Total Audio Solutions Make Music With Classical Composer John Rutter

Total Audio Solutions, UK distributors for Merging Technologies' range of digital recording workstations and software, have supplied two eight-channel Merging Sphynx2 A-D converters to the internationally respected classical composer and conductor John Rutter.
Rutter has been described as one of the greatest living composers in the classical tradition, and is one of the first to take such an active role in recording as well as composing and conducting his work. His compositions, which range from choral music for chamber choirs to large-scale orchestral compositions and opera, span five decades, and are regularly performed all over the world, sometimes conducted by Rutter himself.
Rutter is unable to record all of his label's output himself, as he's often conducting the ensembles being recorded. Nevertheless, he undertakes production duties on recordings for other people, and like many classical recording producers, likes to use stand-alone mic preamps and A-D converters, finding that they give a more natural-sounding result when recording directly to hard disk.
Having found Millennia and Focusrite preamps to his taste, he was looking for a suitable A-D converter to replace an older Prism unit when he discovered Merging's Sphynx2. Total Audio lent him the eight-channel unit to try out, and it soon won him over. He's now used the Sphynx2 on three recordings: a thunderous full orchestral and choral performance of Elgar's Dream of Gerontius and two smaller choral recordings, one of St John's College Choir, and the other of the Millennium Youth Choir singing in Marlborough College Chapel, Wiltshire in April 2007, backed with the chapel's new organ.
"I'm sincerely impressed with the improvement it has brought about in the clarity and transparency of the recordings, as compared with anything I've used before," comments Rutter. "All three recordings are absolutely pristine and clean."
A second Sphynx2 followed the first into Collegium's equipment racks in late April, giving Rutter access to 16 channels of simultaneous A-D for large-scale recordings.
Paul Mortimer of Total Audio Solutions comments: "Making recordings of choral ensembles is a very demanding task for A-D converters, as the performances are so rich in dynamic and harmonic variation. John had noticed this, and was finding it easy to get what he called a 'jagged' sound from his existing equipment, even at low levels of gain. Given the affordable cost of Merging's converters - prices start at £2300 for a 48kHz-capable 2-channel A-D version, which is very competitive for high-quality converters like these - we think the technology in the Sphynx2 is first class. We're delighted that a great composer
like John agrees, and has noticed the improvement since we delivered the Sphynx2 units to him."
(DS)