I still remember the day we received an email from the Delphine Trio, asking us if we’d be interested in recording an album with Kenneth Leighton’s Fantasy on an American Hymn Tune on it. Of course we were — it’s an incredible piece, and the trio itself (comprised of clarinet, cello and piano) is remarkable as well. Other pieces still needed to follow, which was t.b.d., but a little while later we finally set out to MCO Studio 1 to make the recording.
The setup
As always, we start out by setting up our OOA array with the Josephson C617 microphones and Microtech Gefell MK221 capsules. The main left, right and center microphones smack dab in the middle between the piano and clarinet with cello. As for any of our recordings, this setup accounts for 99% of our sound; we never like to add any additional microphones as mixing can lead to nasty distortions.
We’ve been using these cables for a while now, but we wanted to give a special shout-out to Purecable for supplying these Optimus Link XLR Microphone Edition for our recordings. Our sound has never been more transparent, detailed, lively and realistic. The cables really suit the music well, as every little piece of information gets captured and just transparently sent along.
These channels (all except for the height microphones) run through our Grace Design m801mk2 eight-channel preamplifier, to the Merging Technologies Hapi MkII with sixteen channels of AD-conversion running at DSD256. Also new to our setup is the addition of a Pura Power Supplies Sauropoda line conditioner and Dodo linear power supply for the Merging and Grace; they clean up the power and disconnect it from any nastiness other pieces of equipment and the location itself can throw onto it. The folks over at Pura Power Supplies created special 19-inch rackmounted versions of the devices to make them more portable for us.
On to the music!
In the end, the trio decided to add pieces by Robert Kahn, John Psathas, Astor Piazzolla (in an arrangement by Roelof, the pianist), Robert Delanoff and Mátyás Seiber. Everything was recorded in a span of four days time, resulting in a CD filled to the brim with exciting, fantastic, and amazingly-performed music.
To introduce these fantastic musicians, I could write walls and walls of text. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I would urge you to — after finishing reading this blog — listen to the samples provided at the product pages of the album to get an actual idea of the sheer talent that’s in this trio.
So, now that you’re all caught up with this blog, do head over to the album pages yourself, and go listen to this recording! We’re so stoked to be finally releasing it.