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Luukas said:
It is wonderful to have this outstanding recording on multi-channel SACD! I have already Chung's (DG) and Davis' (LSO Live) recordings. Any comments?
It is very gratifying to read Graham Williams' excellent, finely detailed review of this performance as well as his and Luukas's analyses of the surround effects in this recording. I was its producer, and worked very hard to create those. This is how they were done:
Klaus Hiemann, the sound engineer, and I created four stereo submixes during recording, which were recorded on eight-track, one-inch Scotch 202 tape. After several weeks of editing in DG's dedicated control room in the basement of Symphony Hall, I made simultaneous final quad and stereo mixes there myself, with the assistance of two excellent young recording engineers, the late Joachim Niss and Gernot Westhäuser (the latter went on to have a great career as chief sound engineer for Unitel and is now enjoying his retirement).
In addition to the effects mentioned by Mr. Williams and Luukas, my favorites were the three sudden, lightning-bolt, three-note bursts in the brass announcing the materialization of Mephisto on the scene, and the ride into hell and arrival there, when Mephisto sing-shouts "Il est à nous!", Faust screams "Horreur!", and Mephisto cries "Je suis vainqueur!" During the Pandemonium scene which ensues, I tweaked the equalizer up to +10 @10khz on the chorus tracks to bring out the sibilants in the words "Has! Has! Satan!" sung by the Chorus of Demons and the Damned. That and all of the other effects that we created 40-some years ago are intact on all layers of the PentaTone SACDs.
I just noticed that Luukas is a "high school student and violinist". Restores my faith in youth!
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