Listening Is Believing

Basie Recordings On Genex DSD Recorders Draw Crowd Of Engineers To Cello Studios

15-May-03

Genex Audio showed off the capabilities of its Direct Stream Digital (DSD) audio recorders Monday night at a listening session of 5.1 surround sound recordings of the Count Basie Orchestra made by engineer Mike Pappas. Fittingly, the event was held at Cello Studios' Studio 1 in Hollywood, a legendary room where Count Basie (among many others) recorded in the 1960s when the facility was called Western Recorders Studios.Pappas, president of American Digital Studios and Chief Engineer at Denver's KUVO Public Radio station, played two clips from sessions he recorded with the current Count Basie Orchestra in February at the University of Michigan. Each of the clips was recorded in 32 tracks simultaneously to the Genex GX9048 through surround sound arrays of Sennheiser and Neumann mics. The mic array was as follows: Left/Center/Right: Neumann M 150, TLM 170 and KMS 183 along with the Sennheiser MKH 800 and MKH 50. A Neumann M 150 was used for LFE and a KU 100 stereo head and a pair of KMS 184s covered the rear channels.With an invitation-only audience of about 100 LA-area engineers and producers present, Pappas played the original unmixed Count Basie Orchestra recordings direct from the Genex units, with impressive results. Nuances of the 18-piece orchestra came through with startling realism, particularly the brass and percussion sections. Quiet passages had no apparent noise, harmonics were abundant and the orchestra's masterful use of dynamics was fully displayed. The sessions will be featured on a Super Audio CD (SACD) commemorating Neumann's 75th anniversary and the late Count Basie's 100th birthday, to be released this fall. DSD, originally developed by Sony to archive the Sony Music catalog, is the core recording technology behind SACD, and is winning praise among engineers and audiophiles for its ability to reproduce original sources much more accurately than the standard 16-bit/44.1kHz CD. Pappas has used Genex recorders for several years, and when the new GX9048 was announced, he made arrangements to secure Serial #0001. The GX9048 is a 24-bit/192kHz recorder that can record up to 48 channels in either DCD or PCM mode. Fully loaded with two disk drives and optional cards, it sells for about $25,000 (USD). An eight-channel version, the GX9000, sells for $4,500. Genex Audio, started 10 years ago by a group that included several veterans of Decca Records, has been a quiet force in the professional recording world. ""Now we're trying to change that,"" President Kevin Brown says, noting the company has sold units to several high-profile studios and post-production facilities recently, although he can't disclose who they are just yet. ""Ask me again in a month,"" he said, smiling, as an engineer from a well-known studio pulled him aside with questions about prices and a private demo. Source: Genex Audio