Kevin Teasley with the JLo team in Washington DC
USA - When Jennifer Lopez performed a moving medley of This Land Is Your Land and America Is Beautiful at President Biden’s inauguration ceremony, few of the millions of people watching would have realised that British technology played a key role in shaping the sound they were hearing.
Behind the scenes, in the run up to the inauguration ceremony, Kevin Teasley, JLo’s Pro Tools programmer, music producer and musical director for her It’s My Party World Tour, used a comprehensive selection of Neve recording equipment to prepare the pre-recorded music that was vital to ensuring the success of her performance.
“The elevation of the final audio was superb and there is absolutely no doubt that Neve equipment helped us achieve the results we wanted,” Kevin says. “Neve is indeed a real go-to when I work in live, TV, film, records, trailers, promos, broadcast, etc. Basically just about anything that I work on. Neve is included in my workflow on every single project from recording, mixing, and mastering.”
Based in Los Angeles, Kevin Teasley is a composer, producer, sound designer, programmer and musical director, and also the owner and composer of TONIC Music + Creative, a trailer and TV production music company.
Kevin’s involvement in President Biden’s inauguration ceremony came about because of his close working relationship with JLo. When she was asked to perform, her music team immediately got together to help her conceptualise and execute her vision.
“An important part of my role entailed working with all pre-recorded tracks and stems and putting it together into a full performance,” Kevin explains “I worked with the creative team, other music producers and arrangers and also managed the final prep of all audio, Pro Tools session/stems, to turn over to the on-site audio and music team in Washington DC.”
The Neve units used on this project include the company’s 1073 Mic Preamplifiers, a 33609 Compressor Limiter and the 8816 Summing Mixer, all of which are housed in Kevin's studio in Hollywood, CA in the United Recordings Studios on the Sunset and Gower Studios lot.
“When I'm in bigger studios, I run virtually everything (pre-recorded tracks, stems, etc.) through a Neve console,” he says, “In smaller workspaces, I run every track and stem through the Neve 1073 pres, and then across the subgroups with the 33609 Compressor Limiter. I then have the track and stems split out to the 16 channel Neve 8816 to be summed back into Pro Tools to be printed.”
Although all the preparation for JLo’s Inauguration music was carried out in Los Angeles, Kevin did fly to Washington DC for the actual ceremony so that he could be on site for rehearsals and her performance.
“There was a live element to this project because we were fortunate enough to have the President's own Marine Corp Band/Ensemble perform live to our pre-recorded tracks,” he explains. “It was an incredible moment in my career and one that I will never forget.”

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