SONIC BOON - ON THE ROAD WITH TOM McRAE'S GUITAR TECH & THE KORG MR-1

Marcus D’almeida has been Tom McRae’s guitar tech for the past four months, following an introduction by the songsmith’s tour manager. Marcus is a producer, event arranger and sound engineer who has worked on a diverse range of projects, including MTV events, DJ performances and acoustic gigs. He recently took time out from his busy schedule to talk about how he’s been recording the Suffolk-born artist’s live performances...

KM: What kind of setup does Tom use on stage?

MD: Tom uses Takamine guitars live. The new dool tube pickups sound very good. On the last leg of the tour, when I joined them, the band were forced to go completely acoustic because the drummer departed. The line-up then switched to keyboards, acoustic guitars, and a cello put through loads of effects – Tom made it work by becoming more intimate with the audience.

I think Tom’s music is wonderful because it has key elements that are lacking in music these days. His songs are beautifully crafted with sensitive, poetic lyrics that are concise emotional statements, delivered in a way that moves you – because he really means it.

KM: How have you been recording Tom’s live performances?

MD: I did use a Mac laptop but have recently been using the little Korg MR-1, and it sounds fantastic.

KM: How did you first get to hear about the MR-1?

MD: I read about it in Sound On Sound, and thought, “This looks interesting”. I’ve had a lot of respect for Korg products over the past 30 years. They’re a wonderful blend of eastern technological expertise and western programming. I thought that somebody’s finally produced a machine that’s getting close to what professional tape recording standards were like. People don’t realise that the whole digital thing has, so far, been a retrograde step. The industry initially swapped over to digital purely because of its convenience and cost, so everyone was forced to go down that route before it was fully developed.

KM: And yet the MR-1 digital recorder impresses you…

MD: Yes. There have been a lot of portable digital recorders popping out of the woodwork lately but they are all variations of the same bit-rate converters and, as a result, sound very similar. But Korg has given its new MR-1 and MR1000 recorders an incredibly high sample rate. My MR-1 operates at a 2.8Mhz sampling rate, which is phenomenally high, even when compared to 192Khz. That covers the high frequencies up to 100kHz. This frequency response includes the higher harmonics which, according to Dr mp3, we are not able to hear or perceive.

I didn’t realise just how good the MR-1 was until I recorded Tom with it. We used it one night and, later on, I listened back to the recording. Well, I’m an audio cynic but I couldn’t believe my ears. The recording really did capture the 3D space of the acoustic performance environment, and it was done with stage mics so how great would it have sounded with Neumanns? Well, we haven’t had the opportunity to test that out in the studio yet but I can’t imagine how good the MR-1000 would sound when it’s used under really pristine recording conditions.

KM: Did you use the MR-1 often and will your live recordings be used to create a Tom McRae live album?

MD: Well, we were so impressed with the MR-1 that we ended up recording every remaining night of the tour with it. I’ve got all of the recordings archived. They’re fabulous. They show what this great machine’s potential is, for all areas of recording. As an archive format, at the moment, there’s nothing else that comes remotely close to the MR-1. There isn’t anything else that can touch these Korg products, in terms of sound quality. Our recordings certainly could be used to create a great live album but any decisions about that would really be up to Tom.

KM: Is there anything else that you really like about the MR-1?

MD: It’s very well designed and it has a great layout with balanced inputs on mini jacks, which is a nice touch so you can get a professional input signal. I’ve been waxing lyrical about the amazing recording fidelity of the MR-1 but, going over to the other extreme, one of the other nice things about it is that you can also use it to record at every available sample rate format. It’s incredibly versatile and future-proof!

KM: Have you been using the MR-1 for anything else?

MD: Yes, I recorded some musicians at Glastonbury and that sounded really fabulous. I have also recorded bands and DJs at the Exit festival in Serbia. I’ve got 44 hours of material to edit down for several radio broadcasts. KM: How would you like to see digital
recording evolve in the future. What would be your ideal bit of kit? MD: If Korg made it possible to sync their new machines together, as you can with ADATs, or designed a multi-track DSD recorder, you would have the world’s best multi-channel recording setup!

TOM’S OPINION...
Mr McRae gives the Korg MR-1 a definite thumbs-up

We’ve recorded many of our live shows over the last few years on various formats, but I was blown away by the Korg MR-1. Not only for its portability and simplicity – important issues when soundchecks tend to be just a few minutes long! – but also for the incredible detail that its 1-bit recording affords. There’s so much ‘air’ around the music that, with a good front of house engineer such as the guy I work with, the live tracks don’t need any additional mixing. The MR-1 records in such detail that I’ve been using one for my demos and I’m worried about how to better them in a studio… maybe I won’t bother.

I also like the idea of having something future-proof to archive to, as I’ve made recordings on tape that are losing ferrous oxide by the second, and digital recordings whose only back up is a mechanical hard drive or DVD at whatever bit rate was available at the time. One of the downsides of the internet and iPod revolution is that people have stopped listening to music with any sort of fidelity – everything is compressed to hell and listened to through tiny earbuds. I like the idea of remastering my music to be heard by a future race whose hearing range extends beyond the 16-bit.