Download: Dieter Ilg & Charlie Mariano
Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
Aside from my work for HIFISTATEMENT, I pursue a somewhat devious hobby together with my wife. We allow us the luxury of the small, fine record label - sommelier du son – exclusively producing analog records. This gives our internet magazine the opportunity to offer you an exclusive download of a song from the last concert of the saxophone legend, Charlie Mariano and Germany's best jazz bass player, Dieter Ilg.
Dieter Ilg & Charlie Mariano – Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
The master of the four thick strings gave us permission, for a limited time only, to make his composition “Greenland” digitally available, free of charge to the readers of HIFISTATEMENT. “Free of charge” applies to the readers, but not to the publisher of this publication. The song, recorded on November 10, 2008 in Badehaisel in Wachenheim an der Weinstrasse, is available in two versions to download. The first one in CD quality with keeping 24-bit/44.1 kHz data in tempory storage following to mastering and the second one in today's best available quality, at least popular in high-end circles, 24-bit/192 kHz. Since we are primarily concerned with the wonderful music, we have chosen two different versions of the same song. The intent of this download is not to assess the sonic effect of different word lengths or sampling rates.
To minimize audience noise, we placed the microphones – a Neumann U47 for the bass and an AKG C12 VR for the sax – very close to the instruments. It turned out that this precaution was really not necessary for such a totally concentrated audience, who would have been a credit to any classical concert. It did force us however to later mix in some room information to the recording. This was accomplished using an analog EMT Gold-Plate reverb. To document the result of the mastering, we converted the processed signal from analog to 24-bit/44.1 kHz digital with a dCS 900 including dedicated master clock and recorded it to the Alesis Masterlink ML-9600. There, the signal was converted down to 16-bits and burned onto CD to present the recording to the artists for approval. This .wav file is available to download.
To put the recording on a digital medium rather than on a tape seemed to make more sense to us, because each time an analog copy is made, more and more hiss is added.
We the proceeded with live mastering while transferring the session tapes to the lacquer in the record production studio. That means modifications of the sound took place en route from the tape to the cutting head of the lathe. A master tape never existed. The signal for the live mastering came from the session tapes recorded during the concert. To monitor the mastering, without having to play the freshly cut lacquer, we not only sent the processed signal to the record-cutting machine, but a parallel signal was recorded to a Nagra LB at 24-bit/192kHz. We offer you this recording from the production studio for download as well.
More information about the record and its production can be found soon at
sommelier-du-son.com.
Charlie Mariano / Dieter Ilg
Greenland 16/44,1
ca. 50mb (wav) |
Charlie Mariano / Dieter Ilg
Greenland 24/192
ca. 343 mb (zip) |
It's hard to tell from outside the club what well-known musicians performed here. The performing and working conditions for artists as well as technicians were absolutely ideal.
The material for the downloads was recorded in analog format on two Studer A810. Digital conversion through the dCS 900 and Nagra LB was accomplished only after the analog mastering with an EMT Gold-Plate reverb.
We had enough time before the concert to select the appropriate microphones. Dieter Ilg preferred the more powerful sounding Neumann U47 over the detail-rich, but rather sober sounding Neumann SM 69.
The joy from the completely successful concert is written all over the musicians' faces: Charlie Mariano and Dieter Ilg before the encore.
