Jung-A Lee "A Private Organ Recital in Walt Disney Concert Hall, SH mastered, amazing sound! Yarlung

Thanks so much StarKiller. From your mouth to our underwriters' ears. Or should I say from your keyboard to our underwriters' eyes. I do look forward to releasing this album on vinyl if ever possible. It will be expensive, as the inordinate amount of bass uses a great deal of real estate on the lacquers, especially at 45 RPM. But maybe if an underwriter helps, we can release a volume 1 initially, like we did for Yuko Mabuchi Trio. Diane and Craig Martin, true audiophiles, served as executive producers (underwriters) for this album. They were so happy have also sponsored volume 2, which we hope to have ready for the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society Gala on December 2nd. Yuko's LP has been one of our most successful in the label's history, and is catching up with Antonio Lysy's GRAMMY Award winning Music from Argentina and Te Amo, Argentina. Go Yuko!

Interestingly for vinyl fans, Doug Sax cut the lacquers for Music from Argentina, and Bernie Grundman cut the lacquers for Te Amo, Argentina. We elected to include one track (Lalo Schifrin's Pampas) on both albums so people can hear the difference between the two vinyl mastering engineers and cutting lathes.

Anyone interested can browse the various vinyl releases here.

And to leave our friends with a happy thought, Yarlung is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so underwriting support is tax deductible to the full extent of the law.

 

Ooh! Chinese food you-know-where?

 

Apt description. Hope you can have some.

 

Today I listened to “Private Organ Recital in Walt Disney Concert Hall” featuring organist Jung-A Lee, and I enjoyed it thoroughly! She’s a wonderfully gifted musician and a delight to hear. I think the selections were tastefully and well chosen, and flow such that the entire set seems to fly by at lightening speed! It’s said time flies when you’re having fun. I listened via a Marantz compact disc player model CD 5004 connected directly to Grado SR225e headphones. Even if I had an amplifier and loudspeakers, I would NEVER listen to organ music through them simply because of reverberation added by room acoustics. That’s my preference of course. I was shocked at how masterfully these recordings were captured! The stereo field is spacious and airy! Practically every note feels like they’re arriving at different speeds and angles, which they are of course, but how well this was captured is astounding! These recordings put the listener right there! The tones of this organ are rich and detailed with excellent balance from top to bottom. Heavenly!

 

This review makes me very happy, reading it just now for the first time. I have been out of town configuring our tape recorder with different erase technology for our upcoming recording of African American spirituals.

(Incidentally, if members of the Steve Hoffman forum would like to join us for the concert and recording session, here is the invitation: RSVPs are required before October 15th)

I am glad that the sound stage works so well on your headphones. We are happy you were "with us on stage" when you listened to the album. This is good news indeed.

Thanks for the review!

Best wishes,

Bob.

 

Done.

Looking forward to it.

 

The recording is now available on HDTracks: A Private Organ Recital in Walt Disney Concert Hall | HDtracks - The World's Greatest-Sounding Music Downloads

I just downloaded it and am listening to it now.
This is a really good pipe organ recording. Pipe organs can be difficult to record. The Disney Hall organ is such a neat concert organ. It's a concert organ, not a church or cathedral organ. The tonal colors and hall sound is different that what you get with a concert organ are different. And this recording brings that out. All of you in LA are lucky to have that organ.

 

Amazon Canada notified me yesterday that it has been shipped

 

Did you receive a digital booklet with your purchase from HDTracks? I recently bought an album by the late '60s soft psych band "The Three Ring Circus" that came with just an image of its front cover. I know that HDTracks only releases what's been sent to them by the labels, but it was a little disappointing. Thankfully the album has pleasant audio and sounds like it is a direct transfer from the original tapes. Frankly I was startled to discover it was made available.

 

The HDTracks download just has a PDF that is one page of the cover art. It's 30MB in size so is a very high resolution version of the cover art. But just the cover art.

The Yarlung Records page for the album has the album booklet available for download as a PDF. So I downloaded the booklet from there. And also saved the producers notes as a PDF (open in Chrome browser, print to PDF).

 

It's good that you got a digital booklet, but it seems odd that it would not have been included with the download. I love the idea of hi-rez downloads, but if the music industry wants to move people away from physical media, downloads should come with the same extras as physical media. I reckon that most people, including myself, would not have suspected they could get the booklet from the recording label's web site.

Jung-A Lee has a unique style that I can't explain because I simply don't know the technical terms, but it has to do with her timing, which I find very pleasant and engaging. Also, I've never before heard an organ in a concert hall with acoustics such as these, and I was startled at how quickly sounds decayed. I like it though and it leaves little room for an organist's shortcomings. My favorite selection here is Star Spangled Banner.

 

Good morning friends! Today is the official release day of Jung-A's CD on Amazon. Preorders have been through the roof, so they may have enough stock or may not. As of my writing, I see that Amazon has four copies left. They had 250 in stock yesterday. Amazon has a quick reorder and restock policy, so they should be able to take good care of Prime members. We also have stock at Yarlung Records.

We are working at Segerstrom Center for the Arts right now, recording an album (I anticipate it will be spectacular) of American Spirituals from the Civil War era. This is a project I have wanted to do for 15 years. Michelle and Lifeline Quartet have thoroughly embraced the project and they are the "real thing," so I have high hopes. We'll see... fingers crossed. I won't be able to log into the Steve Hoffman Forum during the sessions, so won't be able to answer any further questions while we are in the recordings. So! If you really want to come, I'll earmark another few chairs for members of our forum. We are full, but I will find a little extra space if necessary. Talk with Laszlo in the lobby and tell him you're there from Bob's special invitation and that you're from the Steve Hoffman forum. Here are parking instructions.

If you order Jung-A's CD from the Yarlung website, it will ship on Monday. Only half of our people are at Yarlung, and half at Segerstrom until then.

HD Tracks is supposed to provide the full format booklet. I will investigate next week. In the meantime, a 30MB pdf is probably the entire booklet. See if you can scroll down and see all the other pages. The cover image is a JPEG, so I have hopes that the pdf is in fact the booklet. The first page of the booklet does match the cover image. If I'm wrong, here is the booklet in full. Take a look, because the artwork includes never-before seen images of the internal pipes and rooms in the magnificent Walt Disney Concert Hall organ.

Jung-A really rocks. I'm glad you have been enjoying her artistry. Native DSD fans can find the full album (including booklet!) here. Here is the HDTracks link. Have a great weekend! Bob

 

I received my CD of this album from Amazon today! On my first listen now and as others have said, this is a stellar recording. Excellent performance and sound quality. Well done!

 

FYI...various internet sites have this listed as a DVD-Audio. DeepDiscount, Barnes & Noble...

 

I don't know what materials this disc is made of, but it has a light golden hue to it. Its construction looks spotless and perfect, which is refreshing in an era where the quality of CD manufacturing is declining.

 

I noticed this too. Also it is printed on the disc "German Audiophile Pressing. High Resolution Virgin Polycarbonate. Yarlung Special Alloy." Interesting...

 

My apologies re any confusion about the format. This is definitely a Red Book CD, but made the best way we know how. The format was incorrectly listed as a DVD in some platforms and I thought we had fixed this. I will see to it that as many vendors as possible correct this to show a proper CD. I didn't know that DeepDiscount carried Yarlung Records, so this is good to know. Barnes & Noble had already been informed of their error, but we can gently let them know again. Thanks so much for this feedback. --Bob

 

Tube microphones, tube preamp and analog tape!!!! And SH!

Woohoo. This must sound amazing!

 

We certainly do our best. I did loose count of how many vacuum tubes we had performing all at once. The microphones are all vacuum tube, the mic pre, and both stages of the analog recorder. Happily every tube worked perfectly for the duration of the session. I am glad you enjoy the results.

 

I just finished listening to the CD, and wow!

It really put my system through a workout!

I really enjoyed the performance - she is quite a talented organist. The sound is great, but it confirmed that my own system lacks some of the oomph needed to fully hear those tremendous low notes - I could hear exactly where my system started to miss.

I’m not sure that I’ve heard heard anything that challenged my system like that, at least like this one did.

From the thunderous passages to the very quiet, I really enjoyed hearing the dynamics, as well as the sound of the hall itself. Disney is in my top three favorite halls to hear music, and the CD reminded me of that. And I will never hear the Star Spangled Banner the same way again after hearing Lee’s variations on it.

This CD will be going into heavy rotation on my system, as it really shows how big a difference great source material can make.

Great job by those involved!

 

I don't have a sophisticated system, but this is an amazing sounding recording. I have played it 3 times so far.

I especially like the variety in the program, as it is not all North German Toccatas. (And I might have liked to hear an organ version of some Rock masterpiece like Smoke on the Water in the program )

Even the cd jewel case is quality old-style, sturdy, and the booklet has readable sized print!

 

The wife just left, so I decide to put it on again, and bring up the volume “a bit”.

The lows that I can’t hear so well, I’ve just found go even lower, as I’m getting spots where there is no audible bass, but I feel a light shaking in my living room. And trust me, I did NOT turn the volume up loud (but thinking about it!).

 

Mark and John, I'm so happy you are enjoying this album. Jung-A "done us proud," to say the least. Mark, this album goes down to 18 Hz, so there are very few speakers on the planet that can reproduce these pitches completely. That's part of the fun of this album. Even without hearing the very bottom, there is still plenty of bass to go around. Listening to this CD feels very much like it felt (and you notice I use the word "feels," not just "sounds") sitting on stage. Arian and Elliot and I were sitting about six feet to the right of Jung-A's organ console. The Yasuhisa-Toyota-designed maple floor is perfect for this sort of sound. The acoustician knew what he was doing.

 

That’s wild.

Glad I wasn’t imagining it!

Thanks for the info!