Tone-Pearls True Analogue Recording Technique
Tone-Pearls Recording Technique is a special application of a long research of music, tone and hearing. Read more about Tone-Pearls.
We aimed to develop a completely new recording technique that provides the experience of "being there" i.e. the original experience of a live concert.
Our investigation has shown, that the effect of Tone-Pearls is more beneficial if we use pure analogue recordings. It is easy to undertand: the less manipulation we apply, the more faithful is the recording. Thus, we developed a pure analogue recording technique that suits to Tone-Pearls. Naturally, the heart of the recording procedure is the application of Tone-Pearls.
True Analogue Recording
Pre-recording process
Idea
The first step is the idea: the idea of music, performance and musicians. The recording is mostly determined by this initial step. You should have a clear idea about the music to be recorded; you should feel the music in your bones.
Venue
The second step is to find a place that suits to the music to be recorded. The atmosphere of the venue should be in harmony with the music to be recorded. The acoustics of the venue should be in accordance with the tone-image of the music. We have found that venues with long (musical) history sound better than new and modern ones.
Arrangement
The third step is the arrangement. After cognition of the venue, we try to find out an ideal arrangement of musical instruments (and musicians), microphones and recording staff. Although arrangement is an extremely time-consuming process, it essentially determines the final result.
Placement of Tone-Pearls
The fourth step is unique. Having found the almost ideal arrangement, we place Tone-Pearls on different locations of the venue according to the principles of music and space.
Fine-tuning
The fifth step is fine-tuning. We tune and refine the arrangements of everything in the room. So we are ready to record. The steps above are only the milestones of the pre-recording procedure. There are many subtle details, of course, not described above.
Recording process
We use full analogue recording only. One movement or one musical piece is recorded as a whole part whitout any cutting or editing. Music is captured by just a single pair of AKG C 414 Limited Edition microphones, directly connected to a Nagra IVS reel-to-reel tape recorder with Vovox cables. Music is recorded on RMG SM468 tapes at 15 ips speed using Nagra Master EQ. The carefully placed Tone-pearls are also part of the recording inventory.
Finalizing the reel to reel master tape
Because the music is recorded direct to stereo, there is no need for any mixing or manipulating, after the recording has been made. We do not want to manipulate the recordings in any way. Our experiments revealed that ANY manipulation decreases the quality of recorded music. I mean music and not sound.
I admit that the sound quality can be improved by post-processing. However, the music is more than sound (see more). We use adequate devices to achieve excellent sound quality. If the recording has been made adequately, there is no need for further and subsequent improvement of sound quality. We always use live recording and record entire pieces of music. We never create a track from separate recordings.