Editors Review

Tibby Flora

First thing first: "Can they play. Wow". This performance to me was one of the biggest music
experience I’ve had in my life! I was born in former Yugoslavia, and been in a music scene for over
20 years. I moved to Australia in 1988 where I continued my music carrier, played in different rock bands and started a multimedia recording studio – Media Design pty ltd.
I got to work with some of the biggest artist – Australian and Yugoslav. I think because of my background and the fact that I had to compose and work on folk music, film scores and TV production I learned how to deal with acoustics.
So, the Sitar as an instrument is quiet delicate, full of resonance, and kind a picky in 3khz. In the other hand tabla is an percussive instrument with wide range of frequencies but at the same time left lot a room in the spectrum so i could place the sitar with out interference between the two. On the players request i used shure 58'ts for close up mics, and i suggested to use the condesor mics which where Oktava c12 pens. I did use few other condesor mics for room and the crowd around the venue as i intended to mix it in 5.1 surround. The recording was straight to an Tascam DA 38 from a Tascam M-1600 desk. Then i transferred all that to a Steinberg NUENDO thru an RME card and start the mix. Really i only worked on getting the acoustics right and the room after that i set it in 5.1 and that was it. All the dynamics where done by the players them self as seen on the DVD. They compromised to each other so well that anything i would try to mix it would be waste of time. The whole performance was so amazing that i think i was hypnotized. It was unbelievable easy for me to be there as all the control was done by Shahid and Anindo.
I did get told from many people that got the DVD that this is the best ever recording, quality and performance, that this DVD has to make the History. I don't really know if is the first 5.1 mix in the Hindustani music but as i got told, it is THE ONE that sounds balanced straight from the start of ALAP.
I hope the rest of you will enjoy this product as an musical peace of art, and get more feedback so i can understand more about the whole thing so i can produce the next one to your suggestions.
Regards

Tibby Flora