Recording in Russia

Today has been an exciting day because Parma recorded Brian's piece 'Shadows of Memory'.

The recording took place in St Petersburg, though the only way  you could tell was that people were talking Russian in the background - one recording studio looks like another.  The conductor is based in USA but is Russian so he was talking to the orchestra in Russian. 

We were connected by Skype and were talking to the guy from Parma (Bob) and the recording engineer (Dirk) as they ran the session.  It started at 7am (our time) and they did the recording in sections.  They had rehearsed it the day before for an hour or so and had obviously run it through then to get a feel for it and to know what it should sound like. 

The recording engineer ran the show pretty much, telling the conductor what worked and what didn't, pointing out places where an instrument was out of time or out of tune.  It was fascinating because in a concert the conductor is king, but in a recording the engineer is at least equal if not slightly more in charge. 

The sound on Skype wasn't great, and got worse after 9am when people started work and there were more people using the line, so Brian couldn't hear detail, but when he asked about speeds and dynamics they adjusted things as he asked them to.   The session lasted till 11am and they had done numerous takes of all of it by then. 

They  now send the recordings back to the studio in the States for the post production creation of the cd itself.

It was really exciting and a little bit boring all at the same time.  Mostly exciting though!