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RECORDING POPULAR MUSIC LIVE IN THE FIELD
Since I graduated in Audio Engineering, in London, over twenty years ago, the branch of my profession that interested me most has always been live recording on location.
I must say I had a lot of practice, from my early feature film sound work to many years as a field recordist for CBS network and 60 Minutes, a job that took me to innumerable remote locations all around the world, often fighting with environmental problems such as high wind, desert dust, extreme heath and torrential rainstorms, while trying to achieve a perfect recording.
What really fascinates me about recording live in the field is the uniqueness of the material I commit to tape, the many difficulties I need to overcame in order to be happy with my work and the imperative necessity to do it in only one take!
Very often there isn’t a second chance when you record in the field and one has to learn to deal with many different problems that would never afflict a studio recording and solve them quickly.
Ambient noise is the first and most obvious problem, a problem that’s been bothering me more and more in my twenty years of activity as the noise pollution in the skies, the cities and the countryside too has increased dramatically.
But environmental noise is just one problem and the bottom line for a good field engineer is to be able to determine what type of noise it is (constant, e.g. a power generator, an A.C. unit, or intermittent e.g. a bouncing basketball or a car alarm) how distracting it is and if it is possible to “live with it” by using a different microphone and/or post-production techniques.
Of course there are many other problems, not only environmental but also technical and acoustical which contribute to make each field recording something in between a great challenge and a gamble. Usually experience and inventiveness are the most important tool one can use to solve these problems.
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In the past four years I spent quite a lot of time in the Dominican Republic producing and shooting a film documentary about
Bachata the discriminated popular music “of the lower classes”, born in remote villages and in the poorest “barrios” of Santo Domingo, a musical genre that slowly but surely grew to appeal an international audience as the “Blues of the Caribbean”.
During my filming I met many of the major interpreters of this musical genre as well as a huge number of other popular music composer and interpreters, scattered all over the country who, albeit not having reached any fame nor recognition in the music world yet, where extremely innovative, brilliant, talented but unfortunately also very poor.
In the Dominican Republic the MP3 /music –download revolution (that is already threatening the music industry here in the US) has not begun yet. Cassette tapes and Compact Discs are still an indispensable medium for musicians and record companies to divulge and sell their work.
Unfortunately for the majority of the many superb musicians I had the pleasure to meet over there, unless they get signed by a record company, the chances of self-financing a studio recording and burn some CDs to promote themselves is a very remote option, far out of their financial capabilities. And by the same token, how can they approach a record company and try to get signed as recording artists if they don’t even have a demo CD or cassette to showcase their musical talent? Impossible.
I did some research and found out that in one of the most affordable recording studios in Santo Domingo (a very basic one, using equipment that I wouldn’t call exactly “state of the art”) an artist who wants to record a CD should budget at least 100thousand pesos for studio, remix and mastering time, not very much by New York standards but way unaffordable to the great majority of independent Dominican musicians and groups.
And that figure does not include neither CD duplication costs (the minimum in DR is 500 units at a very steep price per unit) nor any kind of graphic design on the CD face.
In other words, whereas here in the US many young talented musicians can afford to buy a small, cheap but very sophisticated home studio and make a short run of professional looking demo-CDs to send to record companies or even sell at their gigs to give their creative career a chance, the great majority of Dominican artist are simply cut out of the game altogether.
I quickly understood there was an interesting niche in the market that would allow me to gain professional fulfillment and more importantly do something that would greatly benefit the Dominican musical community.
I opened a company, “ARTE MAGNETICA” offering digital live recordings on location and short run CD duplication including graphic design and printing onto CD.
The outfit is very mobile, flexible and versatile, we record individual musicians and groups performing live in acoustically interesting and naturally quiet locations, using the most sophisticated microphones and field recorder available, instantly mastering onto CD, then we offer two different duplication packages, 50 or 100 CD on which we are able to print a digital picture of the artists (or any other required artwork) and musical / contact information.
All this for a fraction of a studio price and what’s even more interesting to our client is that we keep their master in our computer archive so that should they require another short run (or even larger run) at a later date, all they need to do is to place the order over the phone and we can deliver them the chosen quantity within a few days, neatly printed and encased in transparent CD cases.
So far most of our clients can hardly believe that we can achieve such high quality recordings and even do the printing and duplicating for such a low price, but as soon as they hear, see and hold their investment in their hands their excitement and happiness becomes our best reward.
And of course they immediately spread the word to their friend and colleagues and, happy clients being the best form of promotion we can ask for, more and more musicians request our services every day….
It feels really good to be considered the best at what we are doing, but it feels even better to give so many valuable artists a viable avenue to express themselves and move forward in their careers.
Giovanni Savino
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Digital live recording in an
acoustically interesting location
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Guivo singing "Palo de Muerto"
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PALO DE MUERTO CD Cover
This CD, entirely dedicated to S Elia (Baron del Cementerio) and to Santa Marta la Dominadora, is a very rare example of "Palo de Muerto", the disappearing traditional music performed at funerals and wakes in the Dominican Republic.
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