Introduction

Our philosophy of recording

The authors of this book have known each other for over 30 years, and having all spent years at both Decca and EMI at different times, it is perhaps unsurprising that our philosophy of recording classical music has become something that we have in common.

At the core of this is the belief that the recording itself should serve and enhance the music at all times. A good recording should work with the performers and composer to excite and engage the listener and enable the sort of emotional involvement that is experienced in a live performance. The whole enterprise should have musical communication at its heart: we all love music; it is why we do what we do.

To pursue only the accurate spatial reproduction of a concert as experienced from the ‘best seat in the house’ is to miss opportunities to make the listener sit up and listen. A recording is best regarded as a different medium to a live performance, and why should the recorded experience not aim to be better than sitting in the concert hall with our eyes closed? At a concert, we have many visual cues which affect our perception of the music; we can see who is playing, where they are sitting, we can see the soloists, how big the hall is – all these things serve to engage us in the experience. When we shut our eyes, these visual cues are no longer available and our perception of the sound is altered. If we want to make a recording that draws the listener in, we have to find ways to recreate these cues in audio form and reactivate the energising sense of engagement that we experience in a live performance – the upper strings should soar, the basses should be warm with rosin flying off their bows, the brass should sparkle and thrill, and the tone colours of the woodwinds should come through as beautiful, individual highlights.

There are plenty of books dealing with recording one instrument at a time or with recording instruments that are well isolated from one another, as in a pop studio. In these situations, avoidance of spill of one source onto another’s microphone is a central concern so that instruments can be processed separately. But when recording classical music, with all the players together in a live space, the key to success is in embracing spill, accepting its inevitability, and learning to blend and balance the different microphones to create the sound that you want. In this way, it is more akin to watercolour painting than colouring in a line drawing.

At the core of this recording approach is the creation of a sense of a real space in which the performers are situated. This does not mean it has to be simply a reproduction of a real space exactly as we find it, but it can be enhanced or created by artificial means as long as it has the characteristics of a real space. This includes achieving a sense of depth with larger sources such as orchestra or choir, where some performers feel closer to the listener than others. We are aiming for an impression of space, depth, and clarity so that the music can speak as the composer and performers intended. The result must be believable even if it contains a great deal of artifice.

In a good classical recording, we never want to become aware of individual microphones at work, dragging a single instrument too far into the foreground and reducing it to a point source, or of artificial reverb added like a layer of thick varnish over a painting, obscuring detail and tone colours. Blending several microphone sources and reverb is a key part of the craft, and no amount of expensive gear will make up for a lack of skill in balancing. In an interview given to Andrew Achenbach for International Classical Record Collector (ICRC), Richard Itter (Lyrita Records) said:

The aims of this book

In this book we will introduce a number of guiding principles for the recording of classical music, and we will also reassure the reader that excellent results can be obtained using good technique with relatively inexpensive equipment. Our aim is to cover some good starting points for the recording of all the common classical ensembles; we have chosen not to cover every single possible technique but to present a selection that is inevitably subjective. It is not our intention to be prescriptive but rather to help the engineer understand what works and why, and how to avoid the most common pitfalls. We will suggest core techniques for many scenarios, with the proviso that this might have to be adapted in the hall you find yourself in or with the players that you have. At this point, we will then suggest what you should be listening for and what steps might be taken to correct things. The overall aim is to give practical, achievable advice for both live and studio scenarios, with consideration given to being visually discreet when a concert is being filmed. At all times the emphasis will be on principles and technique and not on specific pieces of expensive equipment. Following on from recording, the chapters on post-production work will guide you through the pitfalls of getting your recording from the studio takes to a final polished product, including editing, noise removal, and mastering.

Our target readers

The book is intended for readers who already have some recording knowledge, although not necessarily in the classical field. These would include students at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels, home recording enthusiasts who might want to also get out and record larger-scale acoustic music such as choral society events and school orchestral concerts, and professionals who want to explore other approaches to recording.

What is not covered

It is assumed that the reader is familiar with microphone types (condenser, dynamic, and ribbon) and directivity patterns (cardioid, omnidirectional, figure of eight, etc.) and is able to plug in microphones, activate phantom power when needed, and get a signal into and through a mixing desk or recording DAW.

eResources

Spotify playlists for each chapter containing both referenced recordings and illustrative listening can be found at www.routledge.com/9780367312800