“You’ve got to read this,” said Peter McGrath, his voice perceptibly shaking. It takes a lot to disturb the normally unflappable McGrath, but the independent recording engineer (and Wilson Audio National Sales Manager) was clearly disturbed.
I was in Miami for a family wedding, and had met Peter for dinner in his hometown on a free evening. He handed me the February 2015 issue of Mix magazine, one of the most popular publications for recording professionals, and directed me to the cover story—a feature about a new multichannel recording of Beethoven’s Ninth by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, led by its music director Andrew Litton in a live performance last November. By the time you are reading this, the CSO’s recording of the Ninth Symphony, plus Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, will be available on a Blu-ray Audio-only disc.
Sounded good to me. Multichannel enthusiasts know that well-made surround sound recordings can vastly increase the realism and sense of occasion associated with large-scale music. When surround is done right, one gets a specific picture of the hall and the deployment of the players on stage, as well as that magical sense of musical presence in the air between the performers and the listener that one experiences at a concert. Unfortunately, however, that was not the goal of this recording.
Employing a German-made Stagetec Aurus digital mixing console, the production team settled on a total of sixty-six microphones, a formidable mixture of Neumann and Sennheiser digital mics and some Neumann analog devices. “Highlight” microphones were used liberally, one for each of the first three desks of first and second violins, one for the principal flute and oboe, several for the brasses, shotgun mics for each vocal soloist, and so on.