I'd like to share the story behind of one of my favourite recordings, which Steve Williams said, "I can say unequivocally that if you are into Reel 2 reel this album is not only a must have but for my ears it is truly the best tape I have EVER heard. Period. End of story."...it's a tape/download called "Tatsuki Narita"....
Just a bit of insight into this young Japanese virtuoso, Tatsuki Narita... his career is mainly in Japan & the Far East. I met him a couple years after he came 2nd in the QE Comp in Belgium... many thought he should've won... He's a passionate artist & once told me the only person who can rehair his bows is a bow maker in Paris, so every 3 months he goes to Japan to the atelier of Alain Herou. So a few years ago, I met Tatsuki in Paris just after the new year to meet Alain.... well, it was immediately, so obvious Alain's talent... Tatsuki was playing a concert in my place later in March & Alain said, "I'm coming!" Never did I think he was serious... but he came & spent 1 week with us!
This is where the story gets very interesting... I have a rare bow which was not so much liked by many violinists I showed it to... Alain after looking at it said, "let me rehair it, do some adjustments & you will see, this is one of the best bows I have ever seen".... This was Friday before the concert on Saturday.... Tatsuki played a few phrases with this bow for us… We all felt it was fine, but nothing special... then we went to my basement workshop (I also make violins..) and Alain rehaired & adjusted it slightly...
We came upstairs, he handed Tatsuki the bow & after the 1st stroke, we all looked at each other in astonishment... there was so much depth, colour, texture & dynamics to the sound... In audio, it was like we just got new tube amps! Tatsuki was shocked & so happy... with Alain sitting at the back of the hall, we decided to record these 5 pieces to commemorate our 4 years of making music together. They are literally 1st takes one after the other... Amazingly, the Saturday concert program was completely different!
First the key is really, not so much the recording equipment we’re using...(that is very important) but what are we recording? What is the source creating the sounds? Every violin is different & it's the combination of the artist, violin & bow that creates the sound & almost no one is aware of the importance of the bow in this equation!
The magic in these sounds is captured by the signal path we have built. Literally, we’ve built everything from the microphone cable to the record & playback amps for the Studers. The microphone pre-amp is the magical component that lets all of the low level signals thru which creates the naturalness & air in the recordings... this mic-pre is based on a pair of WE437a input tubes, a pair of NOS 1956 WE300b output tubes, and all silver transformer coupling….
This is the background story about those 5 tracks... Danse Macabre, Zigeunerweisen, Nigun, Introduction & Tarantella, Meditation
Magic happens rarely & I was so happy to capture it that afternoon!
Ed