Album Reviews

Former Image Hi-Fi magazine editor Dirk Sommer and his wife Birgit Hammer-Sommer recorded and produced this solo double bass performance by Dieter Ilg using a purist analog chain direct to ¼” analog audio tape. Compression was neither contemplated nor used, nor was there any filtering or equalization of any kind.

Mikes used were a Neumann SM 69 FET (X-Y) for the bass and an AKG 422 (Blumlein) for ambience. Two Studer A810s recorded the results, which were mixed on location using an Acousta P100 mixing board.

Lacquers were cut directly from the master tape, by Thorsten Scheffner at Organic Music in Obing Germany using a system based on a Neumann VMS 80, plated once at Pallas in Diepolz, Germany and then the result of the first plating was put on the press there and as many copies as could be pressed without a diminution in quality were made. That turned out to be 293 copies.

Now, whether of not you wish to hear a solo bass for two sides of a record is something only you can decide for yourself. Mr. Ilg is an extremely talented bassist and he’s chosen an interesting program of originals plus Coltrane’s “Cousin Mary” and the traditional “Es, es, es und es,” (eat, eat, eat and eat).

He plucks strikes and otherwise wrings musical and complaining noises from his bass in a pleasing way you might not think possible to coax from the instrument. He also makes animal noises and other vocal punctuation marks, particularly on the amusing side one closer “Animal Farm.”

The point of the exercise was to see how great a dynamic range could be recorded in the analog domain and inscribed into a piece of lacquer and to hear how quietly this could be done.

The results indicate that the dynamic range could be as wide as the instrument is capable of producing and the noisefloor could extend to the vanishing point.

Certainly if you’re listening on mini-monitors there’s little point for you to grab a copy of this very limited edition, but if your system plumbs the depths and you want to hear how well it can reproduce a brilliantly recorded double bass, this is your chance!

For more information, including perhaps how to get a copy of ths unique production, visitwww.sds-rpm.de