This recording project essentially began when I commissioned Allan Schindler to compose Precipice - for marimba and computer-generated sounds. This composition involved 24bit 96kHz ambisonic (4-channel surround) computer-generated sounds. So, in order capture this work "in its natural habitat", any recording would have to be in a high definition, surround medium.

This left me with two options: SACD or DVD-A. Moving beyond any DSD vs. PCM digital audio arguments, I found the "backwards compatibility" of hybrid SACD to be of great value. The hybrid SACD disc contains three versions of the album (high definition 5-channel surround, high definition stereo, and CD quality stereo) and can be played in SACD players and CD players. The medium allows the listener to enjoy the music at whatever level of technology to which he or she has access - please the audiophile, please the person who just has an old Discman with headphones, and please the person in between.

This desire to make a classical hybrid SACD of the highest fidelity led me to the outstanding audio engineering firm SoundMirror, which is at the bleeding edge of classical SACD recording.

The first composition to be recorded was Vermont Counterpoint, by Steve Reich (originally composed for an ensemble of flutes, piccolos, and alto flutes - I performed the parts on the marimba). At its most dense, this composition has eleven simultaneous voices. To enhance and clarify this dense counterpoint, the surround capabilities of the SACD format were exploited. Each voice was given its own position on space - a 360 degree soundfield with the listener in the center. The resultant antiphonal mixing has the psychoacoustic effect of untangling the brangle of voices.

With the number of voices involved in the work, it was essential to have maximum control over them. If we were to record all the parts in a concert hall, like the rest of the album would be, we would have no control over the level of reverb, which if too much would ruin the final product. So, the masterful minds of SoundMirror came up with away to have our cake and eat it too.

We recorded all the parts at the fantastic Blue Jay Studios in Carlisle, MA. The studio is built into the side of a hill - now that's a quiet recording space!

Using two Schoeps omnis and two Schoeps BLMs, we recorded the marimba in the dry acoustic of the studio (Blanton Alspaugh, producer; Mark Donahue, engineer. Composer Greg Wilder was also in attendance to provide another pair of eyes on the score).

When it came time to assemble the parts, the four microphone channels were merged into stereo pairs. These stereo pairs were then panned throughout the 360 degree surround soundfield, giving each "virtual" marimba a region in space, instead of a mono pinpoint. Now here's the beauty part: when we later travel to the concert hall to records the rest of the album, we played back the "dry" Vermont Counterpoint in the hall, with the mics far away from the speakers (B&W 801s, 1000W Threshold monoblocks).

This heavily reverberated recording was then precisely mixed with the dry recording to create the feel that the marimbas were in the hall. What is so great about this is that not only is the reverb real, but it is the same as on the rest of the album.

The rest of the album was recorded in Mechanics Hall, a world class recording space in Worcester, MA (Blanton Alspaugh, producer; Dirk Sobodka, engineer).

The recording of Opening and Silhouettes, being unaccompanied works, was straight forward. Precipice and Interlude, both works utilizing ambisonic computer-generated sounds, added some complexity to the recording process. In the computer parts of both compositions, the sounds are spacialized in a highly detailed way. If these sounds were re-recorded in the hall, the spacial effect would likely be damaged, as the surround microphone array would not "hear" the sounds the same way a person in the hall would. So, I recorded the pieces while listening to the computer parts on headphones. Later, in the same was as for Vermont Counterpoint, we played the computer parts into the hall and recorded them, and mixed them with the original signal. Thus, we were able to maintain accurate spacialization and also add realistic ambiance, so the computer sounds inhabit the same physical space as the marimba.