Solid State Logic production tools helped Usher deliver a halftime show at Super Bowl LVIII, with producers The Avila Brothers, Lil Jon and Kronic using an SSL Duality console for mixing, and multiple SSL 12 USB interfaces for breakout production sessions while at Hideout Recording Studios in Las Vegas.
“One hundred percent of all of our pre-production recording was done at Hideout Studios, The Avila Brothers and Mike Smith’s SoundVille studio in Nashville and Larrabee Studios in Los Angeles with Manny Marroquin working on the 96-channel Duality, and also using the SSL 12 interfaces,” commented Bobby Ross Avila.
He had reached out to Marroquin directly in September 2023 and recruited him to the team, the audio team also included Bruce Bang, Nick Anderson, Kyle Hamilton, Jeremy Peters and Adrian “AP” Porter.
“A lot of what IZ was doing on his DJ controller he ran through the SSL 12,” continued Avila, who also used the interfaces to introduce his synths and vocoder into the mix. “The production team depended on the SSL products to deliver the highest quality audio that such a high-profile event like the Super Bowl demands,” he noted. “The one thing that SSL is synonymous with is that punch. so we’re making sure that everything translates.”
“SSL has been in the room with us from start to finish. That’s our standard,” IZ Avila confirmed. “We had to figure what it’s going to sound like in the stadium to make sure the detail of the live instrumentation doesn’t get washed out and lost, and then be cautious of how it all translates over broadcast, because those are two very different processes and require different approaches as it relates to the mix.”
On Super Bowl Day, Usher took to the field with guests Alicia Keys, Jermaine Dupri, H.E.R., will.i.am, Lil Jon and Ludacris, and a production featuring dancers, acrobats, marching band, drumline, roller skates, and numerous costume changes. Having so far achieved nine No. 1 and 18 Top 10 hits with record sales of more than 80 million, the eight-time GRAMMY Award winner had plenty of songs to choose from and delivered 14 songs in almost 13 minutes.
Speaking days before the event, IZ Avila, reported, “We’re probably at 124 revisions since the day we started, which was November 3, 2023. We spent roughly a month putting a skeleton setlist together. That was a brutal process, not only trying to fit all these songs into 12 minutes and 30 seconds, but also trying to figure out which parts of the songs do we do? Do we do a verse? Do we do a B section, then the chorus? We had to figure out a way to represent them and rework them, but also not veer from what they are and how they will be heard by his core fans and people around the world.”
He added: “One of the things that has played a role in the rhythm and flow of the show is saying, ‘If we listen to this and we feel like we might go get a snack, then we’ve missed the point.’ So, how do we keep people glued to the show and glued to the TV during these 12 minutes and 30 seconds? That was the goal.”
The Avila Brothers also worked with Usher on his two-year residency in Las Vegas, where he played 100 shows at a couple of different venues, ending in October 2023. “It’s similar to our process for Caesars Palace,” noted IZ Avila, comparing the residency to their halftime show production. “We treated this as one long song. How do we take the viewer on a ride? How do we keep the energy? But whether it’s picking up an instrument to layer a part or moving some stuff around in the session, we’re recording and mixing at the same time. One of our superpowers is that it’s all hands-on deck at all times.”
