My recording philosophy is to give classical music the same intimacy and reality that well recorded Jazz has. You should be able
hear the little human nuances that make the sound occur: these are real physical instruments, not synthesizers. I want to
make early music close and intimate.
I believe that the "classical music belongs in a church" philosophy is killing the genre,
by making the sound (both in performance and on CD)
a huge echoing distant mush. For a long time, classical music was played in small chambers, or at dinner parties, and later
it was played in concert settings. Historically, the church has been only one of the settings for this music. It's time we rediscovered our past and put early music back into small settings.
Despite my wife being a harpsichordist, I never liked the instrument because I'd only heard it in concerts at churches, where all you hear is "clang, clang, clang." My mouth dropped when I first
heard a harpsichord in a small room in Berkeley. There was depth, subtlety and tonal range that no-one ever hears in a church. I couldn't believe what an injustice had been done to this great instrument.
When I record artists, I get in close and try to get a nice stereo image so that the instruments stand out separately and the counterpoint (the interplay of
different melody lines) comes out clearly. If there's a singer involved, I also want them to sound like they're in your home with you. That's how Jazz and Rock is typically recorded,
it's what people are familiar with and I believe it's popular because it's a pleasing sound.
Each instrument generally gets two microphones, left and right, for a good stereo image. At the same time, I don't
do a lot of over-engineering and generally stay away from hypercardoid (super-directional) and ribbon mics. I don't want to overly color the sound and want it to be realistic. This allows
the musicians to vary their own volume and tone relative to each other and for this to be captured in the recording.
More than once, I've had musicians stunned at how good a sound I'm getting with two simple microphones (I
tend to favor small-diaphram omnis), much better than the sound a musician got "just last week" at a big-name studio with half dozen mics on their instrument. I don't think I'm a genius: in fact, just
the opposite (no, really)! Because I don't know how to get really fancy and pull it off, I avoid complicated technology and microphone setups and generally the keep-it-simple approach makes a nice sound.
So... I usually record people in my sun-room (with fabric dampeners on the ceiling and walls) in Berkeley, or in a 600 square foot performance room in London. It's my home,
so musicians feel at ease. The temperature is nice and consistent, there's no weird buzzing fluorescent lighting to hunt down and there's a limitless supply of decent coffee. Lunch is a big pile of pasta with everyone chatting aimably around a large table. Daily recording sessions last no
more than 5 hours, typically with just 3 hours with "the tape rolling." Because we're recording at my house, there's no stratosphereic every-minute-is-costing-us-a-fortune pressure, everyone is more mellow. That's important, because playing well in a
studio setting is really hard, it's just unnatural feeling and tense, so whatever we as engineers can do to make that experience more pleasant, we'll get a better performance out of the musicians.
And, if things aren't going well, we just call it quits and come back tomorrow.
The most important thing I, the recording engineer, can do is make the musicians at ease so that they perform at their best. That's 80% of a CD, and I've often marveled at how
at some recording sessions I've visited, very little concern is given to making the situation calm and "good performance friendly." In fact, often the engineer is doing the exact
opposite: creating situations that increase stress, such as endless fussing with the microphones, technical problems (easily avoided by recording to two devices at once, so you
have a backup!) and lots of starting and stopping.
The Briddes Roune CD I recorded was my first, and several are currently in production (recorded, and being edited). I generally only record classical and world music, because those are the genres I think I'm best at, and it's fairly time efficient for me (I do have to run Magnatune the rest of the time, after all).
I owe everything I've learned in recording from David Tayler, who is a professional recording engineer as well as you-didn't-believe-it-got-this-good lute player (for Philharmonia Baroque, Orinda and others). He's literally spent hours with me swapping microphones in a distant room while we listen to a bird chirping two blocks away, as well as answering every question I've had about Sequoia (the editing software he and I use), microphones and everthing else... Thanks Dave!
John Buckman, Amateur Photographer
Many artists I sign up for Magnatune don't have good photographs, so I've learned the rudiments of portrait photography and enjoy photo sessions with our musicians. Below is a
sample of photographs of Magnatune musicians I've "shot".
I also owe a great deal to Sheila Newbery, a professional photographer in the San Francisco Bay Area, for all the time
she's spent discussing my photographs with me, and showing me tricks of the trade. She's also done several photo shoots of me that have helped us
get press coverage (good looking press kit really do help you get written up in magazines) such as the orange-jacket photo at the top of this page.
So... here are a few photographs I've taken, so you can see what I'm all about. If you're a Magnatune musician and would like to get your photos taken in London or Berkeley (I do it for free), just
send me an email.
