So I Made a CD (Kind of)

[Henchard]

Newbie Alert. Mods please move if there is a better forum.

When I joined the forum a few weeks back I explained that I was doing so as a result of my support for a young Scottish Traditioal fiddle player. The plan was for him to record a CD in high definition audio with one of the world's top engineers/producers (Six Grammy nominations and three Grammys seems good to me).

I'm just back from a week in Glasgow helping record the album and I couldn't help smiling driving home playing a copy of some of the tunes recorded straight off the soundboard. Especially as I'd driven up listening to the rough ideas recorded on a mobile phone.

Absolutely fascinating to be part of the team and see really great young musicians working with a top flight producer and engineer.

Now of course I have to upgrade my hifi (from CD based) to play the hi res audio when post production is finished sometime early next year.

There is some more information about the recordng process here

http://www.ryanyoung.scot/recording

and I'll try to answer any questions (if I can and anyone is interested). In time I'll try and post links to some audio when it becomes available.

[TazSob]

Lot of work going into the recordings, good luck with the album

[petrat]

Really interesting, John! It must have been fascinating to see the development of the music/performance over the week. How did you get involved, btw?

Quick question, from someone who has never really understood the role(s?) of the producer ... do you think Jesse 'shaped' or changed the performance significantly, or was he more concerned with just capturing the performance that the musicians created?

[Barry]

Being a bit of a 'numpty' when it comes to matters of digital audio - is this 'high res' recording available on CD, and if so, can it be replayed on a conventional CD player (as distinct from a SACD or HDCD player)?

[Henchard]

Ok I haven't been here for a while but time for an update.

To answer two questions above. A producer definitely has a big effect on a recording. An artist may have their ideas but often they need guidance as to how to interpret them. I know that a young inexperienced artist, like Ryan, found the producer's guidance invaluable.

The high resolution recordings in theory will have little advantage when played back on a CD for instance; as a well recorded CD can playback pretty much everything the human hear can hear. However, there are advantages when doing the post production in that it minimises quantization errors and quantization noise when editing, mixing, and mastering the recording.

The higher res files will be available for download and can be played back via a server and a suitable DAC (M-Dac+ in my case).

The album has taken longer in post production than anticipated due to the producer/engineer's workload.

However, here is the first track to see the light of day.


https://youtu.be/p3M4jrE023w?t=11s