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My Reel Club - make your own reference recordings


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Thanks Tom, it was definitely educational for the attendees, for the studio and artist as well. At the end everybody enjoyed it, and waiting for the next similar event.  I have all sorts of more plans for similar events in the future. Making recordings should be more personal this way for the listeners and the music makers too and it is important. 

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On 11/19/2019 at 10:11 PM, astrotoy said:

Thanks for the information.  Will it be available commercially on tape also?  Some of us already have a R2R tape version of the Goldberg Variations played by Japanese pianist Ito Ema, released by Todd Garfinkel of MA Recordings (a two reeler), so there probably would be more interest in a recording that doesn't duplicate existing repertoire.  However, for 15ips 2 track tape, that is pretty easy.

 

Larry

 

Thanks for asking.
We were thinking of releasing this recording on a tape, but there was a technical problem, so we did not do it. However, the next event (which is a cool jazz quartet live studio concert) will be recorded and probably released on tape after some editing. We will use complete Wireworld Micro-Platinum OCC silver cables for all the analogue mic feeds and just ordered unique decoupling bases from bfly-Audio, called Stoneline from the next event.

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On 11/25/2019 at 7:37 PM, astrotoy said:

Thanks.  Always interested in new R2R offerings.  In the US, we have Jonathan Horwich in Chicago (IPI) who specializes in recording and releasing on 15ips 2 track jazz groups - really super tapes.  Ed Pong (UltraAnalogue Tapes) in Toronto does classical chamber recordings on R2R 15ips 2 track (again great tapes), and Bob Attiyeh in LA (Yarlung Records) does a more eclectic set of albums, also outstanding.  I buy most all of their releases. 

 

If you are interested in marketing your tapes, there are better forums than AS for that purpose.  This one is great for digital files.  You can PM me for those others.

 

Larry

 

Sure. Thanks. 

Our next recording event is in about a week from now on. I will let you know how it went. 

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We completed our second My Reel Club (myreel.club) recording on tape and in DSD256 yesterday.

The modern cool jazz music from Varga Gabor Quartet was fantastic, the performance really extraordinary. This music requires the highest possible quality recordings.

 

It was a live studio concert with an audience in the studio. All the attendees will get the highest resolution and quality digital (DSD256) and optionally analogue tape recordings (for a fee).

 

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We plan to publish quite a few versions of the recording:

 

- We used an analogue audio mixing console to mix the 8 microphone feeds to a stereo mix live. It was recorded on tape, using a Nagra IV-S at 38 cm/s. We will sell the tape copy and a DSD256 file from a tape too in its raw form.

 

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- We recorded the 8 mic feeds in DSD256 using a Pyramix recording software and a Luxor Audio PC with a Merging Hapi A/D converter. There will be an analogue mix, and some eq, dynamics processing in the analogue domain. It will be rerecorded as a stereo version of the mixed and analogue mastered music in DSD256 and on tape too. The latter can be the basis of an LP.

 

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- 2 channels of the 8 mic feeds were from a ribbon stereo mic. These 2 channels will be published in DSD256 after some light editing in the digital domain, but otherwise without any processing. If one needs the purest possible digital recording.

 

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The production process will take weeks. The recordings will be available from us directly (myreel.club), including the tapes and through nativedsd.com, sometime in January.

 

We believe the recordings will be fantastic, but only a facsimile of the real live event. Sitting right there with the instruments and the musicians are way better than any recording can be in our life, I think. Every serious audiophile should have to try it once in a lifetime. There is the added value of discussing everything with the musicians, the studio crew and with each other of course. It was an unforgettable event. It is a pity that only 30 people could be squeezed in the studio.

 

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https://youtu.be/r-4ZYjK6bWw

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6 hours ago, STC said:

 

I know you are aiming for the best but by any chance you will also consider  16/44,1 or 24/96 format for poor me who just like the music. :)  . 

 

BTW, I listened to the Nativedsd samples and and it sounded as if no whatsoever EQ or reverbs were added. Am I correct?

 

Actually, the paying attendees (the fee is roughly 70 Euro) get all the files, including lower sampled PCM files of course. If you are interested, you can buy a CD, or you can buy the PCM files too (from us). Sampling rate conversion was done by Hqplayer Pro and Sygnalist. He has made (remodulated) a DSD512 and a DSD1024 version as well from the DSD256 master. The attendees got these as well. 

You are right; there was no reverb and eq used. When we use any kind of analogue or digital processing, we will list and mention what we did. 
I definitely want to inform all the listeners what was done with the technique and the recording. Then it will be much easier to use these recordings as a kind of reference. This is why the producer and the engineers explaining what they use, how and why. I am sure to know more about the recording will help everybody to listen and use these recording properly even for decision making, to make a bit better-informed guess.  

The beauty of DSD256 is not only the quality but the fact that there is no way to process and modify the files natively. So DSD is one of the best ways for digital purity. 

:) 

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2 hours ago, gmgraves said:

I mentioned ambience only as a justification for using more than two mikes. I did not mean to intimate or infer that ambience mikes are de rigueur.
 

I respectfully disagree with your assertion that a stereo pair is not always the best solution. In my informed opinion it is the only solution for recording acoustical instruments. A stereo miking system gives a realistic soundstage and an interaction between instruments playing in a real space that cannot be achieved by mixing multiple mike feeds electronically in a mixing board. While using an overall stereo mike is an improvement over a strict multi-mike scheme, it is my experience that such a microphone strategy is an invitation to phase anomalies that simply muddle the soundstage and mess with the recorded frequency response.

 

 

It is an exciting conversation. There are limitations of using only stereo microphones. A large, fully blown classical orchestra for example or a big band, it is challenging to make a tonally balanced recording of these events with just a stereo pair. Most of the stereo mic pairs and technologies have a kind of distance or range limitations. 

One of the very few stereo pair which can handle such kind of situation is the Royer SF ribbon series, I used them and sold them a lot. 

Not always the seemingly most straightforward solution gives the most balanced recording, unfortunately. 

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7 hours ago, Rexp said:

Can you post a link to the 24/96 download? 

 

I can send you one track sample. If you need the whole recording you need to buy it unfortunately (from us - send a PM please), but yes I can send it in 96k, if you mean the Goldberg variations on nativedsd.com. 

 

It will take few weeks to complete the new Varga Gabor Quartet cool jazz recording. I may share one track (with the stereo ribbon mic and in native DSD256, and the one mixed live and recorded on the Nagra and digitized from it in DSD256 as well), if there is a need, if any of you interested. 

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16 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

See, I’ve found that just the opposite is true. It is relatively easy to make tonally balanced recordings of big bands and full blown classical orchestras. A stereo pair gives a phase coherent recording with a wide, deep sound stage that images like “you are there”. With multi-miked setups, you have the problem of keeping each microphone feed separate and isolated from the other mike feeds to avoid bleed over. Also multi-miking robs large-scale ensembles of all real world soundstage information and strips orchestral recordings of the sound of a group of instruments playing together (multi-miked violins, for instance, never sound like violins miked with an overall stereo pair. When one close mikes violins and then mixes them electronically they do not sound like a string section in a symphony orchestra playing in a concert, the sound like a bunch of separate violins all playing at once and I’m pretty sure that no composer intended for the strings to sound like that.

 

I’ve tried just about every microphone technique known to man, and I tell you that whether we’re talking full blown symphony orchestras, big band jazz, or a jazz trio, or anything in between, a stereo pair is best. Now that doesn’t mean that I never use accent mikes. There are situations where they’re indispensable. But they must always be subordinate to the main pair, and pan potting of the accent must be very carefully done to avoid smearing the image by confusing the location dictated by the physical presence of the instrument(s) being highlighted, with regard to the stereo mike and the pan potted location of the instrument superimposed on the instrument in the mixer.

 

Many thanks for explaining your experience. We have done dozens if not hundreds of recordings this way in the past 15 years or so and we will in the future as well. Occasionally we will use other methods too. Like in this case, but let me remind you: we used a ribbon stereo in this case as a main mic and in most of the tracks it will be used only and these two tracks will be published as well. There will be tracks when we will add a bit from the rest of the feeds as well. 

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8 hours ago, Rexp said:

Jazz is more my thing, let me know when available, also you may want to upgrade your YouTube recording device to at least give a glimpse of the original performances. Cheers! 

 

I am dealing with Canon cinema cameras and lenses in my real life and television, film productions as a system integrator and technical advisor so that I could do it much better, but it was not the purpose of this simple iPhone recording.

 

We shot a "werk film" so there will be a much better audio/ video quality version sometime in January.


All the registered attendees just got a DSD128, and DSD256 sample track from both the analogue mixed Nagra recording (digitized with the same A/D converter) and the ribbon mic stereo track.

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5 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

LIstening to the DXD version of this now. What a great album. 

 

Thank you very much. When we tried to find a sub-genre for it, the only one that came to our mind was chamber jazz. :) 

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