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About Dan

Baltimore City

I have been a recording engineer in Baltimore city for many years now, focusing mostly on acoustic music such as Jazz, Classical, and Folk. I am most interested in finding new ways to communicate musical experiences to listeners.

There are many things that are edited out of modern recordings that I believe are actually essential parts of music. I love when I am recording a band in a small venue and the crowd is vocal and energetic. I love when I can hear the jazz musicians… more

View Dan's Resume
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Symphony Number One Digital Media

I have been the Director of Digital Media of Symphony Number One for three years.

Since its foundation, I have worked to engineer and produce our four albums, as well as dozens of videos of performances and trailers for social media platforms. Symphony Number One focuses on emerging composers - which means we work extensively with up-and-coming talent in the classical world. These are a diverse group of international composers who, while incredibly talented at what they do, are still creating a name for themselves and getting the recognition their work deserves.

As the Digital Media director, I create the recordings, videos, and media that these composers need to disseminate their work throughout the world.

As an artist, it's an especially rewarding position. These recordings are often the premiere recordings - which means that I am working with a blank slate. There are no recordings beforehand that I can listen to in order to understand the music - I have to go to the first editions of the score and read them beforehand. Doing so allows me to record these works appropriately. Each recording is unique - I never record pieces the same way twice - and by using different microphone types and arrangements I create media that enhances the message of the music.

I also create multi-camera videos for social media and explore new technology such as 360 video.

We have recorded every single premiere. All told, it's over sixty new compositions in the past three years.
  • Approaching by Symphony Number One
    Latest album released by Symphony Number One. I recorded these tracks from three different concerts during our 2016-2017 season at venues throughout Baltimore city. Features the work of three up and coming composers, including a 55 minute symphony by young composer Nicholas Bentz. Looking ahead at the score of the work, it was one of the first for Symphony Number One to feature a large string section. I decided to go with a microphone array called a Decca Tree - three omnidirectional microphones over the orchestra, positioned in a triangle arrangement around the conductor (Left, Right, and a Center channel). This was employed extensively at Decca Records during the 1950s, and it creates a huge, warm string sound.
  • Nicholas Bentz discusses Approaching Eternity
    Nicholas Bentz discusses his new work Approaching Eternity. Filmed at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Baltimore.
  • Light City Recordings
    Symphony Number One was featured at Light City 2016. For the composers, we ran a recordings session where I recorded, edited, and mixed tracks for each of the composers new works. Those recordings were given to the composers for use on their own websites and marketing themselves. A big part of my work at Symphony Number One is to provide composers with the media they need to further their careers. It's an integral part of the orchestra. These recordings get thousands of plays, and every one has been recorded right here in Baltimore. Recording sessions like these can be complicated. A collection of new premieres will often throw specific challenges the way of the engineer - some of the pieces want a drier, close sound, while some of the new works demand more reverb. I had set up as many as thirteen microphones in this situation, including spots on percussion, room microphones, main microphones, woodwind spots, etc. In some of the recordings I used all thirteen.
  • Season 2 - Trailer 2
    Trailer video for Symphony Number One's second season.
  • Song of the Earth - Trailer
    Video trailer I made for Symphony Number One's concert "Song of the Earth", featuring Taylor Boykins on voice. Trailer videos I make such as these receive thousands of views on Facebook, and work to not only promote the concert but spread awareness of the music happening today in Baltimore. This video was done with a single GoPro camera set to timelapse mode during setup.
  • Martina Lynch: Dear Media
    Collaboration between Symphony Number One and Martina Lynch. An orchestration of her song "Dear Media" (arranged by Frances Pollock). I shot this video during the live performance this past September 2017. This video was one of our most successful on social media, receiving over 4,000 views. This live recording was captured using a mixture of microphones and direct-input feeds. There are a pair of main room mics capturing the natural room ambience and backing track. I blend those with the direct sound of the backing track so that the two merge - providing focus in the track but also the ambience of the live recording. Over top of that is the direct output of the vocal microphone, mixed with a bit of distortion to give it some edge and rawness.
  • Martha Horst: Straussian Landscapes
    Video clip from the premiere of Martha Horst's Straussian Landscapes.
  • Second album release - Emergence
    Second album release - Emergence
    Second album release titled "Emergence". Features saxophonist Sean Meyers performing Andrew Boss's new concerto for alto saxophone. Recorded live at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Baltimore. My twin brother is a saxophonist, and we grew up playing together (all throughout college as well). I've always been excited to highlight this gorgeous, albeit lesser known, orchestral instrument. I used extensive room microphones to capture the sound of the church. The dark, natural reverberation of the hall matched the mood of the work.
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