swineshead

By this time I had done a first edit and preliminary mix of "Cold Genius" - see my blog entry of 23 June 2010. I was hired back for a long evening session resulting in at least 15 minutes of finished product for the group's promotion and publicity. I knew there would be several more musicians participating, and that sadly the location for our previous recording was not available. They made the arrangements to rent out a church. On the day of the sessions, I printed out the directions from ...

Another few days in the studio, this time the Scoring Stage at Skywalker Sound in northern California. I've recorded in that space sporadically since it was opened: from 1989-1994 on the performer's side of the mic, and from 1998 onward as a producer and/or engineer. This time around the client was Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra with their leader Elizabeth Blumenstock as soloist, under their music director Nicholas McGegan. The repertoire: Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" and three other violin ...

After a month of editing radio shows for Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and recording concerts with them and New Century Chamber Orchestra, I was back at recording sessions for commercial release. This time, recordings of the Argenta Trio (Jim Winn, piano; Stephanie Sant'Ambrogio, violin; Dmitri Atapine, cello) performing Felix Mendelssohn and Anton Czarnik. On the last day I completed a solo violin recording with Stephanie begun last January.

Piano trios are difficult in that the ...

How DOES one record a solo bassoon? An instrument usually buried in the second row of the wind section in a symphony orchestra, part of a band, perhaps a member of a woodwind quintet, but hardly ever on its own. I pose this question rhetorically: I've recorded bassoon and piano, bassoon and string quartet, bassoon and percussion (a whole CD's worth) and - with this artist - bassoon ensemble and finally, bassoon and chamber orchestra.

This artist is none other than Nadina Mackie Jackson, ...

According to the homepage for the David G. Monette Corporation, "Without Charles Schlueter, Monette trumpets could not possibly exist as they do today."

Last week, I had the pleasure of recording Charles Schlueter with the Berkshire Symphony (Ronald Feldman, music director). This recording, which will be released by Helicon Records, has two pieces written for Charles: Ruth Lomon's "Odyssey" and Albert Tiberio's "Statements". Both of these are substantial ...

After a summer of attempting to clear the editing backlog - and not being entirely successful - I had more recording and interaction with clients (mixing/mastering session with *** for a future release to be discussed later). Last week I worked with the male vocal ensemble Clerestory (Clerestory) in their debut recording. Up to this point they had relied on one of their members to record concerts, and had posted tracks on their website. As they were approaching their fifth season, they wanted to ...

When it rains, it pours! A couple of weeks after the last project with a four-person period-instrument group, I have another one. A different configuration, different acoustic, different repertoire and for a different end purpose.

Let me start at the beginning. The group "Agave Baroque" (www.agavebaroque.org) contacted me about recording audio for an art film commissioned by the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles (www.mjt.org). Since this would be a DVD release, ...

I finished three days of sessions with the ensemble "Les Grâces", a small group who specialise on performances of late 17-th Century French music on the kinds of instruments used in that time. Two of the members are in the final stages of getting their doctorate degrees in musicology from UC Berkeley; the other two perform music from other eras as well. The challenges were to work in a less-than-ideal acoustic, monitor a surround recording through stereo headphones, and (as I produced ...

After four intense days of (in no particular order) hob-nobbing, speaking with old and new colleagues, meetings, judging the student recording competition (three finalists from 28 entries in the Classical Stereo field), mentoring students, receptions and an intense discussion amongst fellow Board of Governors members, I'm ready for a short break before the next commercial release recording project. The Novotel London West convention centre was packed for the technical programme; in particular the ...

Hello all. Greetings from rainy northern California (in a typical year we should be roasting from dry heat waves at this time!).

I finished the marathon recording sessions of the six Bach cello suites last night - here are the numbers:

1 cellist playing all by herself, on 2 different cellos, one with 2 different tunings. 2 movements repeated entirely with ad lib ornamentation, 2 movements with improvised pizzicato sections. 36 tracks done in over 30 hours of session ...