Arnell Symphonies Project

Today we embarked on the 7th session of the Arnell Symphonies Project. This week’s session is a nice breath of air from the previous sessions. The sessions are focused around a smaller chamber symphony with single winds. With fewer members the recording was able to progress at a faster pace with less takes. Less takes=less editing in post=less time getting the final product out.

All in all this project is enjoyable. As our faces become more familiar, we are making more and more friends within the ensemble. It’s nice to be in a room with 70+ performers and be able to name many of them. It’s also interesting to learn who makes up the symphony. Many of the musicians are prominent local musicians with a rich history of performing with various ensembles thought the valley, country and even around the world.

As we move on we have a few date changes and possibly a few more tracking sessions to add. Well keep you posted as to the progress and with permission maybe even post some samples of the recording sessions.

Mary Simon's Bands of American Honor Band Audition

The new school season beings many fun adventures.

Today Dan spent a couple of hours working with Dobson High School's principle Oboe recording audition material for the Bands of American National Honor Band as well as some college audition material.

If you are unaware, the Bands of America Honor Band is an amazing acomplishment for high school students to participate in. Mary's submition will be reviewed, and critiqued by the Bands of America council, from there she has the opertunity to be selected for the 2006 performing ensemble. She will also recieve some valuable feedback about her submition. With this information she will be able to better prepare her future college audition material. Although, performing in the Honor Band looks rather well too...

Glories of the Strings

This evening Dan is putting together the CD masters for the Glories of the Strings, Chamber Music Workshop recordings.

The Glories of the Strings is a wonderful experience for children from the 7th grade thought college. It offers students a one or two week opportunity to study chamber music with 4 of the valleys prominent string musicians: Dr. Phyllis Skoldberg, Joy Pan, Dr. Carolyn Broe and Dr. Zheng.

Following the week of master classes, on June 10th and 17th, Dan was on-location to record the annual Glories of the Strings performances. These performances provide the students an opportunity to showcase what they have learned durring the week.

Dobson Marching Band Project

Today the finishing touches were put on a CD for the Dobson High School Marching Band. As the years have gone on, someone in the office misplaced the schools only audio copy of the school fight song.

Problem solved. Last week we met the marching band at in the Dobson Auditorium at 6:30 in the morning and not only captured several takes of the schools fight song, but may of this years stand tunes as well.

If you live close to Dobson you are sure to hear these tracks being played between class breaks.

www.dobsonbands.net

Arnell Project Update

Wednesday and Thursday we spent our evenings in session with the Arnell Symphony Project. This week we finished up the 2nd and began working on the 4th symphony. So far I think the 4th has been my favorite to capture. It contains some very powerfull sections and yeilds to some very nice brass sounds.

This project has some very interesting characteristics to it. English Composer Richard Arnell composed these 12 symphonies over the past 5+ decades. As we move from one symphony to another, it is facinating to hear the different influences the music carries with it.

If you would like to learn a little more about the people involved in this project, check out these links:

http://www.scoretrak.com/
http://www.marcparella.com/
http://www.musicanovaaz.org/

Arnell Symphonies Project

Dan Malone and Mouse Recording with the assistance of Mike Markowski (http://www.michaelmarkowski.com/) are currently working on a two and a half month project with producer Marc Parella and Musica Nova under the direction of Warren Cohen. We are recording 12 symphonies composed by Arnell to be released by Naxos, the worlds leading classical label (http://www.naxos.com/).

To date we have 4 sessions completed with 8, possibly more to go.

For these sessions we have a great line up of equipment:

Microphones:
Deca Tree
Royer SF-12
Royer R-122 (x2)

Microphone Pre-Amplifier
Millenia Media HV-3D-8DC (modified with DC coupled inputs)

Recorders:
Nuendo DAW @ 24bit and 192kHz
Motu 896HD interface (modified with Burr-Brown Digital converters)
Tascam DA-38 (backup) @ 16bit 44.1 kHz
Tascam CDRW-2000 for 2-Track reference mixes

Power Conditioning:
Monster Cable Pro 3500 Power Conditioner


After a rough start the ensemble is coming together in good form. While 80% of the ensemble is made up from Music Nova, about 20% of the ensemble is made up of new individuals to fill in the missing members. With a few sessions under their belts, everyone is finding their groove and things are moving along well.

Next session is Wednesday August 24th.

First log

Greetings and Welcome to the Mouse Recording Blog.

Here you will find tales and adventures of the recording sessions of Mouse Recording.

Please feel free to comment.