Music and Recording Features

Sort By: Post DateTitle Publish Date
Music and Recording Features

Zappa Returns!

John Swenson First Published: Nov 22, 2008 0 comments

Frank Zappa was well known for a lot of things—his sharp satiric wit, his virtuoso guitar improvisations, his excellence as a bandleader, his fearlessness in combating hostile political forces and crooked record-industry executives. But Zappa is all too rarely given credit for his status as one of the most creative musical imaginations of the 20th century, regardless of genre.


Music and Recording Features

New Cantus CD Features Luminous Sound

John Atkinson First Published: Sep 26, 2008 0 comments
In June 2007, I again recorded Minnesotan male choir Cantus live on location, this time in the glorious acoustic of Sauder Concert Hall at Goshen College, in Goshen, Indiana. The resultant CD, While You Are Alive (Cantus CTS-1208), is the eighth I have engineered of the group; it is a collection of 20th- and 21st-century works that explores, illuminates, and celebrates all stages of life, from birth to death.
Music and Recording Features

Attention Screen: The Making of Live at Merkin Hall

John Atkinson, Wes Phillips First Published: Sep 18, 2007 0 comments

John Atkinson: Making It Live




The e-mail from Stereophile reviewer Bob Reina was straightforward: "I want to make a demo of my new jazz group. I plan to record the session in my living room by getting my old four-channel Teac 3440 out of mothballs and sticking one or two mikes on each instrument. I'd like your view on which mikes would be most appropriate for the four instruments . . . "


Music and Recording Features

Beethoven's Diabelli Variations: the Finest Hour of Piano Music in the World

John Atkinson First Published: May 01, 2006 0 comments

John Atkinson on the Recording




"This will fix it!" Kimber Kable's Ray Kimber placed some acoustic baffles around the table on which sat my Apple TiBook. We were recording Robert">http://www.robert-silverman.com">Robert Silverman performing one of Beethoven's masterworks for piano, the Diabelli Variations, Op.120, and I had been bothered by a faint whistle underlying the music. It turned out to be the sound of my laptop's fan, an unforeseen drawback of my decision to dispense with tape and record straight to hard drive for the August 2004 sessions. We had already had a problem with a slight slapback echo from the balcony of the Austad Auditorium at Weber State University in Utah, which Ray had fixed with drapes, and a problem with low-frequency rumble from airplanes overflying the college campus during one session had been solved by Ray phoning the air traffic control tower. However, even Ray couldn't deal with thunder, so that was the one session we decided to finish early.


Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement