Johannes Kammann

In his capacity as recording producer for Fabian Müller's CDs "Passionato" and "31", Johannes Kammann was responsible for much more than just the good sound.

In this thrilling conversation, the graduate sound engineer tells us about the chicken-and-egg problem with recordings, the desire for a second pair of ears and the reason why he almost gets a stomach ache when he hears one of his recordings on the radio. And Johannes Kammann discloses his dream to us, which has not yet been approached...

Mr. Kammann, what is your exact job title?

Good question! My degree says "Diplom-Tonmeister", which is sound engineer in English. But my business card says "recording producer". I think "sound engineer" is the more appropriate term, because it encompasses both the sound and the musical part. The only thing I don't like is the English term "recording supervision", it's too authoritarian in my opinion. I like the name that used to be used in the GDR: "Music Direction" ("Musikregie" in German).

How did you come to your profession? A profession which many people don't even know that it exists...

I felt the same way! I didn't know this profession existed either! I am afraid to say this, but I found out about it from the vocational information centre I attended over the years as a pupil. They asked me about my skills and interests and gave me a list of five or six professions to consider. And one of them was a sound engineer. Soon after, I did an internship and was immediately hooked. I took this path and have not regretted it to this day. And this profession exactly meets the requirements of what I can also offer.

And what qualities do you need to have in order to take up this profession?

You should already be a musician! If you can't make music at a high level, you can't empathize well, you can't be a good artistic partner for the musicians. You should also have some communication skills. This is also difficult to learn. Certainly there are things you can acquire, but if you don't have these communication skills by nature, then it's definitely going to be difficult. Great patience is certainly needed as well. On the other hand, it is not so important to have a great technical understanding. That's certainly the most likely thing to learn of all the things you need.

What activities are hidden behind this, what are your tasks?

The activity that stands out the most to the outside world is the task of being a musical partner for the artists during recording. However, this also includes the whole part that results in being able to hear the recording at all in the end: all the technical stuff in the background and the sound setting via the microphones. And a very important part after the actual shooting days is the post-processing. This is usually the editing, and for larger productions also the sound mixing. Mastering - basically everything from the idea to the finished CD master - is one of my tasks.

That sounds like a lot of work! How many minutes of work go into a 70-minute CD?

Oh! A multiple of these 70 minutes! I have stopped counting exactly how many hours I work, because I think that I would not do necessary things if the working time account is already exhausted. Therefore, I can only answer that approximately.

In post-production, I usually have 2 weeks of work on a CD. Occasionally three, that always depends on how much there is to cut and mix and what the artist's wishes are. In addition, there are the actual recording days. And I also need preparation time, of course. At least I try to take a good look at the pieces beforehand. With modern music, this is sometimes a lot of work, but it can also be done quite quickly if the works are familiar to me. But per CD it's a good three weeks' work in total.

What do you record? What kinds of music? Perhaps also audio plays or audio books?

I basically only record music and only in the field of so-called classical music. I have recorded two jazz CDs so far, because both times my sound aesthetic, which I bring from classical music, appealed very much to jazz pianists. However, that is not my area of expertise. And that' s where I also feel very unfamiliar and unsure about questions of sound aesthetics and musical aesthetics. And that's why I only make recordings in the classical field. But I basically do everything there: We got to know each other through piano recordings, and the last recording directly before this conversation was of violin concertos by Nielsen and Szymanowski, with a large symphony orchestra. Next week I'm recording early music, with a baroque orchestra and choir and soloists, Bach "Magnificat". This shows the breadth of my activity. There is little new music among them and, greatly to my annoyance, only a few song recordings.

In this list of your diverse areas of activity, is there anything you particularly enjoy recording?

No, I can't say that like that. The furthest you can go - purely musically - is certainly with small ensembles. Be it solo piano, be it chamber music. The large apparatus of an orchestra inevitably always implies a lower level of detail. Yet the thrill is incomparably higher - when being responsible for so many different personalities in such a short time. There's also something about it that I enjoy. But if you really wish to achieve something musically deep, then the smaller ensembles are actually more interesting.

The word "thrill" just came up. Would you say that live recordings have something ahead of "studio" recordings in terms of spontaneity and excitement?

Yes, under certain circumstances, yes. It's even the case that in the studio recordings I try to create a kind of concert atmosphere. Even if it is only with two listeners sitting in the hall. To avoid losing precisely this tension. If you could afford the luxury of recording all the concerts and then discarding the ones that didn't work out and only releasing the good ones, that would certainly be a good way to go - very expensive in the end, but certainly a good way to get the perfect recording.

Instead, you have the net with the double bottom in the studio. If something fails musically or technically, you can repeat it and also accurately name and improve the mistakes. But this is not necessarily conducive to spontaneity. You may get deeper into details than in concert, but I could not really say that music played live for an audience is almost always performed better than in the studio just for the microphones.

Many of my interlocutors have already emphasized exactly that, namely the big difference between a live concert and "canned" or – in this case – between live recordings and studio recordings. Is there a way to explain more clearly what makes the difference? Is it the risk, the adrenaline that you can hear at the end?

Good question! So as far as risk is concerned, I have made other experiences. If you want to encourage the musicians, the risk they are willing to take in a studio recording may well be higher compared to the risk they are prepared to take in a concert. Because a possible mistake then does not weigh so heavily, by the possibility to repeat and also to cut. Most of all, studio recordings are thought of as being preserved for eternity, and as a result, people often behave like rabbits in front of snakes - stiff and fearful. But the opposite would make sense.

The advantage of a live recording is that you only play through as a whole once in front of an audience and in any case keep a continuous narrative thread. And that can quickly be lost in studio recordings without an audience, with the option of being able to repeat as often as you like. Additionally, there is a danger of getting bogged down in details and losing the actual message of the music.

With pianists, I have often observed that the sound they can achieve on a grand piano is often finer, more singing, rounder in concert. The dynamics are often a bit exaggerated in studio recordings, because that's what you want, and the touch sometimes gets a bit harder. It's very difficult to put all this into words, but when you compare the takes, particularly when you combine studio takes and the takes of a live recording, one can always tell from the sound which is the live recording.

For my understanding: With all the differences between a live concert recording and a studio recording that you have now talked about, are they differences that can be consciously heard or at least subconsciously perceived even by laypeople?

Absolutely! I am also convinced that even a layman would sense whether a recording was produced with a lot of cutting and post-processing or whether there is a greater arc, a greater naturalness behind it. Even if the layman may not be able to name exactly how he notices it. But I am quite sure that it is transferred to the listener. It's a different world! Of course, there are things you hone with pianists or conductors that no one notices except the people involved. But what I have been talking about is perceptible to everyone.

Now, putting all that together - what constitutes a reference recording? Can you name it?

The reference recording ought to reflect the artist's perhaps idealized interpretation of the score, and capture the essence of his thoughts on CD. I think that's the goal. In every concert there is chance, which can be positive or negative. Things can happen that sound interesting, but end up deviating from what you originally wanted to do. The point is not that you play around, but that here comes a little accent that you didn't want or you play the theme a little louder and you respond to it when it comes again in the recapitulation. That makes the concert interesting, but at the end, when you hear everything again, you think: actually I had intended something else. And actually it is written differently in the score. If you can get all that together, that freshness of thought from the concert but still the thoughtfulness of the interpretation once established, then you have probably achieved a reference recording.

What is the biggest difficulty you can face in a recording session? 

The greatest difficulty is when the inner idea of what it should sound like is not present in full clarity. Sometimes there are unspoken different ideas in an ensemble, and you always work your way along them a little. Because the dissent has never been brought to the point and clarified before. This happens very often. Even a soloist has that: one thing he reads in the notes, another he knows from his esteemed teacher, yet another he has heard on recordings by famous artists. But he himself does not know what he really wants.

Taken on their own, these are all viable paths, but if your own path is not clear, then it can be very difficult to be specific and later be fully satisfied with decisions you have made during the recording process.

For you, in purely technical terms and in terms of your field of work, what constitutes a truly perfect recording?

I think the result of a recording is best when you have the impression your work is not noticeable at all. Whatever brought this about. Here pianist so-and-so plays the work of composer so-and-so.

Can you recommend such a reference recording? One of you and perhaps one of your many colleagues?

It would certainly be unfair to pick out one specific recording in comparison to all the other excellent recordings! As for my own recordings, I like to listen to them only as long as I am still working on them and could change something if necessary. Once I have completed everything and the Master has been sent, that will change. And then when by chance I hear one of my recordings on the radio, I almost get a stomach ache because I always expect to immediately hear a mistake that I overlooked.

In the beginning of my activity in recordings, that was in the early 1990s, they were implemented by the record companies with a lot of manpower. Maybe I exaggerate a bit now, but in my memory a recording played out as follows: One employee dragged the lead-heavy equipment all the way up the stairs, another set up the microphones and fed the enormous recording devices with magnetic tapes - as big and heavy as half bricks. A third one read the notes and the fourth one - he usually wore a scarf and knew how to throw it around his neck every minute with a big gesture - gave his instructions to the three. Nowadays, recordings are made by no more than two people: the recording engineer and the recording producer. You yourself often work alone and find both: the right sound and the wrong notes. How does it work? In the last thirty years, how much has changed in your profession to allow such changes to occur in the first place?

There are several things that play into this: the first is that the equipment we record with has become much smaller and lighter. And in the meantime, it's also such that you don't have to pay much attention to it during the recording. In the past, this was a full-time job, switching tapes and writing down the times to be able to find the places again. All that has dropped away since we started recording with computers. Thus, the profession of sound engineer has practically disappeared. The other is the budget issue: I would always like to work in pairs. I think it's better to have a second set of ears to talk to, about sonic issues, about musical issues. Also for control, so that somebody cannot say to me that I have overheard something. And so that I can ask someone if that was good enough or not. Regrettably, this is often financially inconceivable. Today, larger teams are only used when ensembles get bigger.

Speaking of changes: Many of our readers still remember the traditional vinyl record, which in retrospect is sometimes said to have miraculous properties - despite cracking, despite wear and tear, and despite being extremely awkward to handle. Now that we have the expert here: What is the sonic difference between LP and CD? Is there a difference that even laypeople can perceive?

Yes, there is. However, I must say that I personally do not share the glorification of the LP. The "analog sound that has more liveliness" belongs to an area that can probably be assigned to fantasy or speculation, perhaps to the area of "self-persuasion".

There is one difference, however: the frequency spectrum. Especially as far as the bass range is concerned, it is very difficult on the LP to have a natural, larger volume without the sound having to become mono in the bass. Mono means that the same sound comes out of all speakers. This is not necessary with the CD and sounds much better! This is probably the biggest perceptible difference between LP and CD.

The bad reputation of the CD is not really justified, in my opinion, and perhaps stems from the fact that at the beginning of CD recordings, technology was not as advanced as it is today. In fact, there are recordings from that time that had a very bad, hard, digital sound. This was not possible better back then, but today it is no longer a problem.

Let's take a glimpse into the crystal ball: What do you think is the future of the ever-advancing digitalization of the music industry? Will there still be physical data carriers like the memory stick and the CD in the future?

No! I don't think so! The sales figures for classical music have already become so low that it is hardly worthwhile to take on the production costs. Today, it is often happening that as soon as the first batch of a CD is sold out, the record companies only rely on online distribution and do not issue a second CD pressing - because they are afraid they will not be able to sell enough. I believe this will continue to get worse and worse, so that physical recordings will at some point only lead a niche existence; to be sold as gifts or at concerts. Everything else will then be available for purchase and listening via streaming or download.

Will there be an audible difference in streaming or downloading then?

This does not have to be! That can be in the exact same quality as the CD, even better. Right now, it's not so good. Especially streaming is mostly data reduced with quite good algorithms, but in direct comparison to CD it is mostly worse. That's a question of the bandwidth you use in the digital connection. And if you are willing and able to upload all recordings in high resolution to the streaming server. This is at least technically feasible. Actually, I see a great advantage in this, because the CD in digital format is barely sufficient for what you can perceive as a human being. However, you reach the limit in some places, so that you think a few bits more depth, a slightly higher sampling frequency might be better for the sound. And that is easily done with streaming, because there you don't have to depend on this fixed digital format of the CD.

Has people's perception of sound changed in a certain way?

That has definitely changed. What I see with a teary eye is that a lot more music is listened to on the road today. Mostly from cell phone speakers or small headphones in the ear. I can understand that and do it myself - but for the sound quality this is of course devastating! I appreciate everyone who puts good speakers at home or gets good headphones and listens to music with concentration. This has become rare. But when I make my recordings, I always think of someone like that as the ideal listener. This is how you can really perceive this richness - sonically as well as musically. Every musician spends his whole life working on his sound. And if you can see that in its full beauty, that's a very big bonus.

What brings about this change? I often ask myself if it is the technical possibilities that influence our perception, or our requirements for volume, speed and cleanliness that encourage the music industry to create new products?

That is the chicken-and-egg problem! Since the technical possibilities are there, that one can cut very much and thereby difficulties in the interplay can be corrected and the intonation and the wrong notes very well, the desire is there that this must be also always corrected. Nearly always, when I make a recording and don't correct something like that because it doesn't seem necessary and because I might actually think there's a special beauty to be heard in the uncorrected take that might be lost by intervening too much, it's almost always those very spots that are on artists' wish lists with requests to correct them. And personally, I believe that musicians send me these lists not necessarily just because they want to hear every note together and cleanly themselves - but because they think that's what the audience expects. And the public probably expects that from their listening experience, which in turn comes from perfectly edited CDs. And that also provides an unbelievable pressure for perfection in the concerts, which is not particularly good for musical freedom.

When I hear old recordings of Artur Schnabel, how many wrong notes he played and how unclean it is in parts - no one would dare to put that on the market today. And still they are reference recordings with great musical quality.

I was privileged to look over your shoulder at the Schubert recording by Fabian Müller. You also need to have a sense of tonal and musical aesthetics. Your instructions, or should I say suggestions, are so fine that they are hardly noticeable at first... However, when the pianist puts them into practice, one immediately hears a clear improvement. Can you teach such a sense for the right interpretation, or is it talent?

Both! So certainly there's a lot of experience there. Last but not least, because I'm always working with other musicians who are all improving different things about their playing, I learn a lot. But that's the background to what I said at the beginning of our conversation: you can't get involved with music until you enter this profession. If you're not at a certain level as a musician yourself, you're not going to be able to hear, say, and convey certain things at that level. You also won't be able to empathize as well with the difficulties that may be causing the problems to occur; why the musician isn't free at that moment, the expression isn't succeeding, or why the sound isn't what you want it to be. Certainly, it is good to recognize and name the problem, but it is much more important to manage, almost imperceptibly and with positive comments, to open a way out of these problems, instead of saying: this does not sound good and that sounds wrong.

You must also be a pronounced psychologist who knows how to focus the performers' eyes, or rather their hearing, on the essentials...

This is a very important point!

That's something I've also experienced in recordings - that the pianist practically gets lost in his focus and that you tried to just have him look straight ahead again and not backwards and not sideways...

That is quite aptly put! That is exactly the standard I set for myself. This happens frequently. When you perform a concert, you spend all day preparing for it, and at the end of the day you're on stage. Coming from breakfast at 10 in the morning and sitting down at the instrument is a different situation. Then you are automatically in a different mental state. You might be able to do some things better, but not others, and it's very easy to get lost. Contrary to what happens with an ensemble, where the collective assumes a certain control function, particularly when working with solo artists, one of the main tasks is to recognize this "going astray" at an early stage.

On the other hand, you are dealing with artists. This means with people who are sometimes very strong in personality. How do you still manage to push your proposals forwards?

[laughs] Well, I'm not trying to push my proposals forward! I always try to respect the artist's opinion and I would never want to try to make the recording sound like me in the end. There always has to be the artist to be heard and I just try to assist the musicians to find their way back to themselves when this focus should not be there at the moment. That with the distinct personality is of course part of it. If you want the artists on stage to have the sense of mission to communicate their feelings and musical thoughts to the audience, you can't expect these people to have a personality like you and I might have. You have to grow a "thick skin", have great patience, and constantly try to discern what the real desire is behind the comments and the outbursts that may be there.

Speaking of "common path": Have you had situations where you didn't agree at all with the artist's views?

Yes, that happens from time to time.

And how did you resolve the situation?

This is difficult to solve. If I disagree, I'll say so. And the clearer my opposition is, the clearer I express that. If I feel that what is being played is against the composer's intention, then you can usually tell by looking at the notes. And that's what I do then. In case of doubt, when simply two worlds collide, I take over the opinion of the artist, because in the end it has to be his CD. However, it is essential for me to make it clear exactly why I see things in a different way. Because this moment may be the last chance to reconsider a possible mistake, which will be recorded for eternity afterwards. Sometimes, however, there are recordings which I know the artists like, but which I don't really like at all myself. That's also part of the job. Yet even then, I try to give the artists the recording as good as possible in their sense.

Cross your heart: In retrospect, when the recording is published - does it turn out that you were right in your criticism?

[laughs] Yes - I think so! But not always! There's also the effect of realizing when I'm editing that I hit something during the recording and thinking maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all. And then I use the takes that were recorded before my proposal. But the thing is, I've been dealing with recordings all my life, and that's already a very special way of looking at it, which comes from that experience. Of course, there are also artists with a lot of recording experience...

I think that even a very famous artist may rarely have recorded over 50 CDs. And you probably made hundreds of recordings, right?

Yes, there are some artists who have recorded even more than I have, but only very few. And fellow sound engineers who have been in the profession for even longer than I, have certainly recorded more than any artist in the world.

We have already collaborated with "Passionato" and Schubert "31" twice on recordings. Fabian Müller played the piano duo grand piano "Op. 3535018". What distinguishes a good grand piano for you?

[laughs] That's a wide-ranging question! An important issue that I can't really judge directly, even though I play the piano myself: The piano must allow the artist to get what he imagines out of the instrument. Of course, this is also a skill that an artist has to bring to the table. Not every instrument, however, allows this to the same extent. What particularly distinguishes the “353018” grand piano on which we recorded are its register colors. These are not always as abundant on more modern instruments. Of course, a lower tone sounds lower than a higher one, but not different in color. And when you think in registers - for example, you think of a cello or a bassoon in the lower registers, and a violin or a flute in the higher registers - the idea of a different timbre comes into it. And that is something I find much more distinctive in the "353018" than in many other instruments. That seems to me to be a different sound aesthetic, and that's what I most appreciate.

I have the increasingly strong impression that "quantity before quality" applies in almost all areas of society. When applied to music, this would mean, for example, that volume comes before sound. Do you know this discussion?

Yes, I know that and I also subscribe to this impression! And that is a very big disadvantage! Pure volume is a disadvantage especially during recordings. I can even still see in the concert how pure volume can also have something gripping. For recordings, however, anyone can set the volume at home just the way he wants it - and the pure dB number says nothing at all in the end. The timbre is what you need. And you may well want a loud sound, which in the end is also hard and sharp - but the hardness and the sharpness is what you need, not the volume! In the same way, it is possible to have a loud sound that is round and balanced. And that's also the timbre you need, not pure volume.

Even among my colleagues, we always have the discussion about - to me misunderstood - "dynamics". In my ears the pianos are already screaming, but nothing still comes out of them. The instruments have only a few harmonics and the sounds themselves do not sustain. What is your explanation of the term "dynamics" to a non-specialist?

Dynamics is a very clearly defined term for sound engineers. This is the difference between the softest and loudest sound. It's practically the bandwidth of volume increments that you can achieve. It is irrelevant where the loudest tone is set. This can be somewhat lower if the softest tone starts correspondingly further down. One small example is an old fortepiano, which is far from being able to reach the volume levels that a modern grand piano can. In return, however, it can play very, very, very softly and delicately and allows an incredible number of gradations even in the softness. As a result, this fortepiano has a greater dynamic range than some concert pianos, although it cannot achieve the same volume.

You are equipped with a laptop and a few knobs and sliders connected to it; in the front are the microphones and then the musicians are already placed. In the quality of your work, how much is technology and how much is deep human feeling that no device can replace, both in front of and behind the microphone?

Almost everything is human sensation! Of course, the microphones need to be well placed and of high quality. Yet all this does not make the recording good.

...but also behind it, right? Now I mean the human sensation you have in setting the technique and judging what you hear...

Yes, that matters a lot. In bringing - hopefully - the artists to even deeper levels of expression through my work. 

If you had one wish free: Which recording would you definitely like to accomplish?

"Dichterliebe", the song cycle by Schumann, I would love to record! This would be my dream and I have not yet been asked for this wish. So anyone who would like to record "Dichterliebe", please get in touch! I am ready!

And what does the "Dichterliebe" make so special for you?

A lot comes together there: The music! - Beautiful! The poetry! - Fantastic! There is a lot: entertaining, amusing, to the point - and then again you have moments when you have a lot of time for the feeling. In addition, I have always had a great fascination for the voice. I like to work with singers and I especially like the tenor voice. And in addition, there is a wonderful piano part, which, played by a good pianist, also makes the recording worthwhile in itself.

A lot of our interviewees felt that there was no replacement for a live concert experience. What would be your best argument for recording?

Of course, there are the practical arguments that the recording can be heard at any time in any place. And that the concert, when it takes place, is not open to all. That one often has to listen to a great many concerts before hearing such a special moment.

However, if you understand it correctly, in the recording there is an opportunity, on the one hand, to go at least as deep into the expression of the music as in the concert, maybe even deeper in places, while on the other hand, to realize a great deal of the subtleties that are written in the score. Often even more than is possible in concert. The best recordings that can be achieved can also be thought of as a concert. The only problem is, it usually does not succeed in playing such a concert.

But I have to agree with the interviewees: If it succeeds in playing exactly the same way in concert as it does on a perfect recording, then that is an incomparably greater moment!

What do you wish for your industry in the future?

Various things. I would wish that the listeners would pay a little more attention to the sound quality again. That the quality of the recording has a greater value again. Well, there were times when this was more important, and unfortunately this has been somewhat lost. In that case, I wish my industry that so many young, interesting artists keep coming along, as is the case right now. So that it will be useful, worthwhile and interesting to make more recordings in the future. After all, it's now the case that basically every track has been recorded by every big-name artist and you have to ask yourself why you're doing it again.

The answer can only be found in the artistic personality of the artists who come after. To me, as long as they bring that personality and musical statement and reach the audience, the future of my industry is guaranteed!

Johannes Kammann, thank you for this interview!