For Most Styles of Music:
Initially an artist, producer or group must decide where and how to capture their music in a way that is engaging to a listener. For most discriminating listeners, a carefully and professionally captured production stands out above the bedroom, laptop or project studio recording.
First, a budget must be determined. An initial meeting at the studio is encouraged to allow us to help you put a realistic budget together. There is no fee for this meeting.
Capturing the recordings:
Needed: Instruments in their best condition and pieces that are well rehearsed or gigged frequently. You will be capturing, in most cases, separately miked instruments on separate tracks in a computer program, stand-alone digital recorder or analog multi-track tape recorder. It is strongly advisable, if recording digitally, to record at least 96khz/32-bit.
The Recording:
Record at least two to three versions of each piece or movement to allow for plenty of material for the editing stage. Often a troublesome passage must be focused on and recorded multiple times. Once a “best” basic track is identified or edited together, overdubs will begin. For vocals and solos, it is often a good idea to record and keep multiple takes for evaluation and possible editing later.
Editing:
A successful edit requires matching tempo, timbre, similar distance from the microphones (which affects timbre) and spirit. Today’s editors (man & machine) are able to perform edits to an accuracy of a tiny fraction of a second and utilize a crossfade/overlap and other “tricks”.
Mixing:
Now, you’ll focus on the sonority, tone and quality of the sound. Hopefully, performance concerns are behind you (if an unnoticed problem has arisen, it is very easy to shift gears and correct via editing). To capture the warmth and presence of each instrument or voice, the engineer will have used one or more microphones on each. For example, the piano is often captured in great dimension with two pairs of microphones: one near and one far. All of these microphones must be “mixed down” into stereo. Within this process, tonal issues on each microphone, relative volume and placement in the left-right stereo field are adjusted as well as the addition of a pleasant and complimentary “room” (reverb). Optional, is the use of dynamic compression on any instrument or voice. The mixes should be captured in a high sample rate and bit depth, as well. It should be noted that editing and mixing of live performances, in contrast to more “pop” oriented layered/overdubbed productions, can take as much time if not more in these stages than the initial recording! The musicians and those holding the purse strings have the most control over these decisions!
Mastering:
In the production industry this is truly known as “pre-mastering” (mastering being a non-artistic stage of creating the object that makes the physical CD or metal-mother for LPs). At this pre-master stage, thefinal artistic stage, attention is given to the overall tone and timbre of the recordings. Fine adjustments of equalization can “lift the veil” from the sound and yield more clarity and consistency to the entire package of pieces. Attaining as firm, present and robust a sound is the final artistic goal. At this point the highly detailed 32-bit/high sample rate audio file is reduced intelligently to 16-bit, the standard of CD and many download delivery file formats. Then, the pieces are sequenced, spaced and text is added for CDs. Finally, a DDP 2.0 image elements file is made to be utilized by a professional replicator to create a glass master (the true mastering stage!) for replication of CDs. Also, at this stage, the capturing of mastered 16-bit stereo WAV files should be done. These files will be provided to many third party digital download providers to create the “lossy” digital download masters for their chosen file type. Special analysis, EQ and level compensation is applied to make up for the altered sound that removing that much data (thus “lossy”) yields. If these recordings are to be handled by a third party such as CD Baby, they insist that the 16-bit WAV files be delivered to them and they will deliver to those many companies. A 24-bit/high sample rate WAV master may be created for a separate “hi-def” release through iTunes and other “better than CD quality” providers. This 24-bit file may also be utilized by the lacquer cutter for vinyl record pressing.
From there, the rest is up to you to get it heard!
Many an accomplished professional musician may have had decades of study and performance without ever having been part of a professionally produced recording. Informal stereo recital recordings seem to be the norm. Unlike Rock, Country and many other popular styles of music where the performers have the recording studio in their sights from the earliest stage, most classical musicians are awaiting Sony, Telarc or Deutsche-Grammophon to invite them into the serious recording environment. These days, most artists must have a wider and more independent understanding of how to get their music into people’s homes, phones and iPods, with professional quality. Amateur, student or semiprofessional recital recordings will not yield the depth of sound required nor will the absence of a veteran editor, mixer and mastering engineer be unnoticed!!
I will describe below what is involved if your end goal is to have a recording that can be held up against any quality recording heard on the airwaves today. Here are the stages:
Capturing the recordings:
Needed: Instruments in their best condition and pieces that are well rehearsed or performed frequently. A recording engineer/producer with extensive experience and a deep love of recording acoustic instruments in live spaces. Needed, for many ensembles, a professional studio that should have a perfectly maintained and tuned concert grand piano. Also, is of sufficient size as to have some “life” and not sound like a basement or a closet!
The Recording:
Record at least two to three versions of each piece or movement to allow for plenty of material for the editing stage. Often there will be a troublesome passage that must be focused on and recorded multiple times. If a digital recording, this should be recorded high sample rate (up to DSD) at 32-bit floating point.
Editing:
Next, following the recording of all pieces, you’ll enter the editing stage. A successful edit requires matching tempo, timbre, similar distance from the microphones (which affects timbre) and spirit. Today’s editors are able to perform edits to an accuracy of a tiny fraction of a second and utilize a crossfade/overlap.
Mixing:
Now, you’ll focus on the sonority, tone and quality of the sound. Hopefully, performance concerns are behind you (although, in this age, it is very easy to shift gears and correct via editing, if an unnoticed problem has arisen). To capture the warmth and presence of each instrument or voice, the engineer will have used one or more microphones on each. For example, the piano is often captured in great dimension with two pairs of microphones-one near and one far. All of these microphones must be “mixed down” into stereo. Within this process, tonal issues on each microphone, relative volume and placement in the left-right stereo field are adjusted as well as the addition of a pleasant and complimentary “room” (reverb).
Optional, is the use of dynamic compression on any instrument or voice. The mixes should be captured in 32-bit, as well. It should be noted that editing and mixing of live performances, in contrast to more “pop” oriented layered/overdubbed productions, can take as much time if not more in these stages than the initial recording! The musicians and those holding the purse strings have the most control over these decisions!
Mastering:
In the production industry this is truly known as “pre-mastering” (mastering being a non-artistic stage of creating the object that makes the physical CD or metal-mother for LPs). At this pre-master stage, the final artistic stage, attention is given to the overall tone and timbre of the recordings. Fine adjustments of equalization can “lift the veil” from the sound and yield more clarity and consistency to the entire package of pieces. Attaining as firm, present and robust a sound is the final artistic goal. At this point the highly detailed 32-bit/high sample rate audio file is reduced intelligently to 16-bit, the standard for CD and many download delivery file formats. Then, the pieces are sequenced, spaced and text is added for CDs. Finally, a DDP 2.0 image elements file is made to be utilized by a professional replicator to create a glass master (the true mastering stage, albeit not a creative, artistic stage) for replication of CDs. Also, at this stage, the capturing of mastered 16-bit stereo WAV files should be done. These files will be used to create the “lossy” digital download masters for the many types of download providers. Special analysis and EQ and level compensation is applied to make up for the altered sound that removing that much data (thus “lossy”) yields. If these recordings are to be handled by a third party such as CD Baby, they insist that the 16-bit WAV files be delivered to them and they will deliver to those many companies. A 24-bit/high sample rate WAV master may be created for a separate “hi-def” release through iTunes and other “better than CD quality” providers.
THE RECORDING PROCESS
PROFESSIONAL GRADE RECORDING
OF CLASSICAL MUSIC
CedarHouse Sound and Mastering
P.O. Box 333
North Sutton, New Hampshire 03260-0333
Phone: 603.927.6363
copyright © 2018 CedarHouse