In our experience, once the signals are leaving the microphones,
90-95% or more of the recording's ultimate quality ceiling has already been determined.
Everything after the microphones (i.e., mic cables, AC mains power, AC mains cables,
mic preamps, recording format, recording device, mix, if any, mastering,
playback format, playback device, interconnecting cables, amplification, speaker cables,
speakers, speaker positioning, vibration isolation, room acoustics, etc., etc.)
merely determines how much of what was captured the listener gets to hear.
As the About page on the Soundkeeper Recordings web site states:
"The goal of every Soundkeeper Recording is to bring the listener to the performance,
to create the feeling the listener is in the presence of the musicians,
in the space where the performance actually took place."
With many types of music, especially pop or rock music, this is going to represent quite a departure from the records we've all gotten used to. Wonderful and magical as many of them are, they were made to sound like "records". Our goal is to explore the idea of records that sound like performances. Two different approaches, each with its own rewards.
