Recording engineer

urednik · « **on:** 21 Dec 2017, 12:25 pm »

Hello, I am new here - a musician, recording engineer and producer. I am here due to one thing. I have already recorded and produced more than 10 CD's containing classical music, some of which got very good responses from musicians.
Now it is me playing, and I am a bit worried whether I am being objective towards sound settings. Is here the right place to ask audiophiles to PM me if they want to testhear the prerelease of my double CD (130MINUTES) before it is getting printed?

My files are 24bit, 88kHz wave format. Anyone? Please mail/PM me. Thanks.

JerryM · « **Reply #1 on:** 21 Dec 2017, 01:18 pm »

Welcome to AudioCircle, urednik.

Phil A · « **Reply #2 on:** 21 Dec 2017, 02:58 pm »

Welcome to AC!

ArthurDent · « **Reply #3 on:** 21 Dec 2017, 03:57 pm »

Greetings & Welcome to AC urednik

dB Cooper · « **Reply #4 on:** 21 Dec 2017, 04:01 pm »

Welcome to the sweet spot and please share your recording knowledge freely!

I'll test listen for sure! I suggest converting the files to FLAC will make things easier all around due to the smaller file sizes. Are you planning to market through Bandcamp or similar?

FullRangeMan · « **Reply #5 on:** 21 Dec 2017, 04:45 pm »

Welcome aboard Urednik

Do you would post a link with samples from your files.

urednik · « **Reply #6 on:** 21 Dec 2017, 05:11 pm »

I will make some samples for you as well, though it is only 4GB with wave and I have the link for wetransfer. Can turn into wavpack or flac or publish samples as you suggest - which service is to be prefered? Soundcloud is not really for audiophilles or is it?

I was hoping to sell, but I guess we would invest more than get out. It is classical chamber music, hence not many people interested ...
Recorded with a blumlein ribbon mic R88, AKG Solidtubes and Neumann km184 if someone is interested.

FullRangeMan · « **Reply #7 on:** 21 Dec 2017, 05:36 pm »

Quote from: urednik on 21 Dec 2017, 05:11 pm

I will make some samples for you as well, though it is only 4GB with wave and I have the link for wetransfer. Can turn into wavpack or flac or publish samples as you suggest - which service is to be prefered? Soundcloud is not really for audiophilles or is it?

I was hoping to sell, but I guess we would invest more than get out. It is classical chamber music, hence not many people interested ...
Recorded with a blumlein ribbon mic R88, AKG Solidtubes and Neumann km184 if someone is interested.

For sale your files post a topic here w/price and currency:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=106.0
If Soundcloud files are MP3/4, PCM 16/44 or any compressed format its not the stardard audiophiles are used today.

Classical music and Jazz fans are usually strigent on the sound quality.

urednik · « **Reply #8 on:** 21 Dec 2017, 05:58 pm »

Thank you but I have no licence to sell. You mean to do it for donation? That is the only way. We did this out of need to do something nice, not to earn money

Well send me emails if you want the full losless 24/88 versions. I can do flac if you desire. Just write me.

FullRangeMan · « **Reply #9 on:** 21 Dec 2017, 06:41 pm »

Quote from: urednik on 21 Dec 2017, 05:58 pm

Thank you but I have no licence to sell. You mean to do it for donation? That is the only way. We did this out of need to do something nice, not to earn money
Well send me emails if you want the full losless 24/88 versions. I can do flac if you desire. Just write me.

Sorry I though you wished to sell these.
I cant run files I have a CD/sacd player only.

JakeJ · « **Reply #10 on:** 21 Dec 2017, 06:43 pm »

Hello and welcome to AC, urednik.

richidoo · « **Reply #11 on:** 21 Dec 2017, 06:54 pm »

Welcome to AudioCircle!

What instrument do you play?

I am a musician, and also do some recording. I understand your difficulty in judging the recorded sound of your own playing. Engineers would always want to use RE30 on my trumpet because they are afraid of breaking the mic, but it's terrible for brass and I never liked the sound they got. My favorite recording used Neumann U87 through a real metal plate reverb, but nowadays I prefer a truer tone, and I like Earthworks TC20 for the headroom and accurate tone. But few players or engineers want that kind of truth on a commercial recording.

I mostly listen to chamber music and would love to listen to your tracks. I will PM you to find out how to download.
Rich

urednik · « **Reply #12 on:** 21 Dec 2017, 08:57 pm »

I am sorry, being rude, but first now I thank for everyone's welcome here!

I am a french Horn player by profession, played in orchestras and do chamber now and teach. I always wondered how to get a richer sound out of a brass instrument, hence I became a amateur sound engineer, now working on our school. I wanted to study sound engineering, only to find out that on the only Sound engineer school we have, they have no interest for Classical music. Since it needs an entirely different recording approach than popular music, I stayed amateur, learning online with conversations with various renowned classical sound engineers. I have tried various systems and here is until now my conclusion about that:

1. Classical music needs to be recorded either in a big enough and good built natural hall, because what we find best at it are harmonics which develop and synthesize in the room,

2. instruments and players need to be good sounding (good sound source is not easy to find also among us professionals),

3. all that I could understand from my blind tests until now is that every microphone needs to fulfil its role, and yes price range matters usually a lot.

There are of course also some differences in Converters and Preamps (etc.), but mainly, the whole package needs to fit together, which is not always successful.

My limitation is a harsh/hard Yamaha C7 piano sound, a noisy, not suitable room (which forces me to record to near to the source), and musicians limitations towards tone quality (yes, my fault as well).

But mostly what matters is that we like doing it, it makes us happy and we like the result. However among audiophiles there are people who could help us with opinions and advises for future.

That's the longer version

FullRangeMan · « **Reply #13 on:** 21 Dec 2017, 10:27 pm »

Congratularions I love sweet french horn sound.
To mention a polemic point of modern recordings I suggest you do not use Compression, or use only the necessary, for Google its called Loundness Wars.

1. Classical music needs to be recorded either in a big enough and good built natural hall, because what we find best at it are harmonics which develop and synthesize in the room,
Nice to find a people that understand what Harmonics are

As an example of bad classical digital recordings its the Deutsche Grammophon from the 1990s period inclusive the 4D system, it prevent they to release most of these recordings in SACD due results below expected, last year DG site counted only 20 SACDs on catalogue.

On the CD/SACDs I have the pan used by DG was only two rows rarely reach 3 when the percussion played.

Please note in my humble opinion ambient noise is preferable than a close up recording, I consider incidental ambient noise part of the real life and endup becoming an embellishment in a live recording.

dB Cooper · « **Reply #14 on:** 22 Dec 2017, 03:36 am »

I find that I favor recording techniques involving minimalist miking approaches, which have the additional benefit of lowering the hardware cost. I have a PAiA MS (middle/side) mic I built from a kit years ago. I might dig it out and sell it for a reasonable price.

urednik · « **Reply #15 on:** 22 Dec 2017, 06:44 am »

Fullrangeman, of course no compression in classical music. I need whole dynamic range. My Cd will be one of the most quiet ones due to this fact. Noise comes from traffic which is not acceptable unfortunately.
I am also a fan of minimalist miking. I record orchestras with only 8 mics and it sounds more compact than radio recordings using 30.
If ideal circumstances 2 mics positioned correctly above conductor do the job most naturally. But of course depending on the hall, players ...

FullRangeMan · « **Reply #16 on:** 22 Dec 2017, 06:06 pm »

Hi, maybe you should talk w/our producer in house Russel Dawkins:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?action=profile;u=37838

dB Cooper · « **Reply #17 on:** 22 Dec 2017, 07:12 pm »

I downloaded urednik's WAVs and immediately converted them to FLAC and let me tell you (judging from the 4 tracks I've played so far), this guy knows what he is doing, both with his horn and with a microphone. Only suggestion is I'd like to know the names/composers of the tracks and who these excellent players are.

urednik, I know you did this for creative reasons but there is no law against making some money off your music (although it might sometimes seem that way!) I really, really think you ought to look into Bandcamp- it's designed for smaller-scale musicians to have a way to get their material out there without high distribution costs associated with physical media (I think they collect a percentage) and without getting 'shared' into the poorhouse. I guess there are a whole lot of things that happen when you try to monetize this though.

I'm getting into classical and chamber music in middle age partly because I'm just ready for it and partly because I'm tired of the overproduced, soulless, empty-calorie swill that dominates today's music. I'm not alone. There's a market for what you do, even if it's a small one. Thanks for your generous sharing of some really good music.

urednik · « **Reply #18 on:** 22 Dec 2017, 08:15 pm »

FRMan, you mean I should send him music to review?

dbCooper, I am superglad you like that. It is the essence of my work. Thank you.
We tried to do recordings in a good hall with some professional help and to get new compositions for this kind of ensemble on Kickstarter with no success https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/urednik/trio-global-music-village/description

We surely would like to sell a cd or digital download every now and then, to finance our costs, but we do not have enough time to market anything, because we have jobs as teachers. Bandcamp or pledgemusic. I have to study what would be aporopriate for our project. I would have to hire someone to help eventually.

I havent had opportunity to do a demo audio excerpts collection, but will post that in a couple of days.
Cooper, I think I know your mail, I will send you a link for mp3s with all the tags needed or in january I can send you the double CD with a broshure about music we present.

Everyone should be aware that the final product will have some corrections, so these 24bit tracks are not final.

dB Cooper · « **Reply #19 on:** 22 Dec 2017, 09:07 pm »

Keep us posted as to the status of your project. I can tell the classical and chamber fans here, it's worth a listen.