As I hear my student playing the piano through Zoom, just for a moment, I think I am hearing Paderewski in 1912. The sound is imperfect. At moments it drops out. There are distortions of speed and rhythm. Yet, my ear, my mind is hearing music: completing and linking together the aural information that is there. As an adolescent, and thanks to the public library, I listened to a lot of recordings made by pianists of the early 20th … [Read more...]
I don’t see red
At last, I approved the master for my new CD. After the final round of sound renovations on the trickiest track -- a slow, mostly quiet piece in which some mysterious high frequency sounds were recorded along with the music -- Bob Katz sent me some before and after pictures: BEFORE ___________________________________________________________________ AFTER Using editing software that visualizes the recorded music across the … [Read more...]
Master
From Florida, Bob Katz has sent a test CD of the mastered version of part of my new recording. This morning I'm listening. He's sent along a list of many clicks and noises he removed. There's question about the basic sound. He's chosen a dither he likes and done a bit of EQ and stereo image shifting. The underlying recording was too diffuse, he thought. He wants a bit more "edge" and a clearer sense of where the piano is on the stage. It's … [Read more...]