Welcome to Barry Diament Audio!

Audio recording, production, consulting, mastering, editing

The sonic story in two sentences:

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.

From Barry's Soundkeeper Recordings label:

NEW RELEASE COMING SOON...


				Winds of Change	Americas


Confluence	Equinox	Lift

Available on disc and in the following download formats

*16/44*	*24/96*	*24/192*
.aif or .wav files	.aif or .wav files	.aif or .wav files
For your computer's music server	For your computer's music server	For your computer's music server

The Soundkeeper blog

For thoughts about audio, music, recording and playback, visit The Soundkeeper blog.

When you get there, use the "Follow" button (in the sidebar on the right side of the page)
to sign up to receive an email message whenever a new entry is added.

You are there!

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.

What they're saying

"Soundkeeper is that special record label where every performance is captured with a feeling of vitality and natural energy; every recording feels as if it is lit from within with a natural illumination that shines into every nook and cranny of the music to reveal its every texture, detail and the artistry of the musicians involved."
- Read Nelson Brill's Soundkeeper Recordings: Wonderment in the Music at Boston Concert Reviews

"These are among the finest recordings I have..."
- Soundkeeper Recordings was selected in the 9th Annual Positive Feedback Writers' Choice Awards for 2012 - The Best of the Best!

"Small label, great music"
"After listening to the CDs of Soundkeeper Recordings and once you're accustomed to the recording quality, you do not want anything else."
- Read the story at audioreview.nl

"I've been playing nothing but Soundkeeper Recordings disks today. East coast engineering maven Barry Diament captures the illusion of life on each and every disk. It's a small catalog (4 so far) but each one unique. The best thing is that your system doesn't have to be world-class for the illusion to work. Even on my desktop system (vintage tubed Fisher 500C and small Rogers LS3/5a monitors), it's like YOU ARE THERE. I know Barry likes to record in a pure way, nothing close-miked and NO limiting, compression or outboard EQ to get in the way of the natural dynamics of the sound. Too bad all the records of the world aren't recorded this way! Start with the fab Equinox by Markus Schwartz & Lakou Brooklyn and move on to Paul Beaudry & Pathways Americas. Then try Jason Vitelli's Confluence and Work Of Art Lift. Try 'em, trust Steve, you'll really be in music heaven."
- Steve Hoffman, Mastering Engineer

"Critical point...you have to let this sound reset your ears because you have never heard it recorded and reality will sound foreign. In a famous experiment a group of people wore prismatic glasses which turned the world upside down. After a few weeks this became normal and when they took the glasses off the world seemed inverted. This is what listening to Soundkeeper Recordings is like - it will turn your world back right side up."
- Lawrence de Martin

"...phenomenal record label."
- Werner Ero in the May 2012 issue of Music Emotion

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