Of course tech stuff is boring
… Until you start to understand it.
Every piece of equipment is imperfect in some way. Including the boutique imported hand made, designed by the guru-of-electrons, esoteric piece of equipment. The interesting part of the tech stuff is how to highlight the qualities and create synergy where all the equipment works together to create a pleasant and truthful representation of the music.
It’s not about the best microphone alone, it’s about the best combination. One side of recording is finding the best solution for the situation at hand so the equipment produces the best sound given the project. It involves technical knowledge, experience and musicality on the part of the engineer. Two wrongs never make a right, so it’s important to use equipment of the highest caliber. We've spent years creating a setup that is uniform in it's dedication to quality, down to the cables and connectors used. Even the soldering tin used to fabricate our own cables is selected for audio capabilities.
Another side is the interaction between performer, the hall, the audience, the atmosphere, that whole realm of hard to pinpoint but very real things. Capturing that requires the highest quality of equipment. It’s about creating a synergy, starting with the equipment, but also microphone placement, and the performance. Sometimes it means moving a microphone as little as a few inches to find that perfect balance in the sound of an orchestra or instrument.
Now, for the technical specs, we record and edit in 96kHz,24bit, but can record up to 192kHz, 32bit if needed. The converters of choice are made by Lynx and preamps are Millennia Media. The German Schoeps microphones give an excellent balance between detail and musicality, and are the first choice. Of course I still kept my vintage Neumann mics. PSI audio, former Studer OEM manufacturer from Switzerland, provides nearfield monitoring, and the headphones are AKG and Stax. After a long search I settled on Gotham and Klotz cables, as a first choice.
Of course there’s much more gear I use and love (the list is long, and ever growing), but this is the go-to setup in most cases.
Every piece of equipment is imperfect in some way. Including the boutique imported hand made, designed by the guru-of-electrons, esoteric piece of equipment. The interesting part of the tech stuff is how to highlight the qualities and create synergy where all the equipment works together to create a pleasant and truthful representation of the music.
It’s not about the best microphone alone, it’s about the best combination. One side of recording is finding the best solution for the situation at hand so the equipment produces the best sound given the project. It involves technical knowledge, experience and musicality on the part of the engineer. Two wrongs never make a right, so it’s important to use equipment of the highest caliber. We've spent years creating a setup that is uniform in it's dedication to quality, down to the cables and connectors used. Even the soldering tin used to fabricate our own cables is selected for audio capabilities.
Another side is the interaction between performer, the hall, the audience, the atmosphere, that whole realm of hard to pinpoint but very real things. Capturing that requires the highest quality of equipment. It’s about creating a synergy, starting with the equipment, but also microphone placement, and the performance. Sometimes it means moving a microphone as little as a few inches to find that perfect balance in the sound of an orchestra or instrument.
Now, for the technical specs, we record and edit in 96kHz,24bit, but can record up to 192kHz, 32bit if needed. The converters of choice are made by Lynx and preamps are Millennia Media. The German Schoeps microphones give an excellent balance between detail and musicality, and are the first choice. Of course I still kept my vintage Neumann mics. PSI audio, former Studer OEM manufacturer from Switzerland, provides nearfield monitoring, and the headphones are AKG and Stax. After a long search I settled on Gotham and Klotz cables, as a first choice.
Of course there’s much more gear I use and love (the list is long, and ever growing), but this is the go-to setup in most cases.
I believe that interpretation should be like a transparent glass, a window for the composer’s music. (Vladimir Ashkenazy)
Music and musical art are mysterious, inevitable, tangible and producible realities,
cosmically related and individually fashioned; impersonal, personal, and super-personal.
(Artur Schnabel)
Art demands of us that we do not stand still. (Ludwig van Beethoven)