ferenc_k

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Apr 9, 2011
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I know based on my 40 years of being audiophile and spending decades in pro audio, pro video and PA, that most of the hifi lovers have no experience and do not know how recordings are actually made. A year ago I organized studio meetings where hifi and music lovers could meet with internationally well known sound engineers in their studios and discuss how recordings are made. These meetings were very popular, always completely sold out (free of charge) and I understood there is a serious interest being at the recording session, sound check and rehearsal and getting the pure native recordings and the mastered files as well, in the available highest resolution and discussing the recording process with the engineers and artists.

So we invented My Reel Club with few friends.

It may take years or even decades and cost a fortune, a lot of energy to build a high-end audio system for home music reproduction.
The reason for the lengthy process is not only to learn about our music perception but the lack of authentic reference recordings. If we do not know how the recording was made and how the live music sounded, we will not have the memory of the masterpiece.

Most of the modern audio recordings are optimized unfortunately for various music listening environments including noisy mobile devices. Such as the dynamics, the tonal balance and voicing balance is compromised, these are often dumbed down for mobile environments.

Using even the better recordings for evaluating our equipment choices we may have been misguided.

The „My Reel Club” community will give a unique possibility to all demanding music listeners to make reference recordings: they can be present when miracles occur, they can be part of the rehearsal, mixing, even the post-production. There will be memories of the real event this way.

Soon you can make, experience your own reference recordings.

The first live studio recording event will be end of this month, a piano recording of the Goldberg Variations (25 seats available and practically sold out) in Budapest and all the guests will get the native DSD256 files (or lower rate DSD and PCM files) and if they need, they can have a high speed tape as well. I am absolutely sure it will be a really educational event for those, whom never did a recording and never experienced a recording session in the studio and willing to understand how a recording process works. We will use vintage analog electronics and one of the best known pro audio manufacturers supports us with A/D converters. We will have an UHD video available of the first event.

Soon there will be a home page with more information. We will try to build a community, a kind of "franchise" with studios, musicians and hifi lovers worldwide. There is a plan to collect a subscription fee (10-20 Euros annually) and only the members of the Club will be allowed to attend to the recording sessions and all the paid members can download all the DSD recordings even they could not attend.

We are not alone, there is a very similar project in Switzerland I learned today. It is called Staright2tape™ by 2inch Records. We started to discuss a cooperation. I hope other studios will feel it as exciting as we do and join at a later stage.
 
I am doing the same in Turkey at my hotel. We did out first one successfuly this April and the second one is next April. We had Ferit Odman Trio for jazz and Semplice Quartet for classical. We also had guests talking about acoustics, music history as well as exemplary systems from the likes of MBL. Contact me if you would like to learn more or think we can do something together or add to one another :)
 
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I am doing the same in Turkey at my hotel. We did out first one successfuly this April and the second one is next April. We had Ferit Odman Trio for jazz and Semplice Quartet for classical. We also had guests talking about acoustics, music history as well as exemplary systems from the likes of MBL. Contact me if you would like to learn more or think we can do something together or add to one another :)

Sure I will do later today, this is exactly the reason why I announced it here to find out if there are similar projects around.
 
The first event of My Reel Club took place last Saturday night, where visitors could experience a live studio concert in Super Size Studio, Budapest in a very intimate way. A few days later they will get a DSD256 (and lower bitrate PCM, DSD formats) recording and a high-speed tape in its purest, most faithful form.

myrc_1_sm.jpg

We appreciate Merging Technologies and the local Merging distributor Studio General for letting us to use their new Anubis and Hapi A/D, D/A converters, and Gabor Szendr? who provided a PYRAMIX 12 audio recording workstation with linear power supply and another Merging Hapi with high-end linear power supply.

myrc_2_sm.jpg

Power cables, distribution, line-level cables for the Mic preamps and the D/A converter were Wireworld Platinum OCC silver pro cables, the recording PC and the converters were used on IsoAcoustics small desktop stands.

myrc_4_sm.jpg

We are happy to announce that Signalyst’s HQ Player Pro software will be used for the highest potential quality conversion.

myrc_3_sm.jpg

It was an event to remember. Mr. Laszlo Borbely, who played wonderfully the Goldberg variations fuelled by emotions, expressed he had enjoyed the event too.

You can watch the last 5 minutes of the event on youtube. (with the built-in mic of an iPhone):
 
We completed our second My Reel Club (myreel.club) recording on tape and in DSD256 yesterday.

The modern cool jazz music from Varga Gabor Quartet was fantastic, the performance really extraordinary. This music requires the highest possible quality recordings.

It was a live studio concert with an audience in the studio. All the attendees will get the highest resolution and quality digital (DSD256) and optionally analogue tape recordings (for a fee).



We plan to publish quite a few versions of the recording:

- We used an analogue audio mixing console to mix the 8 microphone feeds to a stereo mix live. It was recorded on tape, using a Nagra IV-S at 38 cm/s. We will sell the tape copy and a DSD256 file from a tape too in its raw form.



- We recorded the 8 mic feeds in DSD256 using a Pyramix recording software and a Luxor Audio PC with a Merging Hapi A/D converter. There will be an analogue mix, and some eq, dynamics processing in the analogue domain. It will be rerecorded as a stereo version of the mixed and analogue mastered music in DSD256 and on tape too. The latter can be the basis of an LP.



- 2 channels of the 8 mic feeds were from a ribbon stereo mic. These 2 channels will be published in DSD256 after some light editing in the digital domain, but otherwise without any processing. If one needs the purest possible digital recording.



The production process will take weeks. The recordings will be available from us directly (myreel.club), including the tapes and through nativedsd.com, sometime in January.

We believe the recordings will be fantastic, but only a facsimile of the real live event. Sitting right there with the instruments and the musicians are way better than any recording can be in our life, I think. Every serious audiophile should have to try it once in a lifetime. There is the added value of discussing everything with the musicians, the studio crew and with each other of course. It was an unforgettable event. It is a pity that only 30 people could be squeezed in the studio.






 
The above mentioned Gabor Varga Quartet recording is available now at nativedsd.com.

I have made one track available in DSD256 (original recording, with no mastering only mixing), DSD128, DSD64, PCM flac 192k/24 bit, 96k/24 bit, 44,1k/16 bit too. The conversion from the original DSD256 was done by Sygnalist and their HQ player Pro software and by Jussi himself. There is one bonus file as well, a 96/24 bit copy of the tape master. The tape is mixed, leveled a bit differently, so you can not use it for comparison, it is for fun only.

https://we.tl/t-NUZsotqFSm
 
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After long break, caused by Covid, we restarted our My Reel Club™ studio recording events and started to build a new community. You can read about the first "new" My Reel Club™ recording on Medium.


The album will be available in DXD, DSD256 with no mastering as pure 2 channel Live-to-Disk™ recording and on high-speed Live-to-Tape™ version too, sometime after the Munich high-end show. We will have double CD as well, where you will get a CD with the same not mastered Live-to-Disk™ content and another CD with a commercially, multitrack recorded, post-produced, mastered version too, to let anybody to make comparisons. We are working on the MQA CD and file versions too.
 
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After long break, caused by Covid, we restarted our My Reel Club™ studio recording events and started to build a new community. You can read about the first "new" My Reel Club™ recording on Medium.


The album will be available in DXD, DSD256 with no mastering as pure 2 channel Live-to-Disk™ recording and on high-speed Live-to-Tape™ version too, sometime after the Munich high-end show. We will have double CD as well, where you will get a CD with the same not mastered Live-to-Disk™ content and another CD with a commercially, multitrack recorded, post-produced, mastered version too, to let anybody to make comparisons. We are working on the MQA CD and file versions too.
I'd like to keep informed with this project.
 
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I'd like to keep informed with this project.
Sure. :)

We have a home page, it will go public until mid-June or earlier.
I will be at the High-end Show in Munich too, so there is a chance to meet there on the first two industrial days.
 

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