Music and Recording Features

I got down to studying the scores Sasha sent me, learning the instrumentation, deciding on possible editing points, and wondered where the project could be recorded. I had played bass in the 1970s with what we used to call a "rehearsal band," and I still remember how loud it was. Using the minimal microphone technique I prefer for conventional classical works, we would need an enormous space, like a concert hall, for the sessions.

But if we were going to use close-miking, a conventional recording studio like Brooklyn's Systems Two studio, where we had recorded the jazz quintet for Cooperstown, would have worked. However, Systems Two's owners had retired pre-COVID and sold the facility. A long-term composer buddy of Sasha's from the Bay Area had recorded some chamber music of his own at Ryan Streber's Oktaven AudiO studio in Westchester County, several miles north of Manhattan. Sasha felt the large room at Oktaven would work well—and he was right.

From the outside Oktaven resembles an anonymous factory building. "Are you sure this is the place?" my wife asked when she dropped me off for the first day's sessions. But behind the unprepossessing exterior is a state-of-the art studio, with an enviable collection of microphones and recording equipment. The project would be recorded at 24/96 to ProTools.

In August 2021, Sasha and I got together at Oktaven, where, with the invaluable help of sax player Andy Farber and Ted Nash, 20 of New York's finest jazz musicians had assembled, including pianist Adam Birnbaum, who would be featured in the Piano Concerto.

The musicians got settled in, with the winds and brass arranged in an arc in front of conductor Sasha. The double bass and drums were to his side, the Steinway D piano behind him. This way, the musicians could hear each other without having to wear headphones and could follow Sasha's baton.

Sasha Matson: "I just feel more comfortable when I'm not wearing headphones and can be in the room hearing what players are actually playing."

Ryan Streber, aided by Edwin Huet, placed a vintage microphone in front of each instrument, with another pair of microphones capturing the sound in the room. He used no fewer than five microphones on the Steinway D piano.

And while there was the inevitable leakage to the other microphones, when Nicholas Prout edited and mixed the 24/96 ProTools tracks at two days of sessions at the Chesky Studio in Manhattan, he arranged for that leakage to reinforce the positions of the instruments in the soundstage rather than confuse the soundstage.

We recorded the Piano Concerto and the backing track to Capt. Trips on the first day, the Symphony the next day. Sitting in the control room with Ryan Streber, I was busy compiling track sheets and marking the scores with comments on what takes worked best for each section. The musicians were in fine form, with tight ensemble and excellent intonation. They swung, especially Adam Birnbaum on piano, in both the Concerto and the Symphony. Adam had the music down!

A month later, Sasha and I returned to Oktaven, where guitarist Steve Cardenas (right in photo) would record the solo part for Capt. Trips. As Cardenas would be playing with the prerecorded backing, he had to wear headphones. But Sasha sat with him, conducting.

Mastering the LPs and CD

Back home from the mixing sessions at Chesky, I made some slight level and channel balance adjustments to Nicholas Prout's 24/96 WAV files. My goal was to preserve the recording's wide dynamic range, keeping the peak amplitude of each track between –0.3dBFS and –1dBFS and the perceived loudness between –22 LUFS and –17 LUFS (Loudness Unit Full Scale). Sasha Matson signed off on these changes and took the 24/96 masters to Cohearent Audio in California for Joe Harley and Kevin Gray to cut the acetates for the LP masters.

Joe Harley: "The heavy lifting was done by engineer Ryan Streber, producer John Atkinson, mixer Nick Prout, and, of course, Sasha and his wonderful cast of musicians. Musical highlights are many, but I can't resist giving a high-five to the passionate artistry of guitarist Steve Cardenas on Sasha's tribute to Jerry Garcia, Capt. Trips.

"From a sonic perspective, these gentlemen all did their jobs so well that at mastering, Kevin Gray and I were able to simply enjoy the realization of Sasha's intoxicating compositions while doing the transfers. (For the technically minded, we did give a little bump around 10kHz to open up the presentation a bit.)"

Once the LP masters had been cut, they were overnighted to Record Technology Inc. to be plated and for the LPs to be pressed. However, supply-chain issues held up both the LP production and the printing of the LP gatefold sleeves for almost a year.

Gray runs a 24/96 digital transfer when he cuts LP masters, which includes any equalization and level adjustments he has applied. This transfer can then be used for the hi-rez download masters and the CD.

Accordingly, I mastered the Molto Molto CD from Gray's 24/96 files. Simply sample-rate–converting the file and truncating the bottom 8 bits significantly compromises sound quality. I therefore used my dCS 972 digital-to-digital converter for the sample-rate conversion and word-length reduction, experimenting with different dithering and noise-shaping algorithms until I got 16/44.1 versions that sounded as close as possible to the 24/96 originals.

I prepared and FTP'd what is called a "DDP file set" to the CD pressing plant and sat back to wait for Molto Molto's release. But the result? "A viscerally exciting presentation of big band sound within classical forms," I wrote for the album's liner notes. "The more you listen, the more you will hear!"