Interview with Dr. Edward Pong of UltraAnalogue Recordings

At the recording studio:

LL: Is your swimming pool half filled?

EP: No, it’s full. But it’s covered.

LL: Wouldn’t humidity be a big concern for the piano?

EP: Contrary to belief, it’s not really a problem. In the summer I have the pool covered, even when the circulation system is running. The humidity really can’t go much higher because there is not much evaporation. The sanitizing chemical I use in my pool is bromine by the way. If anything it’s probably too dry in there. Wayne says 45 is good. Right now it’s only 29. The pitch doesn’t really move around.

LL: Do you think your Model B piano is of the ideal size for this space?

EP: I think I have a small space for concerts. Too big a piano will overload it. And besides, it’s not very practical.

I’m really fortunate that my wife Amy hasn’t gone off the deep end because I’ve essentially taken over the whole place. This is not what I’d call “normal”! Maybe I had brainwashed her or something, but she totally enjoys Sietse-Jan’s playing. She’d even ask me to play his tapes up there in my listening room.

LL: How did you meet Dutch cellist Sietse-Jan Weijenberg?

EP: We met him at the Rostropovich Cello Competition in Paris a few years ago, and now we’re doing concerts and recordings with him on a regular basis here. He doesn’t like to be recorded in concerts. He needs to have a clear view of the audience. In a way he’s right. We’re now marketing his recordings on my label. He stayed here for almost two weeks to make his debut recording. We had a lot of fun. We experimented with different bows, and different microphone placement. We had all the time to do it.

Every time I play those tapes (and I’ve heard them many many times during the mastering process), I feel good about the way it sounds. Sure enough there are a few wrong notes here and there, but they don’t really detract from the overall listening pleasure.

LL: From the recording engineer’s standpoint, do you think this session yielded a much better recording when compared to the previous dress rehearsal session?

EP: No question about it, because we had total control over the balance. The so-called fast-food session may sound more spontaneous musically.

And with piano it’s all about how the tone is generated. In the crescendo passages, Yun-Yang Lee never for once gave me the impression of being “loud”.

The two musicians would frequently ask me “how’s this” and “how’s that”. But I’m just an armchair producer! And sometimes I’d just say to him, “This passage needs to be more dance-like.” And Yun-Yang can always play it the way you want it. He’s unbelievable. We had the chance to do different takes with different characters. We could also sit down and pick our favourite takes.

LL: Are you the type of engineer who would splice?

EP: What you hear in my tapes has no cuts within a movement. In other words, every movement is a complete take.

LL: Do you follow the score while you record?

EP: No, that’s why I call myself an “armchair producer”. I would listen to it through the Stax headphones, and forming my limited musical opinion of it.

That’s why in the producers’ credit I also listed the two performers’ names because obviously all three of us picked the takes. So it’s very much a group effort. Musically it’s a collaboration effort from all three of us.

Maybe that’s not the thing to do. I’m very interested to hear people’s feedback on the CD version, which features all the takes.

LL: It’s interesting how your love of stereo grew into something bigger and bigger.

EP: For me it’s not a quest to grow it into bigness. I find joy just in small things. When I look back, I count myself fortunate to have so much music passed through me. This is going to be more than a full time job for me! For me it’s more about being able to do something unusual, and to do it the best I can. It’s like my challenging Tony to build this ridiculous phono stage. The parts alone cost more than $10K.

And the more string instruments I build, the more I realize how fantastic those Cremonese instruments are. Their inimitable sound was what drove me to build my monitoring system upstairs. In a way it has come full circle. I call these instruments the “ultimate audio”. That’s why on my website I wrote that I want to capture the sound of these Cremonese instruments because I think they are cream of the crops.