Out of the more than 50 albums Octave Records had recorded, one of our proudest moments was when we got the chance to capture the performance of world-famous cellist Zuill Bailey.
It was a real treat to have the master himself play his interpretation of the Bach cello Suites live over a weekend, capturing every nuance in DSD. This work remains one of our best sellers of all time.
I recently got a letter from a reader who loved the recording but wasn't as blown away with the sound quality as with other, more recent Octave releases. He reached out to me and asked what the difference was.
Progress and learning.
Zuill and the others that were captured around the time of the pandemic—early Octave—were all recorded on either the Sonoma 1XDSD system, or Pyramix 1XDSD, and then converted to analog, mixed and edited, and finally passed back again through the A/D converter back to DSD or PCM.
At the time, this was state of the art recording, and we were just getting our feet wet.
Two major changes have happened since those early days. We have figured out how to build a capture system that can handle up to 32 channels of 4XDSD (11mHz per channel vs. 2.8mHz), and we eliminated the conversion to analog and then back again.
If I had to name the single biggest improvement, it was the elimination of the analog mix process that really mattered.
While the initial capture and conversion from the original analog signal produced by the microphones to the digital domain is absolutely critical, the one saving grace we can hang our hat on is the ability to make real-time adjustments by ear.
Think about it.
In our modern setup, we monitor the live feed from the microphones after the final conversion process to DSD (something not possible in the old setup). Whatever slight loss we hear—say a little less openness on the cymbals or not as much bow scrape on a cello—we can compensate by the simple act of moving a microphone until it sounds right (even changing microphones too).
Once we get what we want, there's never any further degradation to worry about. No loss when we then have to go to analog and back again, suffering the colorations of an analog mix board or the detail smear of the second A/D conversion.
Progress and learning.
We jump into the new, do the best we can, learn, experience, and change.
