders, MIDI sliders that I use to control the volume of my 5.1 [surround system]. The MIDI output gets sent to a Yamaha PM5D console that acts as a monitor console for all of backstage. Also, it has the 16 pads that I use to send a MIDI note to GigaStudio and trigger the show savers, which are the extra bits of dialogue or music that we can drop in on the fly.
“The MIDI data is sent three places using a MOTU MIDI Express XT router. The data from each keyboard goes to Sinfonia, to GigaStudio to trigger show savers directly, and to the Yamaha monitor console to control the master volume of my monitor mix.”
Themes and Variations
“I trigger sections of the music and whole songs,” says Gavin, describing his nightly role in the production. “Sometimes I cue off the stage manager, sometimes off the response of the audience. There are ambient mikes in the house that I use to listen for applause before I move on to certain sections of the show.
“Ultimately, the acts are played out in the same order,” says Gavin. “The LOVE album, that’s essentially the set lists for the show.” Things don’t always go that smoothly, however, and that’s where Gavin’s show savers come in. “If it ever happens that there’s a mechanical issue with the set, we have some segments of dialogue and music lined up with extra projection material that we can drop in on the fly and fill up any space we need without disrupting the show.”
The contingency plans don’t stop there. “With songs, whenever musically possible, we’ve already created loops of the music that enable us to stretch out without sounding like a broken record — and without repeating any of the lines Beatles fans know by heart. A good example of this is the musical transition from ‘Within You Without You’ into ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.’ It’s a very ambient, fluid section with pieces of harpsichord and long drones. We can extend that for long periods of time if we need to. You can’t do that with a CD, or with any other sort of music playback format that could have been chosen for this show.”
All You Need is . . . SMPTE
LOVE has an astonishing amount of moving parts. Acrobats, props, projections, music, and chunks of the stage flow together in an exquisitely choreographed dance that seems to rely on split-second timing. What’s to keep the giant octopus from running into the Volkswagon Beetle and crashing through the surreal façade of war-torn London that just appeared center stage?
“One of the key features that makes LOVE different from other Cirque shows is the consistent use of SMPTE time code,” Gavin explains. “There are a lot of projections in our show, and most of those are synchronized to the music with SMPTE. The time code isn’t generated during the show, as in we’re not using any MIDI-to-SMPTE conversion. Of the 32 tracks of audio that were transferred from [the Martins’] Pro Tools session, one of those tracks is time code, so it’s lined up with the music in Pro Tools. When it was transferred to my system, the time code is lined up exactly, so it cuts samples of SMPTE just parallel with the music. It’s triggered with the music, and that gets sent out throughout the theater, so the projections department can cue their files in exact time with the music.
“It enables us to reproduce the show night after night. It may change sometimes, but the music should be as consistent as possible. The show we did the very first day with all the Beatles and their families present should be the same show people are going to hear the entire time the show’s running.”
CPU and Switching
With the show scheduled to run for at least ten years, Gavin and his team need a thoroughly reliable computer playback system — and insurance, in case something goes wrong. “GigaStudio is great for streaming multiple tracks of audio, but it’s a very demanding program, since it works on the kernel level of a PC,” says Gavin of his workhorse application. “It’s crucial that the hardware is completely top notch and bottleneck free. We chose Rain Computers Element 64 and have never had a glitch. The playback system consists of the Rain computer with an RME HDSP MADI soundcard connected to two Apogee DA-16x converters.
“We have two of everything when it comes to the music playback chain,” he continues. “If anything fails, post-DA converter, we have a 32-channel analogue switcher that can be controlled remotely. We actually have two Rain computers that are playing the same audio down to the sample, so I can flip between them. The transition is seamless, so I can do it during a vocal passage and not hear any pops or clicks. It’s really phenomenal.”
Despite the most meticulous preparations, snafus do happen and a handful of LOVE performances had to be stopped midway through, due to mechanical problems. “To put it in a greater context, today there are five Cirque shows in Las Vegas,” says Gavin. “Every successive show has become more and more mechanically complex. Our stage is a one-of-a-kind automation system made up of about ten pieces that open and close to create gaping holes, level surfaces, or any variation thereof. If any of those pieces move incorrectly, it’s an unsafe environment. We’ll stop the show if it means avoiding an artist injury. Any time there is a slight pause or hiccup, we’ve already musically prepared contingency plans, alternate endings, or loops of music, so we can buy extra time and keep the music of the soundtrack coming.”
The Sounds and the Legacy
Hearing one Beatles song morph into a re-imagined version of another, one can’t help drawing comparisons with contemporary mashups. Were any modern elements used? “The only part of the show the music that was not recorded in the ’60s is the strings section accompaniment to ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps,’” says Gavin. “At the beginning of the show’s development, we used the solo acoustic demo that George Harrison recorded in Abbey Road before the song became the well-known produced version. At one point, Olivia Harrison felt the song deserved a stronger treatment, so a couple months before the show opened, Sir George returned to Abbey Road and recorded a full string section accompaniment he had written and arranged. That section turned out to be the last contribution he’ll ever make to the legacy of the Beatles, and we were very fortunate to have heard that music accompanying George’s voice and guitar months before anybody else could.
“All the drum sounds are taken from the Abbey Road recordings,” Gavin continues. “Sometimes there are drum sounds from other songs that are laid on top. ‘Octupus’ Garden’ uses drum beats from ‘Lovely Rita,’ for example.”
Gavin more than appreciates just how sweet his gig is. “Sir George and Giles are wonderful people and it’s truly an honor to be working so closely with both of them,” he says. “It’s really exciting to work on essentially the first new Beatles music to come out in 40 years.”