Ragtime
Recording

Piano so clean, it's never been through the air till you hear it!


CD Production

Although common place today, HVR was a pioneer in direct to disk recording, employing the technique since the early 1990's using dual computers before any single computer was capable of the task. The current technique uses an audio-optimized hand built computer with state of the art analog to digital high definition converters. Also employed are equally state of the art microphone arrays from the worlds most renowned manufacturers including Neumann, DPA (Brüel & Kjaer), Shoeps, and Bock Audio. The goal is the cleanest and most natural piano and vocal recordings available anywhere... Ragtime for the 21st Century.

In its earliest recordings, solo piano was recorded using MIDI. This was done on a special MIDI keyboard with a weighted piano action for the benefit of the pianist. The recorded information consisted of a data list, in the form of a MIDI file, containing a record of every key and pedal event during the performance. Since a MIDI file contains no sound, just a record of the key and pedal presses, the sound must be recreated if you want to hear anything. This is done by using a sampler, which has a recording of every possible note sound. The samples used by HV Recording in these early recordings were digitally recorded from a variety of pianos: a Steinway, a Bechstein, and a Boesendoerfer.

In 2005 HVR acquired a 7-foot Swedish acoustic concert grand piano, the Nordiska model 215. This special piano was then modified and fitted for midi operation. All HVR studio recordings since that time have used this piano. The fact that this piano is midi fitted also allowed some of HVR's older CDs to be replayed on the Nordiska and re-released with its spectacular sound.

 BACK Return to Ragtime Press home page

Want HVR to help with your next ragtime MIDI project? Contact: ragtime@rtpress.com