A Solo Piano Sonic Spectacular Intended For All Ears Featuring Female Composers
double "One-Step" LP Set, or standard pressing, both put you in the room
Along with an Acoustical-Systems A*Stellar turntable to review, company founder and designer Dietrich Brakemeier brought along a remarkable sounding solo piano record his company sponsored produced and released on vinyl and CD last year, created using a purist minimal microphone technique, and Studer tape recorders. The venue was an old brewery—the Sudhaus—(which I assume translated to "suds house", the name given to my college fraternity living room), now a small 100 seat concert space featuring a hard floor and an "unusual" ceiling, shown in photos to have "scalloped" features I've not got the architectural chops to more accurately put into words. The notes describe the space as featuring an acoustic envelope that is "clear", "direct" and "quick".
The recording used a pair of B&K 4040 tube microphones separated left/right by a large Jecklin-disc placed at a height of two meters. A Jecklin disc is a sound absorbing isolation device designed to absorb midrange frequencies and produce more intense stereo separation.
"Large and deep" QRD sound diffusors and "huge" absorbers were placed at the back of the room. Photos in the package show a different microphone set-up that eventually was abandoned. The goal was to "...capture the acoustic of the piano in the hall as pure and natural as possible. We wanted listeners to experience the performance of Ms. YuWen Huang on the piano in the specific natural ambience of the Sudhaus."
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED AND HOW! This is as intensely 3 dimensional and timbrally believable as a solo piano recording produced in a relatively small empty space can possible sound. The piano image is obstinately stable and solid as any recording you've ever heard, which helps make it as believable a "you are there" in the recorded space recording as you've heard or have in your collection, other than one recorded multi-channel in surround sound. Side 4 is at 45rpm, which will give you an extra sonic jolt.
As for the music and Ms. Huang, the female composers range from the familiar 19th century names—Clara Schumann, wife of composer Robert and the prolific Fanny Mendelssohn (Felix's older sister)—to female composers that bridged the 19th and 20th century including Amy Beach (1867-1944), Mel Bonis (1858-1937) and Lili Boulanger, (younger sister of the better known Nadia) who died at age 24 but not before leaving behind a string of mostly impressionist/post-romantic music.
The Mendelssohn—a piano sonata that occupies all of side C is to my heathen ears the most substantial of the pieces, but because of Ms. Huang's intense and drama-infused playing and of course the sound that you will not want to stop listening to, this is powerful musical and sonic entertainment. This double record set will tell you just how good your system can sound.
Post Production Process
Duophonic is of course an unfortunate name for any studio—at least for Americans who know it as the process by which Capitol Records ruined many a fine mono recording by The Beach Boys and Beatles among others but this Duophonic has nothing whatsoever to do with that Duophonic!
This DuoPhonic uses a Dave Wilson modified VMS 70 lathe.
And vintage late 60's/early '70's Swedish presses, I assume are Toolex Alphas.. The limited edition 1-step appears to be a pure vinyl compound similar to Analogue Productions' "Clarity Vinyl". The pressing quality is as good as vinyl pressing gets—at least my copy was perfect in every way: quiet, concentric, and flat.
The record is available at YuWen Huang's website.
