FEATURE

SUPER AUDIO CV The Sydney Opera House Converted

What do the Sydney The Sydney Symphony Orchestra is furiously For Tony David Cray, who engineered the rosining its bows in preparation for an onslaught Rachmaninoff sessions from the Opera House Symphony Orchestra, of recordings the likes of which the Sydney Studio, recording Ashkenasi and the SSO was recording label Opera House has never seen. In the next three a real treat. It was also an eye opener recording years there are 35 albums slated for release to DSD (Direct Stream Digital) and working Octavia and renowned on SACD of the SSO performing with the with the Japanese Audiophile label, Octavia, for conductor Vladimir famous Russian conductor and renowned whom these hi-res recordings were taking place. pianist, Vladimir Ashkenasi. Late last year As Tony remarked almost immediately Ashkenasi have in common? saw the recording of the first group of these during our conversation in the control room: multi-tracked performances: several pieces by They’re all recording to DSD “Ashkenasi was awesome. He’s knocking on 70 Rachmaninoff (whom Ashkenasi personally but acts like he’s 15! His appointment is nothing at the Sydney Opera House. worked with as a young man). With 2009 short of incredible. He’s a beautifully natured looming large on the SSO’s calendar as the year Text: Andy Stewart guy and amazing with the orchestra – which Ashkenasi will take up residence in Sydney bodes incredibly well for the Sydney Symphony and become the orchestra’s chief conductor, next year. And for this first round of recordings preparations for the ‘Rachmaninoff Sessions’ – performances of Rachmaninoff – it’s have been highly charged, and for the Opera comforting to know that Ashkenasi is renowned House Studio, it’s also included the leap of faith worldwide as the Rachmaninoff guru.” into the world of DSD. The conductor’s appointment is clearly manna For anyone unaware of who Vladimir from heaven. The recording deal between Ashkenasi is, he’s like Elvis Presley turning Octavia and the SSO (35 albums in three up to your singing lessons, or Mohammad Ali years is more than many full-time recording teaching you how to box. A graduate of the studios could boast) will not only see the Opera Moscow Conservatory, Ashkenasi has recorded House Studio catapulted onto the world stage prodigiously – over five decades – everything as a recording venue, it will also help remove from the Preludes and Fugues of Shostakovich the stigma the SSO and the Opera House to Alexander Scriabin’s sonatas, Rachmaninoff’s, management have long attached to recording Chopin’s and Schumann’s entire works for sessions – that studio mics visible to a live piano, Beethoven’s piano sonatas, as well as the audience are a no-no. In short, the old ‘you piano concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, Béla can record the orchestra so long as no-one can Bartók and Sergei Prokofiev. From 1987 to 1994 see the mics’ approach has been swept away by he was the principal conductor of the Royal Ashkenasi’s appointment, and for Tony this Philharmonic Orchestra in London, and from means recording can now finally take place in 1998 to 2003 the chief conductor for the Czech the main hall in front of a live audience without Philharmonic. He’s also won five Grammys over these unreasonable ‘visual’ constraints. the course of his illustrious career. In short, he’s a monster on piano and no slouch with a baton. The combination of flying Decca Trees, new

AT 46 microphones, a state-of-the-art Direct Stream Then, just as I was trying to find ways around Digital path and a world famous conductor that problem by potentially running two systems means that the recordings have taken a giant sync’ed together, the guys at Pyramix rang leap forward, although in Tony’s words: “there and told me they would have version 6 of their are still a lot of ‘unknowns’”. I started the software ready to go by the time we were due conversation by asking Tony how the three to record. Version 6 could do as many as 32 parties – the Sydney Symphony, Ashkenasi and channels of simultaneous DSD recording – so Octavia – came together in Sydney. they claimed – but, of course, by the time we were ready to go, their release date had been VLAD THE CONDUCTOR set back. In the end we ran the beta software Tony David Cray: When Ashkenasi came out of version 6 on a hired, take-no-prisoners PC, to work with the Sydney Symphony late last plugged in the two MADI leads and ‘boom’, year, part of the deal was that he bring his off it went. There was more to it than that of recording team with him. He’s actually signed course, but essentially the system worked from to Decca but also has a very strong relationship the moment we set it up. with the Japanese record company, Octavia, who have been recording all over the world AS: What about converters and monitoring, did for years. Octavia are very well respected in they cause any dramas? both the Super Audio CD and orchestral TDC: Well, the Euphonix can’t replay DSD recording markets, so when they asked us to do files of course, being a PCM (Pulse Code the recordings we jumped at the chance, and Modulation) digital console, and the converters quickly set about tooling up to record to DSD, only go up to 96k anyway, so we had to look which was their preferred format. We’d never around for new ones. We settled on Danish had a massive budget for recordings nor was our Audio Denmark converters, which Merging level of enterprise anything like that of Octavia. re-brands as Sphinx 2 (eight-channel A/D and We’d been recording the Sydney Symphony on D/As), and they formed the head of our chain. a comparatively modest level and we certainly That was all set up on stage in the main hall of weren’t recording to DSD. We were tracking the Opera House and the signals piped down through Euphonix A/Ds to typical PCM here to the studio and pushed into the recorders. formats at sample rates of either 44.1 or 96k We then fed a converted digital signal out of the (which sounded fine), and most of the albums recorder into the Euphonix. What’s important were being recorded directly to our Pyramix to realise is that we were never actually hearing system. DSD, we were only ever listening to a PCM- So the Sydney Opera House management encoded 16-bit/44.1k version of the recorded committed to getting the equipment together DSD files… Curiously though, I’d still have and eventually we settled on a 24-channel DSD people come in here and be bowled over by the Pyramix setup. I was hoping for 32 channels, sound. but the money involved was just too crazy, so AS: So because the Euphonix architecture can 24 it was. But at that stage Octavia were usually only replay PCM digital formats, you had to doing 16-track orchestra recordings, so initially convert the DSD files to monitor the sessions… 24 seemed fine. and at 44.1k? Andy Stewart: Is 16 tracks a fairly typical TDC: Yep. However, in reality I had nothing number for an orchestral recording? to measure the quality of the DSD recordings TDC: It depends on the approach, the orchestra against, in the sense that on the very first day and the hall. Ideally you need a minimum of of recording, we had new acoustic drapes in the about seven, although you can do some fantastic hall, a new conductor, incredibly enthusiastic, recordings with just two! Lots of microphones happy musicians, $100,000 worth of new mics, generally only come into play when you’ve got new converters and a new recording format. individually strange things going on: an unusual Everything sounded different, not just the percussion section or featured soloists perhaps… recording medium, so it wasn’t easy to tell what or if things aren’t going well! That’s when you improvements were attributable to the DSD have to get in close and start balancing the rig or, for instance, the new Neumann mics floating on the Decca Tree. From my point of orchestra. Usually I find miking up an orchestra Microphones liberated: the works out to around 20 channels. view, that was the change that had the most Rachmaninoff sessions saw significant impact on the sound – the Decca microphones take pride of place AS: What attracted you to the Pyramix option? in ways never witnessed by a live Tree. Convincing the SSO to allow me to hang audience at the Opera House. TDC: I spent quite some time investigating a Decca Tree in front of the orchestra (which I’d which manufacturers could record DSD files: never been given permission to do before!) was Genex and Pyramix systems were the obvious 80 to 90 percent of the sound, I’d reckon. candidates. I also came across a system AS: Is there a difference to be heard in the called Sonoma, but finding out more about it sound of the DSD recordings then, in reality? was like trying to find the Lost Ark. It was Presumably capturing the orchestra via DSD also very expensive, so I quickly formed the counts for something… view that since we already had a good working relationship with [Merging] Pyramix, and since TDC: It does, for sure. After about 11 albums it was also the program Octavia used, we’d with the SSO I started to hear what I could be wise to stick with what we knew. We then only describe as ‘grain’ on the PCM format. discovered that Pyramix’s version 5 software It was almost like I’d zoomed in too far on a www www.octavia.co.jp max’s out at 16 channels of DSD. photo. After five or six hours in a session I’d

AT 47 start hearing this granular sound, this ‘fur’, and the orchestra, for instance, and have leads Vladimir Ahkenasi conducts the SSO. realise that I couldn’t push the files any further, hanging down onto the stage in front of a live given their resolution. Even at higher sample audience. Cut to our first recording session with rates where the recordings were focused on the Ashkenasi and there’s a Decca Tree hovering integrity of audio, I’d still eventually get to the four metres above his head, and between him point where I could sense this ‘grit’. and the audience a mic stand extended to suspend the leads – simply unheard of for the Then when I heard DSD for the first time in Opera House prior to that… and Ashkenasi was the Tokyo offices of Octavia, I was immediately so relaxed he’d come up and hang his coat on it! struck by its creamy tone, this smoothness. There wasn’t any grain, even from two rooms Incredibly, when the SSO management looked away! I thought to myself, ‘My god, that’s it… at the setup they said; “Tony, finally it looks this is what everyone’s talking about!’ Cut like a recording session!” So we’ve come a long forward to doing these recordings, and it’s way. Three years ago they wouldn’t even allow definitely a smoother, more transparent sound. a mic to be visible from the audience, now the management here reckon a Decca Tree looks HI OCTAVE PERFORMANCE proper! AS: Tell me about the experience of working for a Japanese audiophile label? AS: That’s the green light for you then, isn’t it? From now on you can put mics wherever you “ TDC: We’ll chuck up a mic and There were a few interesting cultural like… differences. As we know, Aussies are pretty then make sure it sounds relaxed; we’ll chuck up a mic and then make TDC: Well, I’m still pretty timid about mic right, whereas the Japanese sure it sounds right, whereas the Japanese placement. I don’t want to stick up 15 mics in crew will bring out a laser measurer and write front of an audience if I can avoid it. We try and crew will bring out a laser down the distance between the instrument and do what we can and be clever with how we mic measurer and write down mic to four decimal places! (laughs) But this things. But certainly the Decca Tree in front of approach didn’t really make much sense for the orchestra is the money shot, and ever since the distance between the these sessions because we were often ‘striking’ we’ve been allowed to put that up the sound instrument and mic to four the microphones four times a week to cater for of our recordings has improved vastly… it’s a something else that was happening at the Opera fantastic step forward. decimal places! House. And you just know the mic’s never going SPOT THE MICS back in the same place! AS: Were there any interesting tricks Octavia ” AS: And I guess there’s the other small matter had up their sleeve to record the orchestra? of musicians moving during a performance. TDC: They used the trick of time delaying the TDC: Exactly. But it was Octavia’s session and spot mics to match the time arrival with the that’s the way they wanted it done, so that was Decca Tree, which I was interested to see. We’ve cool. But certainly most things, like the setup of also experimented with that in the past and I’m Decca Tree and spot mics, were essentially the in two minds on the benefits of that approach. same. Sometimes it seems to create more problems than it solves… What was fantastic was that because Octavia was so highly regarded by Ashkenasi, the SSO AS: What about their perspective on the wanted to do everything they could to please ‘listening position’ of the recording? Any him, which meant everything we needed to differences there? do they’d let us do. In the past, there was no TDC: That’s a good question, one I asked way I could hang a giant Decca Tree over myself countless times to make sure I didn’t

THE DECCA TREE Tony David Cray: The Decca Tree consisted of five Neumann TLM50s – they’re groovy new versions of the old M50s, which are a curious omni that actually have a slight directionality about them in the upper frequencies – the higher the frequency the more cardioid-like they become. There are three of them in the centre and two on the flanks… This aspect of the setup was by far the most significant aspect of the recording.

AT 48 WORKING WITH OCTAVIA Tony David Cray: Octavia for the need to do things have a fantastic workflow thoroughly, even if it method, they can churn meant doing the session through albums and they’ve again. The orchestra and got a brilliant way of Ashkenasi might have producing stuff by simply consequently gotten a getting performances onto little grumpy now and then, tape rather than relying on but Octavia’s producer, post production. They’re Masato Takemura, had the relentless in making sure mettle to say: ‘Well, we a piece is played properly just don’t have it…’ And – to me that was the nicest the end result is this great thing I took away from the recording that you can cut Rachmaninoff recordings. together. Despite all this technology they were always fighting

impose my prejudices on their recording session. recording to DSD. The main one was that When you listen to Octavia recordings the we wanted to do a surround mix, but couldn’t strings tend to be a little more present than because there weren’t enough channels. For other aspects of the orchestra. They prefer what workflow purposes I also like to do a live I’d call a ‘hyper real’ perspective. To that end [stereo] two-mix for reference to the multitrack there were some interesting comical moments; as well – having each session primed with a at one stage I asked: “how does Tomo [Octavia’s two-mix makes workflows much easier. We main engineer who couldn’t attend the Opera generated 30 days of recording on umpteen hard House sessions because of illness] like to mic the drives – gigabytes of recordings being generated piano?” and they’d say, “Okay, one minute…” every day – and it would have been nice to be At that point they’d contact Octavia in Japan via able to record a stereo reference mix back onto Skype and the result would be… “U87 flat… the files as we went. You don’t want to have to two degrees up…”. Two degrees up! (laughs) pull up a mix for every one of those sessions. But we couldn’t because we’d run out of channels. AS: Were there any more unusual mic placements used? DSD OR DXD? TDC: One thing that was very effective was There are two hi-res recording formats in close-miking an orchestral bass drum with Pyramix, which confuses people no end, and the “ an AKG D112. I know it might seem obvious nomenclature – DSD and DXD – doesn’t help The D112 on the floor to a studio engineer, but it’s certainly not the matters. DSD is to SACD what PCM is to CD. underneath the bass drum typical orchestral approach. I’ve always recorded It’s a single bit stream recording method where percussion from above, miking ‘areas’ as it were. every sample is simply ascribed a value, ‘0’ or ‘1’. gave the front-end sound The D112 on the floor underneath the bass These values are relative values, meaning that an amazing power when drum gave the front-end sound an amazing they represent the change in amplitude of an power when added to the room sound. It was audio signal compared to the sample preceding added to the room sound. just astonishing. Funnily enough, it was exactly it. So once you cut it, this relative value is lost. It was just astonishing. how you might mic up a kick drum. To solve this problem and allow the files to be edited, Pyramix uses its own DXD format (a They also had this fantastic Neumann GFM standard – albeit hi-res – PCM format) that can 132 hemisphere boundary mic placed in front be cut, mixed and processed etc. I spoke to Tony ” of the basses on the floor. The mic records a about the distinction and how they interact with half-omni pattern, given that it’s on the floor, one another in the real world. and it sounded fabulous. I’ve always used a large diaphragm condenser chest height in front of the AS: Can you explain how DXD interacts with double basses with a top-end roll-off to capture DSD inside Pyramix? more bottom-end energy and help push 40 and TDC: Unlike DXD, DSD has to be approached 80 cycles. The hemisphere mic did the same like a 24-track tape machine… quite literally. thing with no effort. It does nothing but record ‘in’ and replay ‘out’, that’s all you can do. You can ‘crash’ an edit like PUSHING THE LIMITS a blade cuts tape, but you can’t do anything else, The irony of these initial Rachmaninoff you can’t change a level in DSD, nothing at all. recording sessions was that by jumping to a hi-res format like DSD, Tony and fellow AS: So there’s no mixer… engineers Jason Blackwell and Todd Dealy, were TDC: No. limited, not just by sheer track count, but also in their working methods. It was almost like a AS: No editor? return to a two-inch tape mentality. TDC: No. Well, you can make as many cuts as TDC: There were all sorts of limitations you like, of course, but there are no crossfades.

AT 50 PYRAMIX & THE Tony David Cray: My to edit some recordings over the place. It just feels OPERA HOUSE experience here of doing I did recently with the like I’m working with the a 50/50 mix of rock/pop SSO – four performances performance because all and orchestral editing is of around 30 tracks the technical aspects have that, for orchestral editing, each – 120 tracks. With been abstracted away from Pyramix is God’s gift. It’s Pyramix I can collapse me, which is awesome. incredible. It’s so much them down so I’m only When I have to do cuts with fun. It abstracts you from looking at four things. people in ProTools it’s far the task you’re doing and What’s more, I can click on slower and very ‘linear’. But lets you be creative. For that ‘single’ track and then then, as a tape machine instance, the way you can solo those 30 channels, and DSP engine ProTools is group things together and route them automatically fantastic. There are some collapse them is fantastic. out the same bus, edit them big differences between In your ‘arrange’ window and crossfade them etc. I’m them though, that’s for you can have multiple actually handling 120 tracks sure. timelines so, for instance, in the session, cutting and right now I’m just about flying multitrack audio all

All you can do to a DSD file is cut it. You can’t enhances the product to any great extent, from do any level changes or processing whatsoever. the consumer’s perspective, is very hard to say. AS: So for these sessions you were literally I think it’s a bit like mixing; yes recording to the DSD recorder like it was a it’s definitely worth the effort and it’s certainly two-inch master tape? a step forward but what is the rollout of it, what will be the end result be? That’s much harder TDC: Exactly. We didn’t make any cuts to to predict. any of the multitrack files, nor generate any two-channel mixes. What we often found HIGH REVELATION FORMATS ourselves wondering was whether the files we AS: You mentioned the track count limitations were generating would be right for the mixing of the format, but did the ‘creaminess’, as you process back in Japan. It was a bit of a guessing describe it, of the DSD format encourage you game on many levels. to record things differently or say to yourself, AS: So unless you have an analogue mixing ‘Wow, for the first time I’ll be able to put a mic console, presumably you need to work in here and have it count for something!’? DXD, to mix it, since you can’t ‘mix’ DSD files TDC: DSD is definitely something you’d pull together inside a computer. Is that right? out when you had a pristine pianist or a fantastic TDC: Yep, that’s it. DXD is a Pyramix format vocalist and acoustic guitarist. But personally that converts DSD to 352.8kHz/32-bit floating I’d be recording to DXD; I can’t see the point point files. The curious thing is that the data in going to DSD and then converting it to DXD rate of DXD is three times that of DSD. It’s just to get the job done. On a purely pragmatic very high end but extremely heavy on the juice level working with DSD is still difficult. For as a recording format, so it’s simpler and less instance, currently the DSD/DXD Pyramix DSP intensive to record DSD files initially and formats won’t allow us to use the Euphonix convert them to DXD for mixing later. console, although that’s predicted to change soon. The new Euphonix Supercore has been AS: And is that what Octavia is doing now with designed to cater for sample rates up to DXD so the DSD files back in Tokyo? I should be able to use that sometime in the near TDC: Yes. They don’t have an analogue console future. so they’re mixing from DXD because the only That’s why it’s been important for us to say ‘yes’ way to mix DSD together is in the analogue to the Japanese, because now we can offer clients domain. the opportunity of recording to high resolution You have to remember that DSD was largely digital, whether it be DSD or DXD, and I’m borne out of Sony/ wanting to produce hoping some actually take it up. We’re now in a really cheap converter chip. To do PCM is the privileged position of being able to produce expensive and complex; DSD on the other hand a catalogue of Australian orchestral recordings is simple, simple, simple and really cheap to that are of supreme quality. We don’t have many make. It was never intended to be a multitrack SACD recordings of orchestral works here, but format. hopefully that’s now set to change! AS: Who’s idea then was it to record these AS: So do you stand at the door after concerts orchestral albums to DSD? and sell punters SACDs? TDC: Octavia’s. They love the technology. It’s TDC: Well, funny you should say that… I was also driven by market differentiation, of course, just talking to the SSO and they’re interested in and the SACD market. We have 24 channels of releasing some albums this year on vinyl as well high-end conversion and 24 channels of DSD as iTunes. What a contrast that will be! recording capacity now and that gives us a technical advantage over most other recording setups in the country. DSD definitely sounds better – it’s clean and pristine and some of the performances on the recent recordings sound fantastic – though whether the medium really

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