PlayClassics album premiere for AS members

[chrille]

On 2/2/2020 at 11:40 AM, Mario Martinez said:

Once more I am coming back to the forum to share our latest work with you all.

 

Many of you already know about our research and have greatly contributed to making it work with your valuable feedback. I am extremely grateful for this so I would love to share this last work with you which I think represents the summit of what our technology is able to do.

 

This particular album with sextets for piano and winds by Ravel, Poulenc and Françaix, will be released on February 19th 2020, but as of right now it will be available to all AS members as a free master file (24/96) download. All you have to do is ask and I will be happy to send you a gift code to download the album.

 

Of course, as always, feedback is welcome but not mandatory to receive and enjoy your album

 

Yes please !

[chrille]

57 minutes ago, Mario Martinez said:

Here is a sketch with the position of the musicians during the recording sessions.
From left to right French horn, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon.
The person in red represents the placement of the mics.

 

 

Muchas Gracias por, the free the download, yes  this is the image  and soundstage I get via my two big electrostatic speakers in my listening room.

But how big is the recording venue?

Is the sketch also showing the actual size and proportions of the recordng venue?

I get a rather dry, very direct sound almost as if having,especially the wind instruments,actually playing in my room but the piano clearly behind the winds although a bit coloured by the quite  dry?acoustic of the venue where you made the recording.

I guess it is a very honest sound to how things sounded live. But the somewhat too dry imho recording make the winds a bit too loud and prominent in my room  if I want to hear the piano as loud as and close to how my piano sounds live in my room.

The winds dominate too much for my taste.

I think I would have put the piano in front of the winds if I had made the recording myself, and in a more reverberant acoustic.

Wind instruments project more than a piano imho, or maybe I am just biased because I wanted to compare the piano to how my own piano sounds in my room.

I'll have to find the sheet music for the Ravel and learn some of it and again compare how it will sound on my piano.

Very inspiring to hear it played so well.

Cheers and thanks a lot  Chrille

 

[chrille]

25 minutes ago, Mario Martinez said:

About the balance between winds and piano the old post also mentions that we are not using a 9 foot grand.  Back then we used a 7 foot grand like it says in the post, and one year later on 2016 we got a new piano that also was a 7 foot grand.

 

All 12 recordings in our catalogue (plus this one that we are listening to) have been made with 7 foot grands. 9 foot pianos are more suited to play in large halls. Their color or sound is not necessarily better, they are just more powerful.

 

We have tried both sizes in our room and for our purposes we always chose the 7 footers. That might also have to do with the way you are perceiving the balance.

 

Besides this, there is always the fact that different systems/rooms emphasize different parts of the spectrum. It would be interesting to know how others perceive this balance...

 

Hello again Mario,

and thanks for your reply.

My observations  made in my listening room and via speakers were not really intended as criticism.  It sounds like a very honest  non manipulated well made,non compressed recording. But my system and room which is quite  furnished with a sofa and armchairs and lots of bookshelves curtains and pillows, adds very little of its own acoustic to recordings  so I suspect your recording room is a bit dryish with rather short reverberation time?

Or is my guess wrong?

And if winds are in front of the piano they will of course sound  as being in front of the piano in a realistic recording.

I was just mentioning my personal preferences balance wise.

I really liked your solo piano recordings too.

 

 

I will listen to the tracks later tonight via headphones to hopefully get  even closer to the actual acoustic of the venue you recorded in.

Do you have any photos of the venue?

 

Anyway, wonderful version of Ravel's Slow movement especially.

 

I will use it a LOT to  learn how to play it on my own.

The intro is soo beautiful and was not too difficult to play for me. Thanks a lot for leading me to it with a VERY good example of how to play it.

 

PS I wouldn't mind seeing your studio maybe  this year if you have anything planned.

I have photographed for several other classical music labels.

 I haven't been to Spain for years. With the "Corona Virus" currently hitting Asia I am possibly replanning my  travel plans a bit this year.

Cheers Chrille.

 

 

 

 

[chrille]

3 hours ago, semente said:

 

Perhaps the piano in the recording sounds distant because the recording was made from an audience and not a player's perspective.

Yes of course ,but so are the wind instruments. And in my system at least they tend to overpower the piano a bit more than I would ideally like.

A direct result of the way they were  in FRONT of  the piano.

Imho there is a very good reason why winds are behind strings in virtually all orchestral recordings. And also  why the piano is always put in front of the orchestra in Concerto recordings.

You don't really  need to spot-mic it if it is placed in front but most engineers do so anyway which often renders a similar effect as the winds do in this recording.

Anyway, I am  pretty sure this recording is very  honest and close to how things sounded live.

I just happen to want to hear a bit more of the piano.

One way of getting more of the instruments behind others  without resorting to  spotmiking is to elevate the mics a bit.

I don't know how high the mics were in this recording. But I guess a bit too low for my taste in this case.

Cheers Chrille

[chrille]

On 2/3/2020 at 10:24 PM, Mario Martinez said:

 

It will be really interesting to see how it comes out on the headset. Please let us know how it feels there...

Hello again Mario,
I have now listened several times to the tracks via two different sets of Headphones the Sennheiser HD 800 and the HIFIMAN HEKV2 and my Chord Qutest/Chord MScaler combo connected to a Benchmark HGC2 headphone amp used for monitoring at quite a few DXD recording sessions I have been at. 

Both via speakers and headphones your recordings sound VERY realistic and well recorded imho.

But my only slight reservation balance wise regarding the slow movement chamber version of  Ravel's G major Piano Concerto, still stands via headphones.

In both cases if I play the first two minutes of solo piano as loud as I want to hear it both in my room and via headphones it sounds wonderful and almost as if playing in my room via speakers.
Very good indeed and very well played too.

But when the "orchestra"/winds come in after the roughly two minute intro, the winds several times have a tendency to mask the piano a little bit which to my ears turns from THE solo instrument it should sound like in a Piano Concerto almost to "second fiddle" position.

Around the 4 minutes mark I almost get the impression that the piano is accompaning the winds where in the full orchestral version I hear the opposite.
Winds accompaning the piano.
Those high register piano trills don't quite register as clearly as I would ideally like them to.

Here it sounds  maybe a bit more like a Concerto for Wind instruments with piano obligato?

Small issue maybe for most listeners. But I  personally would as I said originally, have placed the winds behind the piano for that track.

Or the piano in the middle and the winds on each side to get an even wider stereo image.

Imho the piano should at least sound Primus Inter Parus in this case.

On the other tracks this is  really no issue to me. 
There the piano is not really the solo instrument.

But to be honest rather your setup than a HUGE piano and small orchestra behind so common with some labels.

The setup you have chosen is used for a lot of chamber music recordings and works well in most cases and here too apart from in the PC imho.

All the wind instruments sound very real with truthful tonality and sonority  albeit a wee bit dry, making it very easy to hear which instruments are playing at any given moment.

Thanks for a Great Album and all the best for your future productions.
Today I'll spend  more time on that quite simple yet very beautiful Ravel intro at the piano.

PS One last question how high do you put your stereo mics at sessions? 

Cheers and thanks again Chrille