Our technique

 

Discuss with the clients...

Always ready to discuss or confront ourselves with the requirements of musician clients or lovers of music, some technical choices are part of our operating philosophy achieved through experience. Although we have analogue recorders of the highest level, our clear preference is in favour of the digital system (much better if it is at 24 bit) motivated more by the dynamic superiority than to the extended response to frequency. At the time of disks in vinyl the orchestral "pianissimo" had to be artificially exalted to dominate the back ground noise. We have carried out accurate tests with two identical microphone systems putting into contest a Nagra IVS (analogue, calibrated for a Basf 911 tape ) and a Yamaha D24, Apogée converters (digital, 24 bit, 96 khz) that literally overcame the rival in transparency, micro-contrast, timbre and obviously dynamics. Even the Nagra D a 20 bit e 44,1 khz revealed itself superior.

Analog or digital?

The analogue nostalgic people normally base their opinion not on tapes but on listening vinyl records already penalised by the mechanical reading of the needle, always subject to inertia and geometrical problems, without speaking of wear, fanciful equalisations, etc., comparing them maybe with bad CDs. The problem of the digital system lies all on the good quality of the converters and in the analogue network before and after the disk recording: preamplifiers, microphones and finally, obviously, the equal quality of microphone and loudspeakers. First try and then trust.

Technical experience...


In the recording phase we favour the use of a minimum number of microphones without a mixer. The ideal number is only two, but when required you can employ up to 4 or 6, by employing more will frequently give you phase problems of recording and you will loose a good space and location effect or will be forced to recreate the surrounding in a study of postproduction. With a multiple track system these things change provided that each microphone has its own track and therefore you can do without a mixer during the recording. Of course when you record with a small amount of microphones you must rely on an excellent environmental acoustic, carryout tests and arrange carefully the monitoring microphones, connected, preferably, also to loud speakers and not only to headphones, this should be a irremissible starting point. If not so, every artifice is allowed but then we open a chapter of compromises.

A soft sound...

Valve or solid state microphones? Authoritative colleagues (even in the USA) that swear only on the "mythical" Neumann U47 or U67 now thirty or forty years old. We, more than to the charisma, prefer to rely on the ear, our own or/and those of the musician clients so much more as the same Berlin technicians of Neumann declare that if we want a wonderful valve microphone it is better not to take consistent risks and surprises (especially in the case of humidity) tied to the use of antique objects, it is miles better to rely on a modern M149 or M147 that also Mina likes. But we prefer to find the warmth of a soft sound with valve preamplifiers. With regard to the location and the surroundings. To know more click on our LSS (Live Surround System).

 

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