Jake Jackson on recording & mixing The First Omen score: “It sends chills down your spine”

What comes to mind when you think of the most spine-chilling horror film music? The Exorcist’s foreboding Tubular Bells? Halloween’s eerie main title theme? Or could it be The Omen’s ominous Ave Satani? The latter piece has been disturbing horror fans since 1976 after it was featured in The Omen, and in 2024, was given a new lease of life in the classic horror film’s prequel, The First Omen. Jake Jackson recorded and mixed Mark Korven’s score for the new horror flick at London’s AIR Studios. He explains how he recorded a dark soundtrack worthy of the antichrist.

The First Omen, (now streaming on Disney Plus, for those that missed it at the cinema), sees a young American woman sent to Rome to begin a life of service to the church, where she encounters a darkness that causes her to question her own faith and uncovers a terrifying conspiracy that hopes to bring about the birth of evil incarnate. When it came to the music, the composer wanted to enhance the horrific elements of the film by creating an atmosphere of uncertainty and unpredictability. Then it was over to Jackson to do his part to ramp up the terror, although he has a confession:

“I am always unsettled with that type of film,” he laughs from the safety of his home studio. “I don't watch these kinds of films for pleasure – I don't watch them unless I'm working on them. So I guess if it was unsettling me even more than it would normally, then I knew I was going in the right direction! This genre of soundtracks is not something I'm gonna listen to in my spare time, but I've worked on plenty of these kinds of films to understand what we're trying to achieve. 

"The thing was to try and accentuate – within the recordings and within the mix – those elements to make sure that it stayed unsettling. I was uncomfortable in what I was doing; I felt that if I was getting too comfortable with it, then obviously it was becoming too tame! I had to make sure that I was on the edge of my seat.”

Director Arkasha Stevenson wanted something special and original from the music while paying homage to the original 1970s Jerry Goldsmith score. While Korven's score greatly differs from the original, he brought back the original Ave Satani theme towards the end of the film to add nostalgia for the audience. 

As memorable as it is straight up evil-sounding, Ave Satani was a triumph in its heyday and nominated for Best Original Song after the film’s release in ‘76. The piece was composed by Goldsmith to be a sacrilegious and Satanic inversion of a Gregorian chant, complete with bellowing chorals.

The original choir-master, according to Goldsmith, was an expert in Latin and helped him come up with phrases; instead of saying "Hail Mary", they decided on "Hail Satan", and the song contains various Latin phrases inverting Christ and the Mass, such as "Ave Versus Christi", meaning "Hail Anti-Christ", and "Corpus Satani", an inversion of "Corpus Christi", the body of Christ.

Jackson recalls the moment he heard Ave Satani performed during the AIR Studios recording session:

“It's always spectacular to hear something that you know, and even if I'm not a fan of The Omen I still still know that piece of music,” he says. “It always sends chills down your spine when you hear a new recording of something you know so well, whether it be In the Hall of the Mountain King, or some Star Wars stuff that I've done. Ave Satani is incredible; it takes you back to a time. 

"The musicians obviously try as hard as they can for everything they do, but if they know something, you see them start to play it – even if it's not got the right name on it; they start to recognise it and you see them get into it and smile to themselves. It's always nice to record something that you know that people will actively go out and listen to, and for a new version of something like this, it just gives that extra bit of, ‘I've got to be on my A-game here,’ because people are going to want to listen to this. We’ll do one extra take with the orchestra or take that moment to just listen to it and go, ‘Okay, this is a special moment’.”

The film’s signature tune was saved for a pivotal moment in the narrative for maximum payoff:

“Mark and the director saved it for the right moment in the film,” Jackson nods. “It was very deliberate not to have it in too soon. It's a prequel, so you can't start with it, but it's a great payoff when it comes in for sure.”

The orchestration in Korven’s score mainly consists of strings and choir, with additional sound design elements created from unconventional sources like samples of opening an old ironing board and Korven’s very own sinister-sounding instrument which he calls The Apprehension Engine. The composer created motifs for specific characters and themes, including for the jackal, utilising subsonic male voices, and a motif for the church.

“Essentially, we were recording the replacement to the ‘fake’ orchestrations, and then adding that to Mark's weird and wonderful selection of pre-recorded sounds,” Jackson explains. “I'm used to recording and mixing whatever people give me, but I always enjoy mixing these projects. It's got a different life to it when it's been performed. Even if it's an ironing board, it's done with that extra bit of human soul, and to have those real sounds really helps to integrate it into a mix. 

"Sometimes they're not as well recorded as if I'd done it myself – I don't mean that negatively,” he says quickly, “but they may have recorded with four mics, but they've only given me a stereo sound. That's where my experience comes in and what my role as a mixer is: to take what I've been given and make it work with what we're doing. Obviously, someone's ironing board isn't going to be recorded in The Hall at AIR, or The Apprehension Engine is done in Mark's home studio, and that's a different sonic space than The Hall, which is a very big recording studio. I've got a few tips and tricks up my sleeve to make sure they blend and it sounds like it's all within that same sonic space.”

Scores in horror films are a difficult balance to get right; they need to amp up the tension just enough at the right moments, create a feeling of unease the next, whilst making space for any jump scares. Jackson explains how he finds the right approach:

“I ended up mixing it in 7.1, which meant that I could use the surrounds a little bit more than I normally would,” he says. “I'm not a fan of your head twisting around because of a sound. I used that space to my advantage to create; it’s almost the unease of hearing things from not necessarily where you'd expect them. I wanted to make space for sound effects but I also used the physical space to my advantage so that I could have things a bit louder without it being distracting. 

"Technically, I made sure that I gave the dubbing mixer the stems so that they've got that control should a sound be too disruptive or too similar to a sound effect. We gave a lot of stems, but it was used in a very creative way, and the director absolutely knew what she wanted. Sometimes when we were mixing, we could go music-heavy because that was what was going to lead to this particular scene, so it helped from our point of view.”

AIR Studios is home to various unique Neve consoles – Jackson making use of a 96-channel Neve 88R for The First Omen’s score recording in the studio’s famous Lyndhurst Hall – which happens to be one of the world’s largest recording rooms. The live area accommodates a full symphony orchestra and choir simultaneously, making it perfect for film scoring, orchestral recordings and live performances. Jackson reveals that he was there the day the console was installed in AIR Studios:

“I've got a long history with this particular console, because I started working at AIR in 1998, and I was there the very morning that the old desk got ripped out and this new one came in,” he recalls. “I happened to be doing an all-nighter the night before, and I was woken up at around eight o'clock in the morning on the couch by the team coming in to rip [the old desk] out. So I've kind of been there since it was born, so to speak. I was involved in choosing some of the features on it, like something as boring as the labelling that was done in a certain way just so that it made sense.

“It's a great desk,” he enthuses. “I love the fact it's got 96 channels – it's the biggest one in London, which is really helpful for a recording session. Even if you don't use all the channels, to be able to put all the mics out and all the returns out that you want, I find really helpful. As for how we used it for The First Omen, I can't imagine me ever wanting to record on a digital console. 

"An analogue console, for me, is imperative; to be able to work your way through the sound, even if you're not going to mix on it, but to be able to tweak the sound and ideas and being able to easily access and see everything you need to get to, is really important. As an engineer, I see myself as being the go-between for the orchestral performance and the technical side of things. I try to make sure that I'm almost invisible to a certain degree, apart from when I can give notes. I don't want to be somebody who's getting in the way of the recording by being too technical, so I make sure it's all relatively simply set up and the microphones are coming in in a sensible place to make sure the musicians are happy. 

"To make sure that they are hearing what they need to hear is the number one important thing, and an analogue console can do that. A good analogue console like the Neve 88R, is fantastic – to be able to visually see if something's not right, you can fix it almost instantly, which is great. Or if you need to swap out a channel or expand something for someone's needs, you can do that immediately with that big console. You don't have to head scratch and spend five minutes working out a way of adding a new reverb or adding a new headphone send, because it’s all done in real time. That’s really important to me.”

The 88R boasts 48 channels of Neve AIR Montserrat remote mic preamps, which Jackson shares he also made good use of on The First Omen: “You only get a 5dB step of gain, but they sound fantastic, so they're always where we put all our main mics through. With this setup, we probably would have been able to use all of them for this recording – both for the strings and the choir separately, so obviously we can do that well within those 48. They sound great. Again, I'm kind of trying to be invisible, so I want a really clean-sounding mic pre and I choose microphones that do the same really. I want the best quality recording possible.”

Jackson then mixed the project within Pro Tools, premixing at his home studio and then finishing the mix once he had all the recorded elements. He explains why this was an usual process for him:

“The schedule meant that it was a bit tight to mix the entire project before it needed to be delivered,” he explains. “The music execs suggested that I could do some pre-mixing, which is kind of new to me really. I hadn't had much of a chance to discuss with Mark what happened beforehand, but I got sent through all the sounds, and it was really helpful to be able to go in and not be distracted by the recordings and purely spend four days over the pre-mixing. So it was literally almost like making those work by themselves, without the need for the strings and orchestra. 

"But it also helped me get into the film so that I could understand what was going on; A, so I could look and I wouldn't be scared,” he laughs, “but then B, so that I could understand when the director would ask something, I knew exactly what she was talking about and knew the music had already got where it was aiming to go. It freed up that side to be even more creative with Mark's sounds, without the distraction of the recordings, because with that you're thinking about how you need to edit it or fit it in. 

"It really helped change the angle of attack and it meant that when I got to the mix stage, I was already totally inside the music, which made for a much better mix, I think. It's something that I will definitely try and do again in the future on a project of this scale because I really liked to be able to understand exactly what Mark was trying to do, which made me a better producer for him as well. It was a really successful way of working.

Jackson shares that he’ll take the rest of the year to psych himself up to watch The First Omen, as it creeps towards awards season. “Because hopefully, it'll get some awards nominations, because I think the music is fantastic,” he says. “So I will force myself to sit down and watch it, but probably with the lights on, a sofa I can hide between and my dog by my side to cuddle up to.”

The Last Omen image credits: ©Disney