John Newton Records Men’s Choir in Saratov Cathedral
Pictured in the Russian Orthodox Seminary Chapel in Saratov, Russia, is recording engineer John Newton with Sanken Chromatic’s CO-100K microphone. Photo by Leann Davis Alspaugh.
Innovative recording entrepreneur John Newton, founder of Soundmirror Recording, packed up his Sanken Chromatic CO-100K microphones to record a men’s choir in Russia’s Saratov Cathedral. With a 20Hz ~ 100kHz range, the Sanken omni-directional condenser microphone is the world’s first 100kHz microphone designed specifically for professional recording.
“We do all of our recording on location throughout North America and sometimes Europe, Russia, and other exotic locales,” Newton explains. Founded in 1972, Soundmirror is a premier classical music recording and production company and has recorded for every major classical record label. Soundmirror’s orchestral, solo, opera, and chamber recordings have received over 80 Grammy nominations and awards.
“So far, we’ve used the 100K’s on two occasions as main left-center-right microphones for surround recordings of choral groups,” says Newton. “The Sankens have a character and a color that can be particularly enhancing with choral groups. I take the 100Ks out more and more often to get experience with them.”
Newton explained the Russian choir recording, “What we’re interested in primarily in our choice of main microphones is a mic that has a pleasant sound or a wonderful color or character for the particular ensemble that we’re miking.”
Read the entire story at the Sanken Chromatic website:
sankenchromatic.com/artists/john_newton
John Newton first experienced Sanken Chromatic microphones 20 years ago when he purchased dual-diaphragm CU-41 microphones. Recently he has been experimenting with Sanken Chromatic’s newest microphone, the CU-51, which also features two diaphragms. “We use the CU-41s and now the CU-51s as spot microphones for different sections within the orchestra,” he explains.
John Newton has been and continues to be a true trailblazer in the world of digital recording. In 1981, he was director of the east coast office of Soundstream, the pioneering digital recording company founded by Thomas Stockham. Newton also worked for four years with Sony and Philips in the development of the SACD, a high definition multi-channel format with greatly improved resolution, three dimensional sound, and clarity far beyond that of traditional compact discs.
Newton is currently putting the finishing touches on a new recording of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra that utilized the Sanken Chromatic CO-100Ks in their new concert hall.
Learn more at: soundmirror.com
Learn more about Sanken Chromatic mics at http://www.sankenchromatic.com
About Sanken Chromatic
The Sanken Chromatic range of seven professional studio microphones provide musicians, sound designers, engineers and producers with the ultimate set of pure, transparent sounding mics for a wide variety of applications. They are designed and meticulously engineered in Japan using the latest technology and include many innovative features. The result is a set of mics that have phenomenal frequency response, accurate off axis response, exact patterns, minimal proximity effect, low noise and high SPL tolerance. There are seven microphones in the range including CU-55, CU-51, CO-100K, CU-41, CU-44X MK II, CMS-2 and CUW-180. Sanken Chromatic mics are distributed in the USA and Canada by plus24.
