Title:

	"The Phantom of the Opera"	Andrew Lloyd Webber	3:43

Location:

	St. Mark's Episcopal Church
	Palo Alto, California
	Sunday, October 31, 1993 

Performer:

	James Welch, Organist
	(Recording used by kind permission of the performer)

Recorded by:

	Romain Kang

Notes:

	A Casio DA-R100 portable DAT recorder was fed directly from a
	Core Sound Binaural microphone set used as spaced omnis.  The
	microphones were positioned across the center line of the room,
	approximately at the crossing, one-third of the way back of the
	church, three feet above the floor and two feet apart.  The
	microphones were mounted on common microphone stands (cast iron
	bases) and pointed up toward the ceiling.  The recorder was
	positioned roughly 25 feet from the microphones and fed the
	signal via a long cable.  The Casio was powered via an AC
	adapter which transmitted some AC line noise.

	The room itself is very lively but has a short reverberation
	period.  The linoleum-covered wooden floor transmits a fair
	amount of noise.  The room can accommodate roughly 500 people
	but is currently set up for 200.

	The organ is a electro-pneumatic with about 60 ranks originally
	built by Casavant, but has been reworked a number of times and
	no longer bears the Casavant nameplate.  The main divisions are
	behind the high altar of the church, hidden by a sheer fabric
	screen.  The swell division is installed high on one side of the
	chancel, and the gallery division is high on the back wall of
	the nave.

Highlights:

	The imaging.  Note the palpable footsteps as the performer
	enters from the right and sits at his instrument.  Later in the
	performance listen as the the various divisions of pipes are
	brought in.  Near the end, listen to the haunting ghostly
	melody in the very high registers.

	Although this was recorded with a spaced-omni set up for
	playback over speakers, the sound over headphones is still very
	good.



SECOND SELECTION:

Title:

	"The Blues"

Location:

	Zanzibar (a downtown nightclub)
	NYC, NY
	October 21, 1993

Performers:
	
	"The Nuff Brothers" -- Top NYC studio musicians including:

		Lou Marini 		tenor sax (leader)
		Lawrence Feldman	         alto sax
		Birch Johnson		trombone
		Alan Rubin		trumpet
		Robbie Condor		keyboards
		David Spinoza		guitar
		Tommy McDonald		vocals
		Stu Woods			bass guitar
		Richard Crooks		drums
		
Recorded by:

	Len Moskowitz -- Core Sound

Notes:

	Recorded using a Core Sound Binaural microphone set and a Sony
	TCD-D3 portable DAT recorder.  The Core Sound microphones were
	clipped to the temple pieces of the taper's eyeglasses and
	positioned as close to his ears as possible, facing outwards.

	The taper was seated roughly ten feet from the stage's front,
	centered in the audience.  The room is rectangular, roughly 35
	feet wide and 100 feet deep, with a high ceiling.  The stage
	starts roughly ten feet from the left wall and extends to the
	right wall.

	The band was arranged, from left to right as:

		In front:
			keyboards at far left, alto sax, tenor sax, 
			trombone, trumpet, vocalist
		In back:
			guitar (behind the keyboards and the sax),
			drums, bass

	The house PA system is a bit boomy and also thick in the
	midrange.  It was used almost exclusively for the vocalist and
	biased strongly toward the left.

	(Lou Marini, Alan Rubin and Birch Johnson are the horn section
	from "The Blues Brothers".  Lou recently toured nationally
	backing James Taylor.  The rest of the musicians are among the
	top "first call" studio musicians in New York City.)

Highlights:

	Recorded binaurally so listen on headphones.  Note the realistic
	location of the audience sounds and the preservation of the
	night club's ambient soundfield.  If you listen carefully, at
	one point the taper turns his head far to the right and the
	audio image shifts correspondingly to the left.

	Playback over speakers gives a presentation similar to
	recordings made with "Jecklin disk" arrangement.



THIRD SELECTION:

Title: 

	"The Oompah Loompah Song" (from the movie "Willie Wonka and the
	Chocolate Factory")

Location:

	Unknown

Performers:

	The quartet "Undiscovered Harmony" from Rice University

		Tenor:		Hugh Ho
		Lead:		Joel Riphagen
		Baritone:		Mark Engelberg
		Bass:		Brian Sadovsky

Recorded by:

	Mark Engleberg

Notes:

	Another binaural recording.  Listen on headphones.

	Recorded using a Core Sound "battery box" set and a Denon
	DTR-80P portable DAT recorder.  The Denon's -20 dB attenuator
	switch was on and the microphone pre-amp gain set to maximum.

	The Core Sound microphones were clipped to the temple pieces of
	the taper's headband and positioned as close to his/her ears as
	possible, facing outwards.  The singers, an acapella quartet,
	were positioned around the taper as follows:

                         Front
                         Lead


            Left         person           Right
            Tenor        wearing          Baritone
                         microphones

         
                         Back
                         Bass

	All singers stood an equal distance from the person wearing the
	microphones; this distance was approximately 2.5 feet.

Highlights:

	This recording has a glaring binaural technique error: it has
	two of the performers directly on the front/rear axis.  When
	recording binaurally you'll capture the best psycho-acoustic
	location cues if you keep the performers a few degrees off the
	front/back axis.  Within roughly plus/minus ten degrees from
	directly forward and backward we can't discriminate direction
	well, so we confuse whether a sound is coming from the front or
	the back.  Sometimes it sounds as if the location is above us.
	Out in the world, when we face this situation, we nod our heads
	from side to side a bit to disambiguate the direction. When
	listening to a recording, obviously nodding doesn't work.

	If you listen closely, you can hear the bass singer sway from
	side to side.  When he goes off the front/rear axis, his
	location cues sharpens.  The lead singer, at the front, is
	difficult to locate through the whole recording.

	Even with this flaw, the recording works pretty well.  Great fun!



FOURTH SELECTION:

Title: 

	"Bitter Rain" 

Location:

	The Mercury Lounge, NYC

Performers:

	"Storyville"

		Vocals:		Malford Milligan
		Lead Guitar:	David Grissom
		Guitar:		David Holt
		Bass:		Tommy Shannon
		Drums:		Chris Layton

Recorded by:

	Len Moskowitz

Notes:

	This track was recorded with Core Sound Stealth Cardioid mics
	and a Sony TCD-D3 DAT recorder.  The mics were mounted on the
	earpieces of the taper's glasses, facing forward.  He was
	standing roughly 20 feet from the center of the stage.  The
	recording is intended for playback over speakers.

	The Mercury Lounge's performance room is square and roughly
	fifty feet on a side.  It was full of people.  While the band's
	equipment was impressively large (Marshall and Trace half
	stacks), the sound system was much louder -- some direct sound
	gets through but the sound system's mono mix dominates.

	The sound level was literally deafening -- during the
	performance you couldn't hear yourself yell.  It was so loud
	that you couldn't understand the vocals and the guitars merged
	into a roar.

	The recording though, is perfectly clear and sounds much better
	than the original performance.

	(Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton are "Double Trouble", Stevie
	Ray Vaughan's rhythm section.  David Grissom has toured with and
	backed major performers, including John Mellencamp, The Allman
	Brothers, Bob Dylan, John Mayall and The Dixie Chicks.)



FIFTH SELECTION:

Title:		
	"Scratch"

Location:	

	The Knitting Factory (NYC)

Performers:	

	Vic Chessnut and Lambchop

Recorded by:	

	Len Moskowitz

Notes:

	This track was recorded with a set of Core Sound High-End
	Binaurals (DPA4061s) feeding a Zefiro Acoustics InBox.  The HEBs
	were fitted witht their short protective grids, resulting in a
	slight (2 to 3 dB) emphasis centered around 15 kHz.  The
	microphones were mounted as close to the tapers ears as
	possible.  The InBox was connected to a Sony TCD-D8 via a
	Sony POC-DA12 fiber optic cable.

	Recording location was the first row of the balcony, three seats
	from the soundboard, with a direct line-of-sight to the stage
	and the sound system speakers.

	The Knitting Factory is a relatively small room, perhaps thirty
	feet wide by sixty deep, with a high (perhaps 30-foot) ceiling.
	The stage starts at the left wall and doesn't quite make it
	across the whole room.  Vic Chessnut sat surrounded by Lambchop's
	10 or 11 members on the cramped stage.

	Sound quality was good overall except for the definition of the
	bass guitar, which was rather muffled and slightly boomy.

	The sound system had a grounding problem -- you can hear the hum
	whenever the music gets quiet.

Highlights:

	To hear what the HEBs can do, listen for when the background
	vocalists sing "There goes my baby..."  After many listens it
	still provokes goosebumps.

	Other than the slight emphasis in the highs due to the short
	grids, the sound system hum and the room's bass wooliness, this
	recording is as good as it gets.



SIXTH SELECTION:

Title:

	"Take Me Back To Tulsa"	Tommy Duncan & Bob Wills	3:13 

Location:

	Huntsville Traditional Music Association
	Huntsville, Alabama
	February 8, 2003

Performer:

	Orrin Star, guitar and mandolin
	Joe Stratton, mandolin
	Recording used by kind permission of the performer

Recorded by:

	Orrin Star

Notes:

	Orrin Star is an award-winning guitar, banjo and mandolin player
	who is also funny.  With music ranging from fiddle tunes to
	topical ballads to western swing, and storytelling both sharp
	and droll, he has been described as Arlo Guthrie-meets-Doc
	Watson.  He was the 1976 National Flatpicking Champion and has
	appeared on A Prairie Home Companion.

	On his 2002/2003 Winter tour of the US South, he brought along a
	set of Core Sound Binaural microphones, an M-Audio DMP-2 dual
	microphone pre-amp, a Tascam CD-RW-5000 CD recorder; he recorded
	this live performance directly to CD.  Accompanied by
	mandolinist Joe Stratton, he clipped the two CSB mics to the two
	vocal mic cables, very close to the vocal mic's XLR connectors
	(at about neck level).  He uploaded the track to his Macintosh
	DAW, but apart from some panning and level adjustments, very
	little was done to the audio (e.g., no EQ).

	You can learn more about Orrin at his Web site
	(http://www.flatpick.com/ostar) and reach him via email at
	orhay@aol.com



SEVENTH SELECTION:

Title:

	"Fanfare For The Common Man" (Copland)			3:21

Location:

	A major NYC concert hall, 2004

Performer:

	A major American symphony orchestra 

Recorded by:

	 Anonymous

Notes:

	Recorded fourteen rows back from the stage, dead center, in one
	of the US's finest mid-sized concert halls by one of the US's
	premier symphony orchestras.

	The dynamics on this recording are tremendous.  The tympani
	rolls at the conclusion are simply stupendous.  The horns have
	an incredibly natural timbre, and the hall itself sounds
	gorgeous.

	Equipment: Core Sound's HEB 4060 mic set (using DPA 4060
	capsules), Mic2496, PDAudio-CF, an HP h5155 iPAQ PDA, and
	Gidluck Mastering's Live2496 software recording to a 2 GB
	SanDisk Compact Flash memory card.  The recording was made at
	24-bit/44.1 KS/s; the version on the Sampler Disk was correctly
	converted to 16/44.1.

	(The location of the hall and identity of the performers can not
	be divulged due to union and concert hall regulations.)



EIGHTH SELECTION:

Title:

	Unknown							4:40

Location:

	Mexicali Blues Cafe (Teaneck NJ USA)
	November 11, 2003

Performer:

	Leftover Salmon

Recorded by:

	Len Moskowitz (Core Sound)

Notes:	

	Equipment: Core Sound's HEB 4060 mic set (using DPA 4060
	capsules), Mic2496, PDAudio-CF, an HP h5155 iPAQ PDA, and Pocco
	Software's Wichita software recording to a 2 GB SanDisk Compact
	Flash memory card.  The recording was made at 24-bit/96 KS/s;
	the version on the Sampler Disk was correctly converted to
	16/44.1.

NINTH SELECTION:

Title:

	Edi Beo Thu Hevene Quene (14th century, Anonymous)		1:17

Location:

	Reformed Chuch of Hastings (Hastings-on-Hudson NY USA)
	December 11, 2005

Performers:

	Angelica (http://www.angelicavoices.org)

Recorded by:

	 Len Moskowitz (Core Sound)

 Notes:

	Angelica is a group of ten women performing music ranging from
	works by Palestrina, de Lassus and Monteverdi to Poulenc,
	Brahms and Britten.  They were accompanied by special guest
	artist Virginia Kaycoff on the vielle (an early version of the
	viol).

	This selection is from their 2005 Christmas concert at the
	Reformed Chuch of Hastings, in New York's Westchester County.
	The Church's sanctuary seats roughly one hundred and is a
	roughly square room with a high (approximately 40-foot)
	ceiling.  There is an organ loft at the rear of the room and
	lots of niches and angles on the walls and the ceiling, so that
	standing waves are well-disrupted.  It has a reverb decay time
	of roughly three seconds, and so while it is not as lively as a
	cathedral, it's not excessively dry either.

	Recorded with two DPA 4003 high voltage omnidirectional
	microphones mounted on either side of a Schneider Disk.  The
	Schneider Disk was mounted on a sturdy stand and elevated to
	roughly nine feet.  The mics were powered by a DPA 130V power
	supply.  The mics fed a Core Sound Mic2496 dual microphone
	pre-amp and A-to-D converter set to near minimum gain.  The
	Mic2496 fed two recorders simultaneously: a Core Sound PDAudio
	system via its optical output and an Alesis Masterlink via its
	coaxial output.

	The mics were positioned in the third row of pews, around twelve
	to fifteen feet from the performers.  The choir stood in a
	semicircle, some on the floor, some on the first step and the
	rest on the raised front platform.  The vielle player sat in
	front of them, slightly to the left of center.

	Recorded with 24-bit word widths at 44.1 Kilosamples per second.

	Note the natural sound quality and dynamics, the wonderful sense
	of air and ambience, and the solid positioning of the vielle and
	the singers.

TENTH SELECTION

Title:

	"Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Ride 2009"			2:05

Location:

	Constitution Avenue
	Washington DC
	Sunday -- May 24, 2009 (Memorial Day weekend)

Performer:

	Tens of thousands motorcycles

Recorded by:

	 Brad Starkey

Notes:

	A set of High End Binaural (HEB) microphone set, using a matched
	pair of DPA 4061s, fed a Sony PCM-D1 digital audio recorder.
	The two DPA capsules were rigged on a backwards hat right at ear
	level.  Recorded at 24/96.

Highlights:

	Wow -- listen to that thunder!