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We don’t make beautiful recordings (nor do we want to)
Posted by Brendon Heinst
A while ago, someone reached out to us on social media, responding to a post about an upcoming release. They said: “You don’t make beautiful recordings.” It did make me think for a second, but finally I responded “That’s because we don’t want to make beautiful recordings.” Hear me out.
So what is a beautiful recording?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or so they say. Is that also true for the ear of the beholder? In any case, what constitutes a beautiful recording is a very personal one to each listener. Some may prefer sharp, fresh sounding recordings, some may prefer a somewhat darker sound. Some people love getting thrown out of their chair from explosive dynamics, some like their dynamics a bit easier on the ears. Some people really like to hear depth, width and layering in the soundstage, some people prefer a more in-your-face kind of clarity for each element in the mix. What might be a beautiful recording to my ears, might be a horrible recording to yours.
I remember working with Ukrainian composer Maxim Shalygin on an album with Maya Fridman (Canti d’inizio e fine). In one movement of this extremely emotional and confronting piece, Maya is screaming on the top of her lungs, almost as though possessed by some kind of demon. At first, I was taken aback a little bit by this outburst of violence and shock, but then Maxim said these words that have stuck with me ever since: “Music doesn’t have to be beautiful. Music can be nasty, it can hurt.” And there’s a truth in this: if music truly is the expression of the composer’s and performer’s soul, it can be ugly at times as well.
Now, going back from music itself to recordings, I feel this applies here too — in my view, recordings should lay bare that what’s truly at the core of the artists creating it, both composer and musician. And if that’s not beautiful, then does the recording need to be?
Beauty vs. authenticism
In the field of music recording, two main philosophies exist: one of “making something sound as good as it can be, or even better”, and one of “recording it as-is, there, in that space at that time”. Both are completely valid ideologies, although I myself am more of the latter category; not adding anything to the music but also not taking anything away. This prompted my aforementioned response to the commenter on social media, that we don’t want to make beautiful recordings. What we want to do is to make recordings that authentically recreate what’s happening in the recording space: the artists performing something on an instrument, this instrument resonating, vibrating, outputting sound into a reverberant space, and us capturing that in the most realistic way possible.
Is this the most flattering we can do? Definitely not. We’ve once gotten a 6/10 review for a viola da gamba recording, with the journalist stating the music and its performance was perfect, but the sound of the gamba was sharp and nasal at times. We could have gone the more traditional route, and record this 300-plus-year-old instrument in a way that’s flattering; using warmer microphones, rounding off its (in my opinion) beautiful edges, editing out the little creaks and cracks and EQ-ing it until it’s something beautiful, but not something real. Again, it’s a valid approach and it’s an approach used in countless albums throughout the world. But it’s not what we do.
Which approach is best?
Before I continue to my last chapter of ramblings, let me tell you a little anecdote. I once spoke to a religious man familiar with our work. Now, I myself am not religious at all, but what he spoke really resonated with me. He said: “God created man, and man created music. This leads me to think that music itself indirectly being created by God, must by definition be perfect. And who are we to change that what God made?” Now, you may or may not believe in a God, I don’t think that’s really the point here. My takeaway, most of all, is that music has an intrinsic beauty to it already. Should we as music producers really try to capture that beauty in a way that shapes it to our own ideas about it?
Again, both approaches are valid ones, and we’re not knocking any of our esteemed colleagues who favor a different approach from ours. But we at TRPTK (or at the very least our production team of Antal, Hans, Thijs and myself) try to see beauty and perfection in reality and capture that in a way that translates but doesn’t interpret.
We don’t aim to make beautiful recordings, we aim to make realistic recordings. And if reality is beautiful, then so — hopefully — will be the recording. If not, well, in the wise words of Maxim Shalygin: “Music can hurt.”
We don’t make beautiful recordings (nor do we want to)
A while ago, someone reached out to us on social media, responding to a post about an upcoming release. They said: “You don’t make beautiful recordings.” It did make me think for a second, but finally I responded “That’s because we don’t want to make beautiful recordings.” Hear me out.
So what is a beautiful recording?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or so they say. Is that also true for the ear of the beholder? In any case, what constitutes a beautiful recording is a very personal one to each listener. Some may prefer sharp, fresh sounding recordings, some may prefer a somewhat darker sound. Some people love getting thrown out of their chair from explosive dynamics, some like their dynamics a bit easier on the ears. Some people really like to hear depth, width and layering in the soundstage, some people prefer a more in-your-face kind of clarity for each element in the mix. What might be a beautiful recording to my ears, might be a horrible recording to yours.
I remember working with Ukrainian composer Maxim Shalygin on an album with Maya Fridman (Canti d’inizio e fine). In one movement of this extremely emotional and confronting piece, Maya is screaming on the top of her lungs, almost as though possessed by some kind of demon. At first, I was taken aback a little bit by this outburst of violence and shock, but then Maxim said these words that have stuck with me ever since: “Music doesn’t have to be beautiful. Music can be nasty, it can hurt.” And there’s a truth in this: if music truly is the expression of the composer’s and performer’s soul, it can be ugly at times as well.
Now, going back from music itself to recordings, I feel this applies here too — in my view, recordings should lay bare that what’s truly at the core of the artists creating it, both composer and musician. And if that’s not beautiful, then does the recording need to be?
Beauty vs. authenticism
In the field of music recording, two main philosophies exist: one of “making something sound as good as it can be, or even better”, and one of “recording it as-is, there, in that space at that time”. Both are completely valid ideologies, although I myself am more of the latter category; not adding anything to the music but also not taking anything away. This prompted my aforementioned response to the commenter on social media, that we don’t want to make beautiful recordings. What we want to do is to make recordings that authentically recreate what’s happening in the recording space: the artists performing something on an instrument, this instrument resonating, vibrating, outputting sound into a reverberant space, and us capturing that in the most realistic way possible.
Is this the most flattering we can do? Definitely not. We’ve once gotten a 6/10 review for a viola da gamba recording, with the journalist stating the music and its performance was perfect, but the sound of the gamba was sharp and nasal at times. We could have gone the more traditional route, and record this 300-plus-year-old instrument in a way that’s flattering; using warmer microphones, rounding off its (in my opinion) beautiful edges, editing out the little creaks and cracks and EQ-ing it until it’s something beautiful, but not something real. Again, it’s a valid approach and it’s an approach used in countless albums throughout the world. But it’s not what we do.
Which approach is best?
Before I continue to my last chapter of ramblings, let me tell you a little anecdote. I once spoke to a religious man familiar with our work. Now, I myself am not religious at all, but what he spoke really resonated with me. He said: “God created man, and man created music. This leads me to think that music itself indirectly being created by God, must by definition be perfect. And who are we to change that what God made?” Now, you may or may not believe in a God, I don’t think that’s really the point here. My takeaway, most of all, is that music has an intrinsic beauty to it already. Should we as music producers really try to capture that beauty in a way that shapes it to our own ideas about it?
Again, both approaches are valid ones, and we’re not knocking any of our esteemed colleagues who favor a different approach from ours. But we at TRPTK (or at the very least our production team of Antal, Hans, Thijs and myself) try to see beauty and perfection in reality and capture that in a way that translates but doesn’t interpret.
We don’t aim to make beautiful recordings, we aim to make realistic recordings. And if reality is beautiful, then so — hopefully — will be the recording. If not, well, in the wise words of Maxim Shalygin: “Music can hurt.”