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Natural interaction, one circle, one take: recording without headphones

At Sound Liaison, we are always searching for ways to make recordings that capture the true essence of live musical communication — no barriers, no artificial separation, just musicians interacting naturally in a beautiful acoustic space.
So when the band came to us with the wish “we want to play without headphones”, it immediately defined the spirit of this session with Gidon Nunes Vaz (trumpet), Karl-Martin Almqvist (tenor saxophone), Timothy Blanchet (piano), Kas Jiskoot (bass), and Martijn Vink (drums).

Building the circle

Martijn’s first request was simple and very human: “We want to stand as close together as possible so we can hear and see each other.”
That single sentence shaped everything that followed.

We started by positioning the piano — the one instrument that couldn’t easily move. Once the piano found its spot in the room, we began building the circle around it.
The drums came next, placed on a rug and moved as close as possible toward the piano — so close that the edge of the ride cymbal actually ended up tucked slightly under the piano lid.
Between drums and piano we placed Kas on double bass, creating a compact rhythm section where communication was instant and physical.

From there, we completed the circle: the horns, Gidon and Karl-Martin, were positioned next to each other, to the right of the drums and at the head of the piano. This gave everyone clear sight lines and a natural stereo field — every musician could see and hear everyone else without the need for headphones.

When the setup was complete, the feeling in the room changed immediately. The musicians were suddenly in it together: no monitoring, no isolation, just shared sound in shared air. The connection was immediate — a conversation instead of a construction.

The acoustic advantage of close proximity

A fascinating acoustic phenomenon occurs when musicians play very close together, even in a large studio: the spill (or bleed) between microphones becomes far less roomy.
Because each microphone captures more direct sound from nearby instruments and less reflected sound from walls and ceiling, the spill loses its diffuse, ambient quality. Instead, it adds definition and presence to the total sound.

Rather than causing muddiness, this kind of spill actually glues the recording together. Each instrument slightly colors its neighbors, creating a natural blend and a cohesive sonic image. The result is a tighter, more focused soundstage — one that feels open, intimate, and incredibly real.
It’s one of the great paradoxes of recording: the closer the players are to one another, the more natural the recording sounds.

Challenges for the engineer

For me as the recording engineer, this close-circle setup brought a beautiful set of challenges. With every instrument only inches apart, microphone placement became a matter of precision and intention.
The goal was not to fight the bleed — it was to make it work for the music. When managed carefully, the interaction between mics becomes part of the recording’s depth, not its problem.

Microphone setup

• Piano — Inside the grand piano I used an AEA stereo ribbon microphone in Blumlein configuration. Blumlein uses two figure-eight ribbons crossed at 90°, capturing sound from the front and back while rejecting from the sides. This characteristic helped control drum spill while maintaining a warm, realistic stereo image. The result was a beautifully defined, dimensional piano tone that sat naturally in the mix.

• Drums — The drums were captured with two omnidirectional overhead microphones, giving a full, balanced image of the kit (excluding the kick) and a pleasing sense of openness. These omni mics also picked up some of the piano at a distance, which broadened the piano’s stereo field and enriched the total sound.
  To complete the drum picture, I added a Josephson C715 on the bass drum. This large-diaphragm condenser delivers tremendous clarity and weight without aggression. Placed just inside the resonant head, it provided the solid low-end anchor the rhythm section needed, perfectly complementing the natural tone of the overheads.

• Bass — The double bass was mic’d with a Neumann M149, positioned for both warmth and definition — a round tone with enough “finger sound” to feel the pulse. A small acoustic panel between bass and drums gave minimal separation while keeping full visual contact intact.

• Horns — Both Gidon Nunes Vaz and Karl-Martin Almqvist chose Coles ribbon microphones. These ribbons produce a rich, warm, and smooth tone — perfect for brass and reeds.
  Because both horn players performed directly into their mics, and horns are naturally loud sources, bleed was never an issue. In fact, the subtle amount of spill between the horns and rhythm section added coherence and a beautiful sense of shared space.

Recording in Pure DSD256

The entire session was captured in pure DSD256, one of the most transparent formats available today.
When we listened back to the first takes, the musicians were stunned by the realism. Gidon’s reaction was priceless. When I briefly switched playback to PCM (using real-time sample-rate conversion in Merging Pyramix) for comparison, he looked at me and said, slightly alarmed:

“Where is my sound? The sound is gone. Can I still listen to DSD256?”

When I switched back, he smiled with relief:

“Ah, good — the sound is still there.”

That moment summed up perfectly what DSD256 does: it’s not just about numbers or dynamic range, it’s about emotion. Musicians feel the difference. The sound seems to breathe with them.
As Karl-Martin later said:

“I hear in the recording literally what I hear downstairs while playing. It’s fascinating.”

About DSD and real-time conversion

For those unfamiliar with DSD workflows: DSD256 records audio as a 1-bit signal at 11.2 MHz, capturing extreme nuance and transient detail.
Merging Pyramix allows real-time sample-rate conversion between DSD and high-resolution PCM (DXD, 352.8 kHz/24-bit) for editing. This means we can make precise edits in DXD while maintaining the full purity of the DSD256 recording for playback and mastering.

Reflections

This session reaffirmed what I’ve always been searching for as an engineer: a way to capture not just the sound, but the feel of a performance.
By first positioning the piano, then building a true circle of musicians around it, we created an environment of shared air and shared energy — and captured it with the fidelity that pure DSD256 makes possible.

The combination of:

• the organic circular layout,

• the carefully chosen microphones (especially the Blumlein piano and Josephson C715 on bass drum),

• the tight yet natural spill, and

• the depth and realism of DSD256,

…resulted in a recording that feels alive, open, and profoundly human.

At Sound Liaison, we’ll keep exploring this path. Pure DSD256 recording offers musicians and listeners something rare — an unfiltered, emotionally direct window into the music itself.

Thanks to Gidon Nunes Vaz, Karl-Martin Almqvist, Timothy Blanchet, Kas Jiskoot, and Martijn Vink for this inspiring session.

For more about our DSD recording techniques, microphone setups, and upcoming high-resolution releases, visit www.soundliaison.com.

Rediscovering the Lost Mojo

By Frans de Rond, Engineer at Sound Liaison

When I began my career as a recording engineer, the very first digital technologies were just appearing on the horizon. But in those early years, my world was still completely analog. Recording meant placing a microphone, routing it through a mixing console, and capturing it on a multitrack tape machine. Mixing meant taking that multitrack tape, running it back through the console, and printing a stereo master on a two-track tape machine. The entire process was tactile, immediate, and deeply connected to the physical medium.

Then came the digital revolution. When the first digital workstations arrived, the possibilities felt endless. Suddenly, you could manipulate sound in ways that had never been possible before. You could align notes perfectly, correct pitch with precision, and use a vast arsenal of plug-ins to shape the sound with EQ, compression, and effects. Most of these plug-ins were (and still are) modeled on classic analog gear. At the time, there were questions about sound quality, but over the decades digital processing made huge strides forward.

Now, forty years later, an entire generation of engineers has grown up working exclusively in the digital domain. Many of them have never experienced what it is like to record and mix entirely in analog. And as a result, that particular “sound”  - the analog mojo -  is slowly disappearing from our collective memory.

Music lovers who still spin vinyl records on a high-quality turntable know what I am talking about. There is a presence, a warmth, an emotional immediacy that is different from the polished precision of digital.

This year, as I started recording in DSD256 at Sound Liaison, I made a decision that brought me back to my roots: I installed a fully refurbished Studer 961 console for monitoring and mixing. I was blown away by the quality of this 40-year-old desk. The sound was so inspiring during playback that I decided to take the bold step of doing the full mix through the Studer as well.

And what happened surprised even me. Compared to mixing entirely in PCM, something intangible returned. Something I could only describe as familiar, a sound from the past, a sound we had somehow lost along the way.

The realization hit me hard: blinded by the limitless possibilities of digital recording and mixing, we had unknowingly thrown away something valuable. With the Studer in the chain, the sound and the mojo were back.

The experience is almost overwhelming. It feels like listening to a finished album rather than a session that still needs fixing. Instead of reaching for endless tweaks, the music itself takes over. There is a natural flow, a depth, and a three-dimensional quality that simply draws you in.

Sometimes I wonder: am I just imagining this? Am I nostalgic for something that isn’t really there? But again and again, the musicians themselves confirm it.

A few weeks ago, drummer Bruno Castellucci was sitting on the studio couch listening to playback. After a few minutes he turned to me and said: “Man, the sound I lost in the 90’s is back again.” That gave me goosebumps. Because I knew exactly what he meant.

And speaking of goosebumps, that has become the norm when playing back a DSD256 recording through the Studer 961. Time after time, both musicians and listeners react physically to the sound. It’s not just “a good take” or “an emotional performance.” There is something more, something harder to define. With PCM recordings, we often felt that a take was strong, but there was always a subtle sense that something was missing. With the Studer and DSD256, that missing element suddenly reveals itself.

It’s like the famous story of the Native Americans not recognizing Columbus’s ships when they first appeared, simply because they had no frame of reference for such a thing. In the same way, many of us no longer hear the analog mojo because we’ve never experienced it, or we’ve forgotten what it sounds like. But once you hear it again, you know instantly what was lost.

At Sound Liaison, we are passionate about capturing performances with the highest possible fidelity, using DSD256 technology and now also embracing the analog domain for mixing. The combination is breathtaking. It is as if the best of both worlds, the precision of modern digital recording and the soul of analog mixing, come together in a way that is both timeless and new.

For me, mixing in the analog domain is not about nostalgia. It is about reconnecting with an authenticity that too often gets buried under layers of digital perfection. It is about sound that moves you before you even realize why. It is about bringing back the goosebumps.

And this journey has only just begun.

To be continued…

My journey as a sound engineer

By Frans de Rond, engineer Sound Liaison

When I began my career as a recording engineer in the early 1990s, I was trained with a clear principle: a studio monitor should not color the sound. It should reproduce music with as flat and accurate a frequency response as possible. The idea was simple, if you mix on a neutral system, your recordings will translate well to any playback environment.

Back then, active studio monitors were becoming increasingly popular. They were compact, had built-in amplifiers, and often came with EQ adjustments to compensate for less-than-ideal placement, whether on stands behind the mixing desk or even perched on the meter bridge.

The Genelec Era

In the early part of my professional journey, Genelec monitors dominated the studio landscape. Their distinctive cast-aluminum, curved enclosures around the tweeter and midrange drivers were unmistakable. Many engineers used them, and so I did too. I mixed on Genelecs for years, and they served me well.

But then came a turning point.

Discovering the world of High-End Audio

In the late ’90s, I visited Rhapsody (High End Audio Shop) in Hilversum to purchase a pair of “better” hi-fi speakers for personal listening. That’s where I met Harry van Dalen and Michael van Polen. Harry,  the owner and a passionate advocate for high-end audio, challenged my entire belief system about studio monitoring. He argued that most studio monitors were fundamentally limited in their ability to reproduce music in a truly lifelike way.

At that time, I dismissed it. I had never experienced truly high-end listening, so I couldn’t understand what I was supposedly missing. What you don’t know, you don’t miss, yet.

Years later, I found myself back at Rhapsody, and this time Harry’s words resonated differently. Harry invited me to start listening differently. As someone who fine-tunes high-end audio systems, he has developed an extraordinary sense, backed by deep technical knowledge, of how to extract not only the best possible sound, but also the full emotional impact of music. What he achieves in home setups is often far beyond what you hear in the average studio. He challenged me to listen in a more audiophile way, to recognize that there is so much more. That was something I had to literally learn to hear. He played me many records to illustrate what he was talking about. The seed was planted.

A new dimension in the studio

A few years later, the first speakers that arrived in my studio was a set of Grimm LS1.
For the first time in my studio life, I was not only aware of left, center, and right, I now also became aware of depth. A three-dimensional stage unfolded in front of me.

This was my first true step into high-end monitoring. Later, I added two subwoofers to the system. The increased detail, depth, and musicality were transformative.

During this period, my friendship with Harry and Michael from Rhapsody deepened. We spent countless hours listening to recordings, discussing sound, emotional impact, mix balance, and the use of reverb. I began to understand how home listeners experience a recording, not just technically, but also emotionally. I slowly integrated these insights into my own recording and mixing work.

More than 2 dimensions

Becoming aware of depth in sound reproduction has had a profound influence on my work as a sound engineer. Once I began to truly hear not just left and right, but the front-to-back dimension of a recording, I started approaching my recordings and mixes differently. It changed how I think about microphone placement, balance, and the use of space in a mix. 

This awareness also played a major role in my exploration of the one-mic recording technique, where capturing depth is always at the heart of the process. With only a single stereo microphone, there is no place to hide: the balance, the acoustics, and the sense of space must be captured as they truly are. It is both a challenge and an inspiration, and it has become a cornerstone of my philosophy in recording.

For the music listener, depth in the soundstage is not a luxury; it’s essential. A well-recorded piece of music should present not only width, left and right, but also a clearly defined sense of front and back. This depth allows the ear to separate instruments naturally, as if they occupy their own space in the room. It translates the music into a more lifelike and emotionally engaging experience. Without it, the sound can feel flat, congested, or artificial.

A clearly defined soundstage is what transforms listening from hearing a recording to experiencing a performance. The listener can sense where the singer is positioned, how far back the piano sits and how the added reverb shapes the space around the instruments. When the stage is precise and layered, the music becomes more than sound, it becomes an environment you can step into.

For me as an engineer, creating this depth is one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of recording. For the audiophile listener, it is often the difference between “good sound” and a truly moving, immersive musical experience.

The move to MCO – TAD Compact Evolution One

When I relocated to Studio 2 at MCO, I had the chance to work with TAD Compact Evolution One speakers. These monitors pushed my listening skills further. They revealed micro-details and imaging precision that made it possible to evaluate both the technical and musical aspects of a mix simultaneously.

This phase marked an important shift in my approach: I started making smaller, more deliberate change, especially with microphone placement, to shape the sound before it ever hit the mixing desk.

The Linkwitz LX521 – A new level of 3D imaging

This year, Frank Brenner, the owner of Linkwitz, gave me the opportunity to add LX521 dipole speakers to my monitoring setup alongside the TADs. Dipole speakers have an extraordinary ability to create a three-dimensional soundstage. Through them, instruments gain an almost touchable realism. Adjusting the tone of a recording feels more like reshaping the instrument itself than tweaking EQ. 

The level of realism is so compelling that it changes how I interact with the music during recording and mixing. It’s not just a technical process anymore, it’s a deeply creative and emotional experience.

Lessons learned from a lifetime of listening

My journey through the evolution of studio monitoring has taught me that great recordings are about more than just frequency response charts and distortion measurements. They’re about connecting the listener to the performance in the most direct and authentic way possible.

Working with high-end speakers like Grimm LS1, TAD Compact Evolution One and the Linkwitz LX521, has expanded my understanding of what is possible in recording, mixing, and mastering. It has made me more sensitive to the emotional cues in music and more deliberate in how I capture and present them.

The ongoing journey

Studio monitoring is not a static science; it’s an evolving art. The more I listen, the more I refine my process. Every upgrade, every listening session, every discussion with fellow audio enthusiasts brings me a step closer to creating recordings that not only sound accurate, but feel alive.

At Sound Liaison, we strive to deliver that experience to our listeners: recordings where the technical precision of the studio meets the emotional truth of the performance.

After all, in the end, it’s not about the speakers. It’s about the music.

www.soundliaison.com

Why Live Performances Often Outshine Studio Sessions

By Frans de Rond – Engineer at Sound Liaison

In the controlled environment of a recording studio, musicians have the benefit of perfect acoustics, high-end microphones, and the ability to retake any passage until it’s just right. On paper, that should lead to the most flawless performances. And yet, something curious happens when those same musicians play in front of an audience. Suddenly, the music seems to breathe differently, the dynamics open up, the playing gets bolder, and moments of risk and spontaneity emerge that rarely appear when the red light is on in an empty room.

As a recording engineer at Sound Liaison, I’ve experienced this phenomenon countless times. Some of our most memorable sessions weren’t in the silence of the studio, but during live recordings with an audience present. This begs the question: What is it about having people in the room that changes the way musicians play? And why do listeners at home often gravitate toward live albums over their studio counterparts?

The Invisible Energy Loop

In a studio, even the most skilled musician is essentially playing into a void, the only immediate response comes from the engineer over the talkback mic. With an audience present (even one person present makes a differents), however, every note is met with a subtle emotional reaction from the audience, which in turn fuels the musicians to dig deeper, stretch further, and take chances.

Risk-Taking and Presence

One of the most striking differences I notice is that musicians often take more risks when they know people are watching. They might push a solo further than they normally would, vary the phrasing more, or lean into dynamics that are slightly outside their comfort zone. It’s not always a conscious decision; in fact, it’s often instinctive.

Part of it is simple human psychology, when we perform in front of others, there’s a natural desire to impress. But it’s more than ego. The presence of a listening audience heightens focus and creates a sense of now or never. In the studio, you can always do another take. Live, you have one shot. That urgency can be electrifying, both for the performer and the listener.

Photo by Nienke de Groot

Why Live Recordings Feel Different to the Listener

For listeners at home, live recordings often have a different kind of appeal than studio albums. Of course, part of it is the “you are there” factor, the sound of applause, the ambience of the room, and the slight imperfections that remind you real people are making music in real time. But there’s another layer: the emotional intensity of the performance itself.

When musicians feed off an audience, they often deliver playing that’s more dynamic, more expressive, and more spontaneous. Even without seeing the performance, you can hear it. The shifts in tempo, the organic push and pull, the daring moments where you can almost feel the tension in the room, these qualities are baked into the recording.

At Sound Liaison, we work hard to capture this without losing the clarity and precision audiophiles expect. Our live recordings are made with the same attention to microphone placement, phase coherence, and room acoustics as our studio sessions. The difference lies in the performances themselves, the musicians bring something to the table that simply doesn’t happen when they’re alone with the control room glass.

The Balancing Act for the Engineer

Recording live performances presents its own challenges. Audience noise, room reflections, and the lack of a safety net for mistakes mean we need to plan meticulously. Microphone choice and placement become even more critical. But the reward is worth the extra effort.

When I listen back to a truly great live recording, I’m reminded why I became an engineer in the first place. The goal isn’t just technical perfection, it’s to capture a moment. And moments happen more vividly when musicians feel that surge of connection with their audience.

We are even considering an experiment where I, the engineer, am physically present in the recording room during studio sessions. If the presence of just one additional listener can add an extra layer of energy to a performance, why couldn’t the engineer’s presence do the same? 

Conclusion: Capturing the Human Element

Whether it’s jazz, classical, or singer-songwriter, the presence of an audience changes everything. It creates a sense of urgency, fuels creativity, and encourages risk-taking. And that, in turn, translates into recordings that resonate more deeply with listeners.

At Sound Liaison, we strive to honor this by creating recordings that preserve not just the notes, but the human element behind them. Because in the end, music isn’t just about what you hear, it’s about what you feel.

About Sound Liaison
Sound Liaison is dedicated to producing high-resolution recordings that bring the listener closer to the performance. Our catalog includes both meticulously crafted studio albums and immersive live recordings, each made with uncompromising attention to detail and a deep respect for the music.