Loyal readers of In the Hands might reasonably ask: “Paul! Where the heck are you? What have you been up to?” Well, there are many answers to that — preparing my McKnight fellowship application and visiting my parents in Colorado among them — but the piano recordings have not been neglected. I just purchased a round of new software to really try to get my mastering process right. ("Mastering,” for those of you not in on the audio tech speak, is the process of finessing the sound quality of a recording after it’s made.)

Today’s recording is first in a two-part audio explanation of what I’m doing.

Mastering Experiments, Part 1: Reverb

Download (15:06 / 17.8 M)

For those who are wondering, the software packages behind what you’ll hear are Logic Express and Ambience.