By Luke Harper

World famous megastar acts are becoming increasingly rare, but at the pinnacle of this phenomenon is the Irish band U2, which has been making music together for 47 years.

Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming With David Letterman is a 2023 Disney Channel retrospective/travelogue/philosophical exploration directed by Morgan Neville and produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. If you’re a U2 fan, this is required viewing. If you’re a music fan, it’s pretty clutch. If you’re a music doc fan, this is peak production.

According to Bono, when Larry Mullen Jr. was injured and Adam Clayton was off making an art film, he and The Edge asked David Letterman to come to Dublin to talk about U2’s songs. It turned out to be so much more than that.

Brian Riordan

I had the opportunity to talk to  re-recording mixer Brian Riordan, who worked with Phil DeTolve on the doc. They finished the audio at Riordan’s Levels Audio in Los Angeles. Both were recently nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Variety Series Or Special for their work, along with music mixer Alastair McMillan.

The doc features run-and-gun-doc-style interviews, traditional seated studio interviews, live performances in music halls and pubs, archival footage. You name it, it had it.

What was your job on the film, and how did you split up the work with Phil (music, dialogue, etc.)?
My job on the film as re-recording mixer was to mix all of the music, archival, ambiences, crowds and sound effects against all of the dialogue that Phil had cleaned up and mixed so well. I then played the film back for Morgan Neville and team and made any adjustments on the mix stage.

What direction were you guys given regarding the mix and the sound?
The primary direction was to keep it all very organic… not to overproduce, overdesign or overprocess things. They really wanted to put the viewers in the film and make them feel like they were walking through Dublin with Bono, The Edge and Dave. They wanted viewers to experience the performances in the Ambassador Theatre as though they were in the room, live. They wanted to place the viewer in the intimate crowd during those pub sessions. That was the overall direction given and the goals we set out to achieve.

So all of the concert stuff was captured live?
The concert performances were 100% live recordings that were then remixed. No other recordings were used to supplement the performances.

What about the interview recordings? How did you guys handle that?
We went through all the interview recordings the same way we did the rest of the dialogue in the film. We used noise-reduction tools, EQ, compression and de-essing where needed, with the goal of preserving as much of the natural warmth and tonality as possible.

What were some of the biggest challenges on this film?
One of biggest challenges was to keep the film very dynamic while ensuring it still translates well over broadcast/streaming. Another substantial challenge was weaving in and out of dialogue, concert performances, interviews and pub sessions and trying to keep it all flowing seamlessly.

Considering all the different sources, the consistency of quality is incredible. How did you accomplish this?
Our team here at Levels works on a wide variety of styles of content, so we have expertise from the run-and-gun to pristine auditorium and hall recordings to immersive audience-mixing and everything in between.

Our sound design team (Josh Reinhardt, Louie Recinos) did a wonderful job building out great-sounding layers, textures and design. The entire team’s ability to blend and match all these different scenes together is something we are proud of. Ultimately, it was all part of Morgan’s vision.

Did you use any previous films as a guide?
We didn’t really reference anything. We felt that this is such a unique film — deeply emotive, cultural/historical, humorous and still very much rock ʼnʼ roll — that we didn’t want it to sound like anything else. Our aim was to allow it to be as dynamic and organic as possible.

Had you worked with director Morgan Neville before? What was his aural aesthetic vision?
Yes, we’ve been fortunate to have worked with Morgan and his team at Tremolo for the past six or seven years. Morgan really let us do what we do, and then he came in at the end to make final tweaks.

There were 18 producers on the doc. How did that work?
There were a whole lot of amazing producers on this film, including Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. On the mix stage, we dealt mostly with Morgan, Seamus Murphy-Mitchell and David Lawrence, and they were all such pros that it made our lives pretty easy.

Jacknife Lee and Alastair McMillan, two U2 stalwarts, mixed the music tracks and contributed heavily. How did that help?
Both provided amazing band performance tracks. They each have an extensive history with U2, and I’m sure there is a great foundation of trust between them. I believe that made the sign-off process that much smoother for us in the end.

How do you approach the music in a film that’s entirely about music? I ask because the de-noisers were out, and those don’t traditionally feature in music mixing.
Weaving in and out of archival music performances, huge crowds, dialogue-driven sections, performances in small pubs, contemplative conversations at the train station… that gave us so much to work with. There was so much dynamic variation. The Ambassador Theatre sections and the verité run-and-gun scenes are definitely treated and mixed differently.

In the verité, we are trying to make it sound natural and raw so you feel like you are there in the room with them. The scene with The Edge playing “Where the Streets Have No Name” was all about hearing it just like Dave was hearing it, right there in the room. And believe it or not, there is de-noising going on in some capacity during scenes like that. Whereas the Ambassador performances have a little more U2 production sparkle, with their use of reverbs and delays and such. This was also a much more polished recording compared to the production recordings in the field, therefore they didn’t really require much de-noising or processing on our end.

(Writer’s note: The scene where The Edge plays the intro to “Where the Streets Have No Name,” which then transitions into the live version, is by itself enough to make this film worth watching.)

Did you need/have access to any concert stems, like Red Rocks?
No, we only had the stereo print masters from the archival concert recordings or stereo album masters. We then created 5.1 upmixes of those tracks using Nugen Halo as well as Penteo 16 Pro.

What was in the control room for this one?
Since we were involved mainly on the post side, we didn’t really see what was under the hood when they were performing at the Ambassador Theatre, although we sure wish we could have been there in Dublin during the shoot.

Were you brought on because you were acknowledged fans and would have the reverence, or is everything reverential?
We are absolutely fans, but I think that had little to do with our participation in the experience. It all comes down to the relationship with Morgan and team and the trust they place in us to bring the sonic vision to life.

That was the best production of a bar singalong I have ever heard.
Thank you! It was very challenging and rewarding to blend and weave the Ambassador performance with the bar singalong and still maintain the intensity and emotion of both performances (not to mention the depth and width and fullness of the song). It really proves the hypothesis the filmmakers had all along, which is that these songs, stripped down, still maintain their greatness.

What tools did you use for your work? Any plugins?
We mixed the film exclusively in Avid Pro Tools on an Avid S6 console. We used a lot of plugins, including Penteo 16 Pro, Nugen Halo, Waves Clarity Vx, iZotope RX and various EQs, compressors, reverbs, etc.

You were nominated for an Emmy for your work. What about this film did you think was deserving?
I believe this film was recognized by our peers in the academy for its overall sonic quality and the journey viewers take through the soundscape. I feel that it is more than a documentary about a band or a country. It is truly a private, exclusive experience for the viewers and fans. I believe it is a unique film that stands on its own in a way that hopefully is noticed and appreciated by the Emmy voting community.

Luke Harper is an audio engineer and instructor of 25 years. He lives Minneapolis, where he owns an Atmos mix facility, called DeCoded Audio.