How to record pure natural Sound in High-Resolution?
Carpe Diem Records is a German record label specializing in high-fidelity music recordings in natural spaces like churches, concert halls and historic buildings. Since 2008, over 30 recordings have been published covering mostly Early Music, Jazz and Crossover projects. Many of them are also distributed as high-resolution FLAC album downloads.
Jonas Niederstadt, who is the recording producer and owner of the label, uses RME hardware since the first days of the label. Based in Berlin, he is travelling all around the world for his projects, which puts special demands on the hardware used for the recordings.
In April 2015, he recorded the renowned lutenist Toyohiko Satoh Kirishima International Concert hall in Kyushu, Japan. Mr. Satoh played a 400-year old original lute. The recording was pure two-track with only two DPA 4006 TL microphones, and the natural reverb of the concert hall was used.
Solution
“For my recording equipment, I have two basic demands: First, it has to be absolutely reliable, robust, and at the same time extremely portable, as I travel a lot by plane and train with it. For example, for this recording with Toyohiko Satoh I transported all my equipment in a single suitcase on the plane to Japan.
Second, as I produce audiophile recordings in natural spaces with the natural ambiance and all those small subtleties in sound, I need totally transparent preamps, noise-free transmissions and a very neutral and natural overall sound. In this respect, the RME OctaMic XTC combined with MADI transmission proved to be the perfect solution for me and was able to pick up the sound of the historical lute amazingly natural and convincing. It is as if you hear only the instrument, with no technical
transmission devices in between.”
OctaMic XTC
The OctaMic XTC is a full range hi-end preamp and D/DA-converter in reference quality, fully remote controllable. In a standard 19“ box with 1 unit height the device offers numerous extraordinary features like Intelligent Clock Control (ICC), SyncCheck, SteadyClock, QuickGain, AutoSet, MIDI over MADI, and remote control via USB, MADI and MIDI. It includes 8-channel 192 kHz / 24-bit AD conversion with eight high class microphone and line/ instrument pre-amplification inputs in excellent RME quality.
How to “mix in a bus” with RME’s Fireface UFX
Soundesign Ltd. provides broadcast sound for radio, TV, film and music productions. To service this market they have built the Mixbus, a location sound truck designed with only two guiding principles in mind; sound quality and reliability. Naturally they have chosen a whole host of RME hardware.
To date the list includes:
• ADI-4 DD / ADI-642
• Fireface UCX / Fireface UFX
• HDSPe MADI FX
• MADI Bridge
• MADI Converter
• MADI Router
• MADIface USB / MADIface XT
Solution
Conrad Fletcher, founder of Soundesign Ltd. selected the RME Fireface UFX for his location sound truck, the Mixbus. Amongst many other high-profile broadcast events, it was used during the first ever 4K live-to-cinema stream of War Horse from the National Theatre, London. The broadcast reached number 1 in the UK cinema charts.
How to distribute and route MADI streams between several different audio „worlds“?
Rent-All is a versatile rental company in Europe for light, sound, video and rigging. Rent-All provides a wide range of equipment from stock for use in theater, television, concerts and exhibitions.
RME MADI Router
The MADI Router is a compact device designed to link MADI devices of any manufacturer with unprecedented flexibility in signal routing. It provides this flexibility by serving as a format converter between optical and electrical signals, as a signal repeater, and as a distributor and merger of several MADI signals, all at the same time. The MADI Router combines many advantages of pointto-point audio connections, such as low latency and fast recovery time from signal line interruptions, with the flexibility of networked audio connections in which any device has access to any channel available on the network of connected devices.
Solution
Jurgen Vandewalle from Rent-All BV used the new RME MADI Routers for the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
„At the Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen I was responsible for the live sound reinforcement and audio distribution.
In the hall we needed a MADI routing/distribution system for all the MADI streams among the different mixing desks from WL World, Backtrack, MON-world, FOH and the OB compound.
(See schematics)
We used 5 units of the latest RME MADI Router generation.
As you can imagine we couldn’t afford any failures or other malfunctions. RME delivered what I expected and what I am used to. It worked immediately without any setup hassle and continued working flawlessly during setup, rehearsal, and main shows. Despite the small LCD screen, RME MADI Routers are very easy to operate. I didn’t have to check them and could concentrate on all the other things instead.“
Galaxy Studios is a music recording, mixing, mastering and postproduction facility established in Mol, Belgium. It is also the home of outstanding 3D audio technology Auro 3D. With various music and film productions, Galaxy Studios stand for world class technology of advanced sound recording. The facility is known for creative film & music professionals.
For a new recording project, Galaxy Studios started a collaboration with Sennheiser / Neumann and RME. With two recording studios and two control rooms, they built enough space for a 70-piece Philharmonic Orchestra and a large number of singers. It took a lot of technical and logistical preparation to successfuly master the three days in this professional studio environment. All audio content was recorded simultaneously with analog and digital microphones. Because of the specific character of the recordings, two separate control rooms were used.
AES42-Recording with RME‘s DMC-842 M at Galaxy Studios, Belgium
Solution
For recording with the analog microphones a NEVE 88D console was used, while 8 RME DMC-842 M where used to control the digital microphones, to convert the AES42
signals to MADI and to deliver combined MADI streams for the recording in ProTools. For monitoring purposes, Galaxy Studios used an API console. In total 76 digital
microphones were used for this production.
The RME DMC-842 M is both: a 8-channel AES42 to MADI converter and a controller for digital microphones. The unique device allows connection and control of up to 8
digital microphones and converting their signals to ADAT, AES/EBU, analog and MADI (optional). Eight individually switchable hi-end sample rate converters (SRC) offer a
flexible clocking and further usage options, especially as the inputs are fully AES/EBU (AES3) compatible, too.
The „14-18“ CD album was released on April, 20th, and is also available on iTunes.