🎙️ Inside the Recording Process of Ronald Douglas & Rob van Bavel
By Frans de Rond – Senior Recording & Mastering Engineer, Sound Liaison
At Sound Liaison, every recording is a pursuit of truth. For the new duo album by vocalist Ronald Douglas and pianist Rob van Bavel, that truth came through in a raw, intimate way—no overdubs, no isolation booths, just two musicians, a grand piano, and a pair of exceptional microphones.
This was not just another session. It was an experiment in minimalism, one that demanded precision, trust, and a complete commitment to capturing the music as it truly exists in the room.
🎼 The Vision: One Hall, One Mic, One Take
The idea was clear from the start: we wanted to capture the entire performance using a single microphone setup per source, and we wanted it to sound like you were standing right there in the room.
Rather than isolating the instruments or close-miking for control, we chose to record both the grand piano and Ronald’s voice together in the same acoustic space, using just two Josephson C700S stereo microphones. Just the natural sound of the musicians in the room.
🏛️ Heuvellaan Hilversum Studio 2 – The Perfect Acoustic Partner
This project was recorded in Studio 2 at Heuvellaan Hilversum, one of the best-sounding rooms in the Netherlands. Studio 2 is steeped in history, with its warm and detailed acoustics shaped by decades of world-class music-making.
For a one-mic approach to truly shine, you need a space that sounds good in itself—not too dead, not too live, and rich in natural resonance. Studio 2 gives us always that ideal balance.
🎤 The Josephson C700S – A Microphone Like No Other
The Josephson C700S was central to this approach. Each mic features three capsules—an omni, a figure-of-eight, and a side figure-of-eight—which allowed us to create fully customizable stereo fields after the recording.
We placed one C700S mic for the piano, and another for the voice. What made this interesting is that Ronald and Rob were performing side by side, not separated. This introduced natural bleed, but because we embraced it, rather than avoided it, the result was a beautiful, organic blend.
The bleed became part of the sound—not a problem to solve, but a layer of intimacy to be preserved.
🎧 The Role of Monitoring
Because Ronald was positioned very close to the grand piano, he used headphones to monitor his own vocals, giving him the ability to hear himself clearly without over-singing. This allowed him to sing with nuance and emotional depth while staying dynamically balanced with the piano.
No headphone bleed made it into the recording, thanks to careful gain staging and mic placement.
💡 Minimalist Recording, Maximum Fidelity
This is where DXD recording made a difference. We captured the session at 352.8 kHz / 24-bit, preserving every transient, every breath, and every harmonic overtone. When you hear this album in DXD or DSD from Sound Liaison, you're hearing exactly what we heard in the controle room.
Just pure music.
🛠️ Challenges in Simplicity
Recording with so few tools may sound easy, but it’s actually quite demanding.
-
Mic placement becomes everything. Just a few centimeters off, and your stereo image collapses.
-
Musicianship must be flawless. There’s nowhere to hide mistakes or fix problems later.
-
Balance is created by movement in space, not faders.
This level of simplicity means that everything becomes more musical, even the silence.
🎶 The Result: Jazz as It Was Meant to Be Heard
This is not a record where you hear compression artifacts, click-track timing, or artificial room effects. This is a recording of two masters at work, performing in the moment with complete presence and control.
Rob’s piano is deep, warm, and articulate, captured naturally with the full body and resonance of the instrument intact. Ronald’s voice is upfront but never harsh, intimate but spacious.
It’s the kind of sound that reminds you why we fell in love with acoustic music in the first place.
📥 Available in True Audiophile Formats
The album is available now on www.soundliaison.com in DXD, DSD, and high-resolution PCM and FLAC formats, carefully mastered to retain the integrity of the original session. Whether you're listening through headphones or high-end monitors, you'll hear every detail we captured.
🎙️ Final Thoughts from the Engineer’s Chair
As an engineer, working on this session was as always a rewarding experience. Not because of fancy plugins or massive multi-tracks, but because of the purity of the approach.
There’s something magical that happens when you step back and let the music breathe. When you trust the room, the musicians, and the gear to simply do what they were meant to do.
This album is a reflection of that philosophy, and I’m proud to share it with the world.
—
Frans de Rond
Senior Recording & Mastering Engineer
www.soundliaison.com