Mar 19, 2022 1:30 PM

Mark block of The (New York) Audiophile Society has done it again. This
month`s Zoom guest is none other than Barry Diament of Soundkeeper
Recordings, certainly one of the absolute top recording engineers in the
USA.

The Zoom meeting will take place on Sat, March 19 at 1:30 PM Eastern.
As with last month`s Zoom, you will need to register in advance (see below).

Mr. Diament, founder of Soundkeeper Recordings and one of the best audio
engineers in the country, has been a member of The Audiophile Society
for decades. Don’t hold that against him! Barry began his career in 1975
as a studio assistant at a small label, picking up the skills of
recording, mixing, editing and even mastering lacquers for vinyl. He was
soon promoted to Chief Engineer but moved on to Atlantic Records in
1978. In 1983 he became head of Atlantic’s CD mastering division. He
continued his mastering career independently until 2006 when he founded
Soundkeeper Recordings, where he makes purist recordings of the highest
possible sound quality.

His latest release, “The Twain Shall Meet” by the Cosmic American
Derelicts, is in that tradition of utmost naturalness, creating a sense
that the listener is in the presence of the musicians in the original
performing space. Barry’s recording setup is a matched pair of
Earthworks QTC-1 mics, Nordost cables, a Metric Halo ULN-8 as preamp and
ADC, and Metric Halo Console X (Session) running on a MacBook pro
laptop, recording at 24/192. For final studio monitoring and mastering,
he employs Magnepan 3.7i speakers, but the mix is essentially
accomplished by the musicians themselves, under Barry’s direction,
playing together at the recording venue. In this case, it was the
historic “Silo” originally owned by Skitch Henderson.

Here`s how Barry explains his philosophy: “Soundkeeper Recordings are
made with all the musicians playing live, in real time. The musicians
determine the musical balances and musical dynamics. They are recorded
directly to stereo. There are no overdubs. There are no mixes. We call
it ‘recording without a net.’ The prime interest is in capturing the
feel of the performance, the excitement and emotion that make the music
what it is. This is preferred over a note-perfect performance with less
feel. If the feel is there and the players agree, we consider it a take.”

Barry has generously agreed to give away three copies of his latest
recording (format of your choice) and six copies of other Soundkeeper
recordings! We will use your registration info as the raffle entry.

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZElfuGsqD8uHtTO5JfAjyFS16XliA_iGEZB

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing
information about joining the meeting with a link and passcode. We have
eliminated the e-mail authentication requirement, as it resulted in too
much confusion last time.