Naim Recordings/Joni Mitchell

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Originally posted by Jeff Anderson:
Fred,... can you provide any info on the recording chain for Dreamhouse... mics, recording equipment, mic locations, etc. Church venue recordings always have such wonderful room ambience.

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Jeff, thanks so much for your kind words, I'm really glad you dig the album.

Regarding recording information: it's very odd, but although I've been recording for almost 25 years, I have picked up very little technical information about the equipment. I think this is because I find it distracts me from the music at hand. I prefer to just trust the recording engineer to make it all sound good so that I don't have to think about it. I know basically how stuff works but only up to a point, and have never really paid much attention to specific mics, etc. As Duke Ellington said, "If it sounds good, it is good."

Given that, here's what I do know about the recording of Dreamhouse. Ken Christianson used a stereo pair of mics (don't know what make/model, but fairly old) set back from the band and above it. Kelly Sill, the bassist, was closest, then my piano behind him, and drummer Sarah Allen was off to the other side and back about 20 feet or so, with office cubicle standards behind her as baffles.

The mics ran straight into an old Nagra analog tape deck running at 7.5 ips. Given that slow a recording speed and the distance of the musicians from the mics, I'm amazed by how quiet the recording is; I don't really hear tape hiss. There was no EQ, no other processing, and no editing between takes (although we could have if desired).

That's about all I know.

And thanks for the info about the Joni show; I've been eagerly anticipating it for months. Folks in Canada have seen it and praise it highly.

Thanks for the info. Analog recording rules!