Acoustic Portrait Records - Indian Classical Music

[AVM]

Got four CDs from them.
Autumn Raaga, Naad Naman, Raag Bageshri, Violin Solo.
Lovely music, wonderful recording. Hoping for more, much more.

Keen to know your observations

 

[Ashenden]

Violin solo and Sunaadam vol 1&2 on CD are sublime recordings. Excellent soundstage and tonal accuracy in both CDs. Violin solo CD is more transparent than the YouTube uploads.

 

[Nikhili]

As for Indian Classical, I’ve always felt having a live audience makes a big difference to the performance (I’d imagine it does to all kinds of music, as well). Anyone else feels this way? What would be wonderful is if AP can set up a mini auditorium- day for fifty people - with similar acoustic treatments and quality equipment to record live performances. That will ensure the artists are more in their element (especially classical ones who aren’t used to studio recording) as well as get the magic of performers-audience chemistry into the tracks.

The acoustics and equipment at the venue matters a lot to the performing artists. It’s sad but true that many times the monitor on stage is bad and that makes it difficult for the performer. The sound settings, not necessarily sounding true to the instrument, but to the performers preference helps a lot. Most times that doesn’t happen and it puts one off. Sometimes the accompanying instrument volume is set higher and even that ticks one off a great deal!

The main artist also prefers the accompanying artist to be of their choice or at least competent enough. Organizers, to save money or to promote someone of their choice, sometimes get mismatches and to make it worse they both won’t be given ample time to put some time together. Ego issues will crop up and will the thrashed on stage and it usually reflects in the performance!

A good artist, most times, prefers an audience that actually appreciates what they feel needs to be appreciated ( many a times difficult to render) rather than applauding for anything and everything which can get annoying.

Once in a while the reimbursement also impacts performance but given good acoustics, equipment, accompanist and audience it takes a backstage.

 

[Deleted member 15865]

The acoustics and equipment at the venue matters a lot to the performing artists. It’s sad but true that many times the monitor on stage is bad and that makes it difficult for the performer. The sound settings, not necessarily sounding true to the instrument, but to the performers preference helps a lot. Most times that doesn’t happen and it puts one off. Sometimes the accompanying instrument volume is set higher and even that ticks one off a great deal!

The main artist also prefers the accompanying artist to be of their choice or at least competent enough. Organizers, to save money or to promote someone of their choice, sometimes get mismatches and to make it worse they both won’t be given ample time to put some time together. Ego issues will crop up and will the thrashed on stage and it usually reflects in the performance!

A good artist, most times, prefers an audience that actually appreciates what they feel needs to be appreciated ( many a times difficult to render) rather than applauding for anything and everything which can get annoying.

Once in a while the reimbursement also impacts performance but given good acoustics, equipment, accompanist and audience it takes a backstage.

Seems entirely in the realm of (good) management, except the audience part. An events/recording company that understands this can easily work towards achieving excellence. Certain venues ensure most of these. I’d think NCPA Mumbai is one such. Even the audience is keen and usually knowledgeable and the facilities. The Alurkars of Pune (before the family tragedies) was one such label.

But these are rare. Most venues lack even the basics. Recently I read an interview of Mukta Barve - perhaps the strongest of current day Marathi actresses (cinema and theatre) saying she has stopped taking on new plays because of the pathetic condition of the theatrical venues. She even mentioned the lack of clean toilets as well at most of them. It’s a sad situation.

Guess it’s time for corporates to enter into music, arts and theatre which are largely seen as domains for government and municipal bodies to run. Sony, Times, Universal etc need to invest in venues and not just studios. Good to see AP making a start.

 

[Nikhili]

Seems entirely in the realm of (good) management, except the audience part. An events/recording company that understands this can easily work towards achieving excellence. Certain venues ensure most of these. I’d think NCPA Mumbai is one such. Even the audience is keen and usually knowledgeable and the facilities. The Alurkars of Pune (before the family tragedies) was one such label.

But these are rare. Most venues lack even the basics. Recently I read an interview of Mukta Barve - perhaps the strongest of current day Marathi actresses (cinema and theatre) saying she has stopped taking on new plays because of the pathetic condition of the theatrical venues. She even mentioned the lack of clean toilets as well at most of them. It’s a sad situation.

Guess it’s time for corporates to enter into music, arts and theatre which are largely seen as domains for government and municipal bodies to run. Sony, Times, Universal etc need to invest in venues and not just studios. Good to see AP making a start.

I am sure that there are companies that rent out great equipment but it's not going to be cheap. If not all most organizers wish to save monies!
There are some artists/groups that are particular about sound and they actually have the equipment follow them to the concerts. This would be great so long as someone takes care of the logistics!

That's true - many venues do not have good stuff. Sometimes the organizers do rent out equipment if at such venues.

It, perhaps, is not viable/profitable for such venues. Well, the government can but they have their priorities

Also, It is "remuneration" and not "reimbursement" that I meant in my previous message.

 

[prem]

The Music by River album is not processed at all. It’s been recorded in a cathedral. Very few systems can play that lp to its potential. I have only heard one high end system do it. Normal systems will not be able to give you a real feel of that recording. It’s absolutely gorgeous. This is not to say AP recordings aren’t great. I have never heard them. I am just referring to Music by River recording.

Till date I have not been able to get it to sound right on my system. There are some bass notes in that recording which can shake your room.

I have heard the old system at APs house. I don’t think that system has the ability to resolve a Music by the River recording. I have not heard APs new offerings. So don’t know how much of an improvement they are on the old ones.

 

[Deleted member 15865]

The Music by River album is not processed at all. It’s been recorded in a cathedral. Very few systems can play that lp to its potential. I have only heard one high end system do it. Normal systems will not be able to give you a real feel of that recording. It’s absolutely gorgeous. This is not to say AP recordings aren’t great. I have never heard them. I am just referring to Music by River recording.

Till date I have not been able to get it to sound right on my system. There are some bass notes in that recording which can shake your room.

I have heard the old system at APs house. I don’t think that system has the ability to resolve a Music by the River recording. I have not heard APs new offerings. So don’t know how much of an improvement they are on the old ones.

Thanks Prem for helping us build perspective on this. While AP must be lauded for what they are attempting to do for the SQ conscious Indian music listeners, ‘A meeting by the river’ has been lauded world-wide for the natural feel of both the music and the recording.

This is another eye (rather, ear) opening article that uses the example of this recording:

How high do you want your fi?

Would you really want a perfect hi-fi? Indulge my fantasy for a secondI'm talking about a system with DC-to-light bandwidth, zero noise and distortion, and unlimited dynamic range and resolution. It's an audiophile conundrum: When output precisely matches input, have we attained nirvana?

www.stereophile.com

 

[Deleted member 15865]

By the way, ‘A Meeting by the River’ is the CD among my collection that has the lowest recording level (volume wise). I wonder if that’s a result of non-processing? Apart form the music being so delightful, what I love a lot about this album is how the tabla sounds! It has a kind of nice velvetty feel to the sound (bets I can describe). For those who like Ry Cooder on this, do listen to Harry Manx - a blues slide guitarist who learnt Indian Classical under Bhatt and combines various musical traditions while maintaining the blues effect.

 

[Ashenden]

By the way, ‘A Meeting by the River’ is the CD among my collection that has the lowest recording level (volume wise). I wonder if that’s a result of non-processing

There was another album, I liked “Indian Architexture” with Ali Akbar Khan. Beautiful composition and excellent recording from Water lily but very low volume. Compared to those recordings, AP records have more loudness. I too don’t know why that’s so

 

[Naturelover]

The Music by River album is not processed at all. It’s been recorded in a cathedral. Very few systems can play that lp to its potential. I have only heard one high end system do it. Normal systems will not be able to give you a real feel of that recording. It’s absolutely gorgeous. This is not to say AP recordings aren’t great. I have never heard them. I am just referring to Music by River recording.

Till date I have not been able to get it to sound right on my system. There are some bass notes in that recording which can shake your room.

Looks like you have heard it on a system that did do justice to the album. What was that?
Could you point out any specific passages that would need such a system?

 

[prem]

All tracks are gorgeously recorded. Track 3 has some serious bass. The ambience in the right system is to die for. The harmonics, tone, texture, dynamics are all very very good.

 

[Nikhil]

Hmmm ... let's get this back on topic.
Senior vocalist, Neela Ramgopal, shows off a tremendous vocal rendition of a classic.

.

 

[square_wave]

Since the reference to meeting by the river have touched a chord, I want to clarify it a little bit.

1. What was played was the cd and not the LP.
2. The reference was only to the rawness of the recording. Nothing else. Recording is an art. From that context, meeting by the river is one of the best I have heard. It ability to elicit strong emotional responses that is close to what you feel if you were to listen to the original performance (live) is outstanding.

 

[Ashenden]

A wonderful performance by Vittal Rangan on Violin, this time at a small venue in Bangalore.

 

[gvenu]

 

[yugaaa]

Thiyagaraja keerthanas are better left to singers with Telugu fluency .. Malayalam singers really kill the songs ..

 

[Ashenden]

Thiyagaraja keerthanas are better left to singers with Telugu fluency .. Malayalam singers really kill the songs ..

Hi, could you please share another instance where this kriti was sung with the proper diction. ?

 

[yugaaa]

 

[Ashenden]

Thanks for sharing! I enjoyed all the versions. I think the AP recording is an improvisation by the vocalist in his style rather than improper diction. We have these different interpretation of the main body of work in other highly evolved classical art forms like Ghazals as well. If you consider the poetry of Mirza Ghalib, purists consider Begum Akhtar's to be true to the original. We have many different renditions from Mohd. Rafi(mellow), Abida Parveen (full of energy), Jagjit Singh (mostly sad with traces of happiness peeping through ) each being a different interpretation of the vocalist. There is no right or wrong here, if the poet was alive today, he might have picked one of these modern versions over his original idea
Any case I'm a noob and only know to listen and enjoy when these musically endowed greats perform

 

[yugaaa]

Thanks for sharing! I enjoyed all the versions. I think the AP recording is an improvisation by the vocalist in his style rather than improper diction. We have these different interpretation of the main body of work in other highly evolved classical art forms like Ghazals as well. If you consider the poetry of Mirza Ghalib, purists consider Begum Akhtar's to be true to the original. We have many different renditions from Mohd. Rafi(mellow), Abida Parveen (full of energy), Jagjit Singh (mostly sad with traces of happiness peeping through ) each being a different interpretation of the vocalist. There is no right or wrong here, if the poet was alive today, he might have picked one of these modern versions over his original idea
Any case I'm a noob and only know to listen and enjoy when these musically endowed greats perform

Most Thayagaraja Keerthanas contain an intricate meaning . Improper diction changes the meaning and the flavour of the song .

Above examples of killing the intricate meaning . A song is best sung or rendered only when the artist knows the true meaning .