Over the last 8 weeks we have been editing our recording, listening and re-listening, trying the hifi, headphones, even the car to see how our performances come across over a wide range of devices. Over those three days in Banff we were absolutely determined to find the magic take of every bar and now the challenge was to assemble the very best bits into a performance that conveyed the most passionate, engaging and exciting playing from the sessions.
I have to admit that before the first edit started to arrive we began to get increasingly anxious about what it might sound like. Although we had listened back to a few things on the day, we had not yet heard the final mix, instead experiencing the raw recordings which made Louisa’s sound in particular harsher and more metallic than it sounded in the hall. At the time Jeremy assured us that the final mix would solve this problem and we just had to trust him and wait patiently for the first edit to arrive. Finally, at the beginning of March I was getting up very early to go examining when I groggily switched off my alarm to find an email from Jeremy with the link to the first track. Now, anyone who knows me will tell you that I am not a happy person in the morning, more like a neolithic caveman who should best be ignored until after the requisite shower & breakfast! However, on that morning I literally leapt out of bed with a yelp, waking Louisa, and we sat in our PJs, bleary eyed but just too eager not to listen straight away. Thankfully what we heard was even better than we remembered and Jeremy has done a beautiful job reproducing our sound perfectly.
As each track arrived Louisa and I would listen separately and make a list of things that bothered us: Chords not sounding together, small intonation issues, unclear pedalling or untidy shifts were all noted down. Interestingly we both picked up slightly different things and we then combined our notes and sent them to Jeremy to see if he could improve those areas. Amazingly we found that things that bothered us through the hifi would not be as noticeable on headphones or vice versa. Particularly intonation that was slightly uncomfortable on one device would just be completely centred on another!
Last week we finally received the 2nd edit which Jeremy happily reported had addressed or improved all of the problems. This time it arrived as one long track so we could hear the entire performances and judge the pacing of each movement. We were absolutely delighted and are now so excited to get it out there! We will keep you posted with the release date but it looks like it will be out late Summer/early Autumn.