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Audio recording features in my earliest family recollections. My father was always interested in recording things, and this interest was instilled in me, particularly when I started to learn to play the organ. It was the one way that my father could prove to me that I was indeed doing it wrong (just like he said), where I was convinced that I was doing it right. This was a valuable lesson in the differences between hearing (normally what you want to hear) and true listening. There was another valuable lesson here, but one which took many years to get anywhere near right. That was learning how to record an organ so that it sounded "right" when you got home. This made us take our first tentative steps on the equipment buying ladder, and nearly forty years on my father and I still wonder why we haven't reached the end of the ladder. Of course we know that it is both never ending and self perpetuating, but infinity will always remain a challenging concept for all but the most brilliant human minds...
Anyway, we did our first commercial recording for someone else about thirty years ago, and gradually word spread about the quality of our work. Very often we were only providing others with a single permanent record of their own musical event but eventually we were doing the occasional run of cassettes, and in so doing gained some experience of the printing and the tape duplication industries. This was in the days before computers and so on, which made editing and typesetting absolute nightmares.
Even when digital recording became affordable for us, digital editing was silly money so we still had large problems to overcome. Now with the advent of personal computers, the entire process of audio production has become so easy. I have twice recorded a visiting recitalist's performance at the Ulster Hall here in Belfast, and they have been able to take a fully idented CD-R home on the plane the following morning. We now have the wherewithal to produce commercial pressed CDs and the all-in package prices for 500 units including full colour artwork start at about £2500 for local recordings.
We have tended to favour AKG microphones over the years, and currently have two 414s (still regarded by many as one of the best), three 451s, together with several Calrecs. We would also tend to make recordings using a single pair of mics where at all possible. We use either custom built mic amps or a Mackie mixer, and record onto either DAT or hard disk.
The following page shows the All for Music Catalogue and there will be some audio clips as well.
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©SGH Dec 2001 ©SGH Jan 2002