Diva's Session Notes & Reviews
I thought I would add some personal comments regarding this project. The whole project was recorded, mixed and mastered in five days during the first week in May 2000. The breif for the job was to capture a live recording of the Three Divas as the CD was primarily to be sold at the performances from their forthcomming concert tour. It was intended as a momento of the evening for concert goers.
The time constraint was the hardest aspect of the job. We HAD to finish the job by friday night to allow time for the CD's to be duplicated and transported interstate by the following Tuesday evening. Because of this, all the cover artwork and printing had already been done, even prior to the beginning of the recording sessions. This meant that there was no chance of changing the track order, or worse, no possibility of droping a track from the CD if the performance was substandard. Fortunately, the calibre of all the performers was nothing short of brilliant.
To achieve this in the limited time available, I devised the following specification. The first three days for recording, and the final two day for mix-mastering.
The recordings were done at Studios 301 in Alexandria in Sydney Australia. I decided that the format should be 24 bit digital and since I only needed 8 tracks I settled on using the Tascm DA78 digital multi track recorder. The format for the recording was two pianos (two mics on each piano) and three singers. I used the eighth track for an ambient room mic. All the mics were connected through a bank of eight standalone Neve mic preamps and then through various high end compressors where applicable, and recorded directly to the DA78.
The mix-mastering was doe at 301 mastering. I deliberately chose the DA78 as it has a TDIF digital interface which I connected to a Yamaha 03D digital mixer, for subtle eq and level control. We then sent the 24 bit stereo digital output through all the mastering processors and into Sonic Solutions. This way we maintained a fully "DDD" recording path at full 24 bit depth, which was then finally dithered back to 16 bit at the last, for burning onto CD.
By mixing and mastering simultaneously we not only saved a lot of time but also achieved a higher quality product overall courtesy of the fact that any mixing issues could be fixed at the source rather than using a "band aid" type process across the final mix which is usually the norm in mastering.
The CD went on to achieve "album of the week" in the Sydney Morning Hearld's weekly "Metro" section.
- Here's what they said ...
- Here's an article describing the sessions - also from the Sydney Morning Herald
- Here are some photos from the session
