Source - Innerfidelity Article by Tyll Hersten!!
"The making of "Dr Chesky's Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show!"
"I worked side-by-side with David Chesky on dozens of Chesky Records sessions in the 1990s to the early 2000s, so I know firsthand how obsessed he is about making great sounding recordings. Great sound is, like most things in audio, purely subjective, so before we go any further I'll try to define Chesky's approach. Simply put, he wants to faithfully record the true sound of vocalists and instruments.
That type of sound is rarely heard on commercially released rock or jazz cassettes, 8-tracks, LPs, CDs, SACDs, DVD-As, or high-resolution downloads. Most albums are equalized, dynamically compressed, processed, overdubbed, multitracked and close-miked. There's nothing wrong with any of that, and lots of great music has been recorded that way, but those recordings can't sound truly realistic. They were designed to sound "good," or commercial, or whatever the producers or artists wanted them to sound like. Realistic is the least likely objective.
Take, for example, any commercial recording with a singer and a band. In real life and 100% unplugged -- there's no way you'd ever hear the singer -- he or she would be drowned out by the band. It would be just as hard to get a balance with acoustic guitars and drums, unless all of the guitars were boosted and compressed in the mix. Everything gets recorded to separate tracks in acoustically dead studios, and reverberation is added in the mix, usually from digital reverb units to create a sense of space. Thanks to the skills of the engineers and producers we accept the illusion of the whole band playing together, but some of the musicians may have never met each other, or even played or sang in tune. Their music was pitch-corrected, processed, edited, assembled and manufactured, and while the end result might be great it probably bears little relationship to the true sound of the band. There's not a lot of there there. David Chesky was never interested in making those kinds of recordings; there's already plenty to choose from.
So starting in 1988 David and his brother Norman Chesky set out to make recordings that preserved as much of the live-in-the studio sound (with no overdubbing) of the original event as possible. By the mid 1990s they had stopped recording in studios, and favored churches for their livelier acoustics. They knew a lot of the best musicians in New York, and many played on Chesky sessions.
Starting last year David Chesky, engineer Nicholas Prout and assistant engineer Alex Sterling took the sound to the next level, with binaural recording techniques. No matter how large or small the band all of the instruments and singers are recorded "live" with just one pair of mikes mounted in the ears of a "dummy" head (a Bruel & Kjaer 4100D), which was connected to a MSB Technology 384-kHz/32-bit analog-to-digital converter and a hard drive recorder. I went to most of the binaural sessions and monitored the sound with a variety of headphones, including UE Reference Monitors and Jerry Harvey JH-3A IEMs; and Hifiman HE-500, Audeze LCD-2 (revised), LCD-3, and Audio Technica ATH-M50 full-size headphones. The Dr. Chesky recordings can sound great over speakers, but you get more of the full-blown, you-are-there realism with headphones. You hear exactly what the B & K binaural mikes heard. That's so cool!
The first "Dr. Chesky's Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show!" sessions were recorded at the Hirsch Center (the former St. Elias Church) in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in February of this year. The 130 year old building is run down, but the High Victorian Gothic cathedral's plastered walls and ornate wood trimmings yielded ravishing acoustics. Chesky brought in a parade of musicians: everything from high-energy electric grooves to New Orleans jazz, acoustic folk, and chamber groups. The musicians all took to recording to the B & K head with ease, and didn't miss playing directly to an individual mike. They came to see the head as a stand-in for the audiophiles who would eventually hear these recordings.
The next series of recordings were held at The Chesky crew recorded Bach's "Toccata and Fugue" on the Church's world-class organ (built in 1965 by the M.P. Moller Company, and restored in 2000).
Inspired by 4th & 5th century early Christian basilicas in Ravenna, Italy, the Church is 284 feet long, 121 feet wide, and 114 feet to the highest point of the towers, which are 38 feet square. The acoustics of this 127 year old building are amazing, and have even longer reverberation tails than the Hirsch Center's. The crew recorded a choir singing Mozart's "Ave verum," and you can really hear the voices filling that huge space.
"Dancing Flute and Drum," with flautist Anne Drummond and David Chesky playing a large African drum is one of my favorite tracks. Recorded at St. Paul's, the drum's transients and power are thrilling, and the way the sound of the two instruments reflect off the walls, ceiling and floor is spectacular. The dynamics are unrestricted by compression, and the massive reverberation is real, not created or mixed after the session. The percussion instruments' high-frequency transients on "Tranquility" are positively vivid, and on another track David Chesky demonstrates actual soundstage depth by speaking from 30 feet away from the binaural head, and then slowly approaches the head and speaks directly into one ear.
Some tracks are better than others in capturing -- for lack of a better way of describing it -- the binaural effect. Wycliffe Gordon's New Orleans band sounds like stereo, but other tunes sound like you're in the room with the band. The type of headphones you listen on can change the binaural perspective to a degree. I heard differences on IEMs vs. circumaural, full-size headphones. In-ears produce a more accurate soundstage, but the over-the ear headphones sound, well, different. More open is one way to describe it, but that's not exactly what's going on, it's less focused, less precise, but the sound is more spacious over full-size headphones.
In addition to the tunes the "Dr Chesky's Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show!" has test tracks with acoustic and electric bass scales, where the bottom frequencies are 30 and 16 Hertz, respectively. St. Paul's mighty organ supplies bass frequencies down to 16 Hz.
Since Dr. Chesky recordings have more lifelike soft-to-loud dynamic range than most of the music you already own the average volume level will be lower. That's because the music's original soft-to-loud dynamic range is compressed to be loud most of the time. With the Dr. Chesky tracks you need to raise your volume control to a higher than normal level to access the recordings' full impact. Nothing wrong with that, but one real liability of on location recording is higher ambient noise levels than modern studios. On some tracks, namely the ones with organ scales, the church's lighting system buzzes and NYC low-frequency rumbles are audible. That said, the birds tweeting (not the electronic kind of tweeting) outside the church add a special something to folk singer Amber Rubarth's lovely tune, "Storms are on the Ocean." The birds are singing along with Amber!
"Dr. Chesky's Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show!" is available here as 192-kHz/24-bit ($24.98) or 96-kHz/24-bit ($17.98) high-resolution downloads, or as a CD resolution 44.1-kHz/16-bit ($11.98) download from HDtracks.com. A CD version of "Dr. Chesky's Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show!" will be offered in a few months.
Editor's Note: I've downloaded this album today, and have spent a glorious morning listening to the tracks as I tried to configure and upload this article. I say 'tried' because it's been awfully difficult to do the work as I keep getting swept away by the sounds.
From the simple clarity of Amber Rubarth's voice on the first track "Storms Are On the Ocean", to the incredible density and depth of sound on the Bach "Toccata And Fugue" I was simply awash in the presence of the recorded event.
I'll forewarn you, if you haven't heard a Chesky recording before you may find yourself a little disoriented at first. As Steve mentions, for most record producers "Realistic is the least likely objective." When you first hear a recording that is exquisitely faithful to the live experience, it will sound quit different to your ears. Relax, take you time, turn the volume knob a bit higher than your used to, close your eyes, and let yourself get drawn into the space of the recording. If you're like me, you'll be wanting more, lots more, recordings like this.
The good news is that, while not done using a binaural technique, you'll find plenty of other minimally miked and very live sounding recordings produced by the Chesky brothers at HD Tracks here, all are available in a variety of high resolution formats. Some of my favorites are: Ana Caram's "The Other Side of Jobim"; The John Basile Quartet's "The Desmond Project"; and one of my all-time favorite albums, Jon Faddis' "Remembrances." Enjoy!
I'll leave you with this short video describing the gear used to make the recording."
HDtracks & Chesky Records Introduce Binaural+ Series Part 2 - YouTube
Link to source:- The making of "Dr Chesky's Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show!" | InnerFidelity
"The making of "Dr Chesky's Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show!"
"I worked side-by-side with David Chesky on dozens of Chesky Records sessions in the 1990s to the early 2000s, so I know firsthand how obsessed he is about making great sounding recordings. Great sound is, like most things in audio, purely subjective, so before we go any further I'll try to define Chesky's approach. Simply put, he wants to faithfully record the true sound of vocalists and instruments.
That type of sound is rarely heard on commercially released rock or jazz cassettes, 8-tracks, LPs, CDs, SACDs, DVD-As, or high-resolution downloads. Most albums are equalized, dynamically compressed, processed, overdubbed, multitracked and close-miked. There's nothing wrong with any of that, and lots of great music has been recorded that way, but those recordings can't sound truly realistic. They were designed to sound "good," or commercial, or whatever the producers or artists wanted them to sound like. Realistic is the least likely objective.
Take, for example, any commercial recording with a singer and a band. In real life and 100% unplugged -- there's no way you'd ever hear the singer -- he or she would be drowned out by the band. It would be just as hard to get a balance with acoustic guitars and drums, unless all of the guitars were boosted and compressed in the mix. Everything gets recorded to separate tracks in acoustically dead studios, and reverberation is added in the mix, usually from digital reverb units to create a sense of space. Thanks to the skills of the engineers and producers we accept the illusion of the whole band playing together, but some of the musicians may have never met each other, or even played or sang in tune. Their music was pitch-corrected, processed, edited, assembled and manufactured, and while the end result might be great it probably bears little relationship to the true sound of the band. There's not a lot of there there. David Chesky was never interested in making those kinds of recordings; there's already plenty to choose from.
So starting in 1988 David and his brother Norman Chesky set out to make recordings that preserved as much of the live-in-the studio sound (with no overdubbing) of the original event as possible. By the mid 1990s they had stopped recording in studios, and favored churches for their livelier acoustics. They knew a lot of the best musicians in New York, and many played on Chesky sessions.
Starting last year David Chesky, engineer Nicholas Prout and assistant engineer Alex Sterling took the sound to the next level, with binaural recording techniques. No matter how large or small the band all of the instruments and singers are recorded "live" with just one pair of mikes mounted in the ears of a "dummy" head (a Bruel & Kjaer 4100D), which was connected to a MSB Technology 384-kHz/32-bit analog-to-digital converter and a hard drive recorder. I went to most of the binaural sessions and monitored the sound with a variety of headphones, including UE Reference Monitors and Jerry Harvey JH-3A IEMs; and Hifiman HE-500, Audeze LCD-2 (revised), LCD-3, and Audio Technica ATH-M50 full-size headphones. The Dr. Chesky recordings can sound great over speakers, but you get more of the full-blown, you-are-there realism with headphones. You hear exactly what the B & K binaural mikes heard. That's so cool!
The first "Dr. Chesky's Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show!" sessions were recorded at the Hirsch Center (the former St. Elias Church) in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in February of this year. The 130 year old building is run down, but the High Victorian Gothic cathedral's plastered walls and ornate wood trimmings yielded ravishing acoustics. Chesky brought in a parade of musicians: everything from high-energy electric grooves to New Orleans jazz, acoustic folk, and chamber groups. The musicians all took to recording to the B & K head with ease, and didn't miss playing directly to an individual mike. They came to see the head as a stand-in for the audiophiles who would eventually hear these recordings.
The next series of recordings were held at The Chesky crew recorded Bach's "Toccata and Fugue" on the Church's world-class organ (built in 1965 by the M.P. Moller Company, and restored in 2000).
Inspired by 4th & 5th century early Christian basilicas in Ravenna, Italy, the Church is 284 feet long, 121 feet wide, and 114 feet to the highest point of the towers, which are 38 feet square. The acoustics of this 127 year old building are amazing, and have even longer reverberation tails than the Hirsch Center's. The crew recorded a choir singing Mozart's "Ave verum," and you can really hear the voices filling that huge space.
"Dancing Flute and Drum," with flautist Anne Drummond and David Chesky playing a large African drum is one of my favorite tracks. Recorded at St. Paul's, the drum's transients and power are thrilling, and the way the sound of the two instruments reflect off the walls, ceiling and floor is spectacular. The dynamics are unrestricted by compression, and the massive reverberation is real, not created or mixed after the session. The percussion instruments' high-frequency transients on "Tranquility" are positively vivid, and on another track David Chesky demonstrates actual soundstage depth by speaking from 30 feet away from the binaural head, and then slowly approaches the head and speaks directly into one ear.
Some tracks are better than others in capturing -- for lack of a better way of describing it -- the binaural effect. Wycliffe Gordon's New Orleans band sounds like stereo, but other tunes sound like you're in the room with the band. The type of headphones you listen on can change the binaural perspective to a degree. I heard differences on IEMs vs. circumaural, full-size headphones. In-ears produce a more accurate soundstage, but the over-the ear headphones sound, well, different. More open is one way to describe it, but that's not exactly what's going on, it's less focused, less precise, but the sound is more spacious over full-size headphones.
In addition to the tunes the "Dr Chesky's Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show!" has test tracks with acoustic and electric bass scales, where the bottom frequencies are 30 and 16 Hertz, respectively. St. Paul's mighty organ supplies bass frequencies down to 16 Hz.
Since Dr. Chesky recordings have more lifelike soft-to-loud dynamic range than most of the music you already own the average volume level will be lower. That's because the music's original soft-to-loud dynamic range is compressed to be loud most of the time. With the Dr. Chesky tracks you need to raise your volume control to a higher than normal level to access the recordings' full impact. Nothing wrong with that, but one real liability of on location recording is higher ambient noise levels than modern studios. On some tracks, namely the ones with organ scales, the church's lighting system buzzes and NYC low-frequency rumbles are audible. That said, the birds tweeting (not the electronic kind of tweeting) outside the church add a special something to folk singer Amber Rubarth's lovely tune, "Storms are on the Ocean." The birds are singing along with Amber!
"Dr. Chesky's Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show!" is available here as 192-kHz/24-bit ($24.98) or 96-kHz/24-bit ($17.98) high-resolution downloads, or as a CD resolution 44.1-kHz/16-bit ($11.98) download from HDtracks.com. A CD version of "Dr. Chesky's Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show!" will be offered in a few months.
Editor's Note: I've downloaded this album today, and have spent a glorious morning listening to the tracks as I tried to configure and upload this article. I say 'tried' because it's been awfully difficult to do the work as I keep getting swept away by the sounds.
From the simple clarity of Amber Rubarth's voice on the first track "Storms Are On the Ocean", to the incredible density and depth of sound on the Bach "Toccata And Fugue" I was simply awash in the presence of the recorded event.
I'll forewarn you, if you haven't heard a Chesky recording before you may find yourself a little disoriented at first. As Steve mentions, for most record producers "Realistic is the least likely objective." When you first hear a recording that is exquisitely faithful to the live experience, it will sound quit different to your ears. Relax, take you time, turn the volume knob a bit higher than your used to, close your eyes, and let yourself get drawn into the space of the recording. If you're like me, you'll be wanting more, lots more, recordings like this.
The good news is that, while not done using a binaural technique, you'll find plenty of other minimally miked and very live sounding recordings produced by the Chesky brothers at HD Tracks here, all are available in a variety of high resolution formats. Some of my favorites are: Ana Caram's "The Other Side of Jobim"; The John Basile Quartet's "The Desmond Project"; and one of my all-time favorite albums, Jon Faddis' "Remembrances." Enjoy!
I'll leave you with this short video describing the gear used to make the recording."
HDtracks & Chesky Records Introduce Binaural+ Series Part 2 - YouTube
Link to source:- The making of "Dr Chesky's Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show!" | InnerFidelity
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