Recording Services

Enormous technological changes have had a profound impact on the performance and art of acoustic music, some of which are in the realm of computerized and electronic instruments while others involve the recording process itself and the playback of recorded music.

When asked about these changes, Barry Rifkin discusses how this has impacted music, saying, "Everyone hears recorded music hundreds of times a day and this poor quality of recording influences everyone, particularly music students."

Barry traces the changes to an emphasis on higher performance technology rather than musical quality (engineering by the numbers rather than by the ear). In the Greek myth of Icarus, the hero brilliantly engineered a way to fly with his wax and feather wings, but tragically flew too close to the sun and melted them. Barry feels this story is analogous to the fate of acoustic musician evolution into an advanced technical form that carries less emotional color and, therefore, is less able to attract the affection of the listener.

As longtime New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg said of an earlier medium, "With the CD, the long, proud reign of the flat, grooved, Berliner disc, from 1895 to the middle 1980's, came to an end. But what a glorious spin it had!"

Bringing studio quality to location recording and live performance interest to the studio

Like other concerned musicians, recording engineers, and music lovers, Barry has made an in-depth study of earlier recorded music to find out what made it so great and so attractive in order to apply his discoveries to a new recording style with modern technologies. He has also applied a great deal of his knowledge of acoustical behavior, derived from his piano work, to his recording work in such areas as cancellation of frequencies, resonance and the relative behavior of frequencies within the vocal and instrumental ranges. As in piano building, he finds much of modern recording hardware engineering to be too theoretical and academic without enough field experience.

Barry, therefore, has designed his own microphones, which he uses alongside the studio staples such as the Neumann U87, AKG 414, and Shure SM-57, 58 and 81s, for example. He has custom-selected tubes to be used in his equipment to achieve the high musical quality he demands. His digital mastering reflects his knowledge of music literature and instruments and his love of the finest recordings that have influenced him.

As a musician, he laments the mechanized and computerized substitution for live human performance. Because of this, Barry allows performers to achieve a balance themselves, rather than forcing a balance with microphones or mixing. He would rather do another take in the studio than splice a performance. His goal has always been to bring studio quality to location recording and live performance interest to the studio.

So, if you are a singer, pianist or group, an organist, string quartet, a jazz trio or quintet or even a choir wanting to record and would like to sound the way you always dreamed that you could; play or sing the way you want; create something that everyone loves and admires, contact Barry at Barry Rifkin Studio.