Attention! Indian Audiophiles
Mark Chodan
Are there any Indian music fanatics/hi-fi enthusiasts who could help
me find some well recorded Indian music?
I have heard a lot of Indian music on TV and on local community
radio and like a lot of it. My problem is that I have bought a few CDs
and have found that the sound is often very poor, even on relatively
recent releases. Could someone please give me a few suggestions
as to what I should buy?
My preferences include (excuse my ignorance of regional differences:
I don't know if it is North or South Indian music that I like) male vocal
ensembles, some of which has a sort of call-and-response interaction
between a lead vocalist and the _back-up_ vocalists; I also like
instrumental music with tabla, sitar, and violin. I am not interested in
female vocal music (my non-Asian ears have not adjusted to this style
yet.)
Thanks in advance.
Mark Chodan
Montreal, Canada
e-mail: mch...@po-box.mcgill.ca
Timothy Tikker and Julia Harlow
the best engineered I've ever heard, and also consistently
well-performed. I've only been disappointed with one so far, of
Chaurasia (flutist), which seemed to have a somewhat diffuse, grainy
tone. All the others have sounded excellent.
I also have a CD of Ustad Imrat Khan playing Surbahar & Sitar on the
Water Lily Acoustics label (WAL-ES-17-CD) which was made to exacting
audiophile standards. Imrat Khan has also recorded on Nimbus, which
sounds different but as good in its own way (WLA is fairly close-miked;
Nimbus captures some room ambience, quite effectively as a rule).
I have an outstanding CD on the Weltmusik label of Sheik Chinna Moulana
and group playing nadaswaram (SM 1507-2 281507-2) - superb music and
engineering, recorded in live concert in Germany.
Chhanda Dhara CDs are generally satisfactorily engineered.
I agree with you that many Indian recordings have poor sound, even when
the performances are fine. Let's hope that standards set by Nimbus etc.
will someday be the norm!
- Tim Tikker
Paul E. Nugent
>
>
>
>Are there any Indian music fanatics/hi-fi enthusiasts who could help
>me find some well recorded Indian music?
I would recommend the recordings released by Nimbus.
They are very good quality, and while their selection is somewhat limited
as to a large variety of artists, they do have a substantial representation.
For instance they have some of the last recordings of Zia Mohiuddin Dagar on
the bin, Brij Narayan, Imrat Khan, Girija Devi, etc.
Some other good fidelity recordings are those put out by Ocora.
Paul Nugent
Sushil Bhattacharjee
musicians from various countries to their studios in Japan to record
ethnic music from these countries. They have a number of recordings of
Indian classical music. Excellent recording quality. Another such
series is available from "World Music Library" another Japanese organization.
Their stuff is also recorded in their studios in Japan.
RWR (Real World Records, owned by Peter Gabriel) also has many recordings
of music from different parts of the world, including from India. In
general their recordings are fine but I have had a couple of bad experiences
with RWR cds, so I would not give them a blanket recommendation. I wish a
high profile company like RWR would take more care in production.
Ryko Disc also has several recordings of Indian music. Their recording
quality is excellent, but I have a problem with them.(:->>) They use too
many mic.s and process the life out of the music. I don't own any Indian
music album from them, but I have some CDs of African music from Ryko.
They emphasize in their liner notes that they have used the best technology
available to create a `live' sound in the studio. Somehow I feel the music
sounds unnatural. The recordings I am talking about contain lots of instruments.
Maybe their Indian music recordings are better than their other recordings
because they use less instruments.
Chandadhara (of Stutgart) and Navrang (of UK) have some good recordings of
live Indian music concerts.
And there is Moment Records (owned my Zakir Hussain). I have one CD from
Moment which is quite good (live album) but again I wouldn't give them a
blanket recommendation. I have heard some albums from them that I didn't
like (recording quality wise).
This may be a good place to bring up a pet peeve of mine:
Can we safely say `Avoid all EMI/HMV CDs'? Those guys seem to have
no business ethics at all! I think they should sell their archives to
some other company which will do a good job of remastering them and
putting them out on CDs.
And I'll stop rambling now...
Ciao,
Sushil
---
Timothy Tikker and Julia Harlow
mention specially a favorite of mine, the first Nimbus CD I acquired:
NI 5195: Imrat Khan, sitar, plus his sons Vajahat on sarod and
Shafaatullah on tabla: Rag Jhinjhoti, Rag Pilu
I've used this as a test recording for checking out speakers. I'll never
forget how on Vandersteen 2Ce speakers at a particular store the walls
disappeared and this amazingly realistic soundstage appeared, seeming to
extend well into the next room!
As if this weren't enough, the music is ravishing...! The recording
fidelity is such that expressive nuances are captured which are really
beyond description, heard on the right system.
- Tim Tikker
Timothy Tikker and Julia Harlow
On 19 Feb 1996, Sushil Bhattacharjee wrote:
> Ryko Disc also has several recordings of Indian music. Their recording
> quality is excellent, but I have a problem with them.(:->>) They use too
> many mic.s and process the life out of the music.
I have the Ryko CD of Ustad Sultan Khan, "Sarangi: The Music of India"
(RCD 10104). Heard on a good system, it sounds downright peculiar. The
two drums of the tabla set each had a separate microphone, making the
tabla player sound as wide as your speakers are far apart! Other
elements combine to make an unnatural sound... tragic, as the performance
is absolutely magical!
> And there is Moment Records (owned my Zakir Hussain). I have one CD from
> Moment which is quite good (live album) but again I wouldn't give them a
> blanket recommendation. I have heard some albums from them that I didn't
> like (recording quality wise).
I have one (MRCD 1006) with the same Sarangi artist (and of course ZH on
tabla). The engineering seemed satisfactory, but the room acoustic is
peculiar, with a conspicuous slap echo - heard as a sort of "ping" after
strong tabla notes, etc. I'll have to give it another listen now that I
have a better system, for a more definitve evaluation.
> This may be a good place to bring up a pet peeve of mine:
> Can we safely say `Avoid all EMI/HMV CDs'?
Sounds good to me...!
- Tim Tikker
Phlostigon
>I would recommend the recordings released by Nimbus.
IMHO, Nimbus sounds like they record their CDs in the shower. A sitar
doesn't need reverb. I recently bought H. Chaurasia, Kaunsi Kanhra from
Nimbus. The recording is out of balance and at times almost loses the
bansuri altogether.
Maybe it depends on the equipment, but I now try particularly to avoid
Nimbus.
--Toby White
Shridar Ganti
Sushil Bhattacharjee <sushil.bha...@epfl.ch> wrote:
>
>Chandadhara (of Stutgart) and Navrang (of UK) have some good recordings of
>live Indian music concerts.
>Moment which is quite good (live album) but again I wouldn't give them a
>blanket recommendation. I have heard some albums from them that I didn't
>like (recording quality wise).
>
the solo CD Pt. Swapan Choudary tabla, you get the image that the Bayya is on
the lft and the tabla isway on the right. The image you get is as if Swpanda
is streching both his hands to play the table. It looks like their microphone
placing technique might be screwed up (i don't know!!). I like moment records
because the miking technique is minimalistic, and they use very good equipment
to record and re-master. Some of the moment records CD's I like are
Santoor with Shiv Kumar Sharma
Sarod with Amjad Ali Khan
Sanrangi
Tabla duet with Alla Rakha
The imaging of these CD's rock solid, you feel as the artists are performing
in your room (provided you have set up your speakers correctly). You will hear
sound of audience coughing etc (all these are live shows), so it gives a
natural live feeling.
Another very good label is ALi Akbar Khan's Alam Madina. Many are called the
signature series, and they are khan sahib's recording from 60's and 70's,
remastered ver very well. In particular, there is dues of khan sahib and Pt.
Nikhil Banerjee which is my favorite. There have a 2 cd sarod solo, which is
recorded by Mark Levinson of the Cello Equipment fame.
hope this helps
sridhar
Srini Pichumani
>musicians from various countries to their studios in Japan to record
>ethnic music from these countries. They have a number of recordings of
>Indian classical music. Excellent recording quality. Another such
>series is available from "World Music Library" another Japanese
>organization. Their stuff is also recorded in their studios in Japan.
I have strong complaints about some of these Japanese
recordings of Carnatic music... although their recording
quality is good, that is about all that can be said...
there are problems with their arrangement of the music
on CD, their sleevenotes which in some cases is exclusively
in Japanese, with absolutely minimal use of English -
certainly not what you would like to see on a "World" CD...
Here are some of the problems I have noticed... in one
release of S.Balachander, playing Malahari, there is no
mention of the composition that he has played... Dikshitar's
pancamAtanga mukha gaNapati nA paripAlitoham
he plays this kriti and kalpanAsvarams towards the end
of the CD, after the tAnam... the sleevenotes is not of
much help, being entirely in Japanese... the writing on
the CD reads simply Ragam/TAnam.
This may not be a big deal... but the arrangement of the
material on the CD of Rajeswari Padmanabhan/Srividya
Chandramouli/Tanjore Upendran is plain atrocious... I heard
from the artistes that there was not even a reply from
JVC (?) in response to their formal complaint...
Mistakes on this CD are...
The kriti ninnE nammitinayyA in simhendra madhyamam
starts abruptly in the anupallavi (or its tail-end)
after the AlApana... both in terms of plain sound
(it starts off with a strong mrdangam stroke) and
in terms of flow, this is unacceptable to me... it
jerked me out of a pleasant slumber I was getting
into, when I first heard it ;-)
The SankarAbharaNam piece on the same CD starts off
in the tAnam for no apparent reason... other than
total CD playing time, as far as I can figure... the
artistes seem to have played rAgam during their recording
session...
-Srini.
Timothy Tikker and Julia Harlow
On 20 Feb 1996, Phlostigon wrote:
> IMHO, Nimbus sounds like they record their CDs in the shower. A sitar
> doesn't need reverb. I recently bought H. Chaurasia, Kaunsi Kanhra from
> Nimbus. The recording is out of balance and at times almost loses the
> bansuri altogether.
I have that Chaurasia CD and am disappointed too. But I like the other
Nimbus recordings. I enjoy the live ambience (but then, I'm also an
organist!).
- Tim Tikker
Timothy Tikker and Julia Harlow
On 20 Feb 1996, Shridar Ganti wrote:
> Chandadhara might sound good, but their imaging is very poor.
I just listened to one of their CDs (Bismallah Khan) yesterday after reading
some postings on this thread. The imaging on this one was fair, but not
superb. Of course, this one had two tabla players, so they didn't try to
split one player onto two mikes!
> For e example,
> the solo CD Pt. Swapan Choudary tabla, you get the image that the Bayya is on
> the lft and the tabla isway on the right. The image you get is as if Swpanda
> is streching both his hands to play the table.
Exactly the problem with the Ryko Disc Sarangi CD I mentioned earlier...
> I like moment records
> because the miking technique is minimalistic, and they use very good equipment
> to record and re-master. Some of the moment records CD's I like are
>
> Sarangi
The one with Sultan Khan? I just listened to that yesterday with my new
speakers. It's really quite good. The spla echo in the auditorium
wasn't as conspicuous as on other, poorer speakers.
> The imaging of these CD's rock solid, you feel as the artists are performing
> in your room (provided you have set up your speakers correctly). You will hear
> sound of audience coughing etc (all these are live shows), so it gives a
> natural live feeling.
>
> Another very good label is ALi Akbar Khan's Alam Madina. Many are called the
> signature series, and they are khan sahib's recording from 60's and 70's,
> remastered ver very well. In particular, there is dues of khan sahib and Pt.
> Nikhil Banerjee which is my favorite. There have a 2 cd sarod solo, which is
> recorded by Mark Levinson of the Cello Equipment fame.
I also listened to one of these yesterday and found it good.
- Tim Tikker
Mark Chodan
Thanks for the recommendations. I thought that my chances of finding
an Indian audiophile were pretty slim, judging only by the relative quality
of the recordings I've heard (ie. sound quality doesn't seem to be a criterion
for these recordings. Glad to hear from you. I'll e-mail you once
I get a hold of a few of these.
By the way, where are you posting from?
a) I've never seen the suffix .ch before (Chveitze? (sp?))
b) The time of your post is registered on my
browser as _GMT_ (N. America?)
c) Your _organization_ is in Lausane (Fr? Sw?)
Parlez-vous Francais? J'espere que oui si vous restez en France
ou la Suisse (peut-etre Allemagne-Suisse?)
Mark Chodan
McGill University
Montreal, Canada
mch...@po-box.mcgill.ca
Ameesh Oza
>Paul Nugent writes:
>
>>I would recommend the recordings released by Nimbus.
>
>doesn't need reverb. I recently bought H. Chaurasia, Kaunsi Kanhra from
>Nimbus. The recording is out of balance and at times almost loses the
>bansuri altogether.
>
>Nimbus.
>
> --Toby White
This is a good point of discussion here. Anyone want to try to explain
why Indian recordings are often not upto par. Let me start with some
a. some CDs are recuts of old analog recordings.
b. Many Indian artists do not care about the quality of the recordings because
1)Indian studios are not the best.
2)Sound systems at live concerts are not up to recording quality.
3)They don't understand the nuances of good recording practices.
c. India has not many good sound engineers.
d. Maybe Indian music does not lend itself to recording.
ameesh
IndArcMus
You can find particularly well recorded north Indian classical music on
India Archive Music CD's - catalogue available from India Archive Music,
2124 Broadway, Suite 343, New York 10023 or call or fax 212.740.1508 or
e-mail IndA...@aol.com
Lyle Wachovsky
India Archive Music
2124 Broadway, Suite 343
NY NY 10023 Tel/Fax 212.740.1508