Category: Manifold Recording

Manifold Recording

More than a coincidence: Frederic Chiu records at Manifold Recording

When an artist makes a recording at a studio, there is always a coincidence–two things happening at the same time and place.  One is the interpretation and the performance of the artist, the other is the creative capture of that ephemeral performance so that it can be replicated and experienced across time and space, perhaps by people not yet even alive when the recording was made.  But the coincidences we shared with pianist Frederic Chiu this past week went far beyond that.

FredericChiu-CR1

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Moments of Enlightenment with Béla Fleck and Brooklyn Rider

At the Dōjō where I train, the black belts begin every class by saying “Shiken Haramitsu Daikoumyo,” reminding themselves that “every moment is an opportunity for enlightenment.”  I have been training for a year, making good progress, and if I keep it up, I might earn my black belt in 3-4 more years.  There’s a lot to learn and a lot know, and these Black Belts, who know so much more than I do, are constantly prepared to learn even more.

Earlier this month we hosted Béla Fleck and Brooklyn Rider, high-degree black belts of their respective instruments for sure, and I was struck by not only how much they knew, but how prepared they were–every moment–to receive new enlightenment.  Shiken Haramitsu Daikoumyo!!

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Speech text from Miraverse Power & Light Solar Double-Cropping Ribbon-cutting

North Carolina is a great place to grow.  Our family moved here when the growing company I started in Silicon Valley back in 1989 was bought by a faster-growing company here in North Carolina, Red Hat.  North Carolina is home to a great community of innovators, and today we are proud to stand with many of them as we unveil what has truly been a community effort.

When I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma in 2006, I realized that the question “what should we eat for dinner?” had life-changing implications.  We are what we eat.  But as a society, we also decide what we grow, how we grow it, how it comes to market, and at what price.  In 1903, commercial seed houses offered 288 varieties of beets; by 1983 the choice is down to 17.  From 544 types of cabbage, we’re down to 28.  From 307 types of sweet corn, we’re down to 12.  Our dinner-time choices are a function of many choices made before we were even born.  The Omnivore’s Dilemma teaches that when the question “what can we do?” becomes too limiting, the question of what should we do becomes all the more urgent.  And not just when it comes to food.

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Speech text from the grand opening of Manifold Recording and The Miraverse

He set his mind to work on unknown arts and thereby changes the laws of nature – Ovid, Metamorphoses

Welcome, and thank you for coming to the grand opening of Manifold Recording and The Miraverse!  Some years ago Amy posted a little quote on my side of the mirror we share in our bathroom that reads “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning.”  After five years of planning and construction, we have realized a dream, a dream that is now so real you can see it, you can touch it, you can enter it. You are welcome to do so-once we cut the ribbon.

Today we want to share with you an even bigger dream, the one that begins today.  This dream cannot be built with concrete and steel, but it can be realized the old-fashioned way: with magic.

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TEC Award Nomination for Outstanding Creative Achievement

“Manifold must be one of the finest music-dedicated studios built in the world in the last decade. ” — Alex Oana, Manifold Recording: Inside the Miraverse

Manifold Recording is honored to have been nominated for a TEC Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in the Studio Design Project category.  We congratulate and thank Wes Lachot Design, and especially Wes Lachot, who succeeded brilliantly in helping to realize this ambitious project.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, and then the 10,000 pictures I have taken of this project during its four years of construction suggest just how much could be said about what he conceived, drew, detailed, and then argued for in its implementation.  But there is much more to this creative achievement than meets the eye, or the ear for that matter.

“we wanted to reboot the music industry by reinventing the role of the recording studio”

When I first sat down with Wes, he asked the question that every studio designer must ask: what do you want to do?  I told him that we wanted to reboot the music industry by reinventing the role of the recording studio.  We agreed that we would need to honor the laws of physics (especially acoustics), but in all other ways we would seek to be the change we wanted to see in the world.  We would be a model for acoustic and technological excellence, but we would also be a model of transparency and collaboration.  We would be an ideal environment for musical performance, but we would also be a model for entrepreneurial innovation and economic sustainability.  We would honor the great teachings of organic architecture and sacred geometry by becoming the best example of those teachings we could be.  All of this was discussed before Wes put pencil to paper and began drawing the lines that ultimately became footings, walls, structures, buildings, and operating commercial facilities.  In accepting this commission, Wes accepted the whole of the project, and he delivered brilliantly, even when certain aspects seemed to be in irreconcilable conflict.  Such is the nature of an outstanding creative achievement.

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Week 142 (Music Room Cloud)

At long last the acoustic cloud in the Music Room has been completed!  With 60 panels totaling very nearly 900 sq ft (nearly 1800 sq ft of active acoustic performance since both sides are used), it is a thing of beauty to behold:

But if you look more deeply, many more layers of beauty await…

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Week 58 (The second course)

I’ve been away for two weeks, but back now and happy to see the progress that’s been made.  As you may surmise from the title, the walls are now all of 16″ tall, but they will be getting taller (24′ when finished), and in anticipation of that there’s a whole pile of scaffolding waiting to be assembled:

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A new website

In case you have only been reading the blog and not visiting the website, I have news for you: the website has been fully refreshed.

Big thanks go to Wes Lachot, who showed me a preview of his new website and got my imagination all fired up.  His website uses flash, which I continue to eschew, but his design was so compelling that I had to figure out how to implement it without resorting to flash.  I studied CSS, discovered a few tricks, and am pretty happy with the results.

All of the images are newly rendered, and the 3d walkthrough has also been updated.

Happy surfing!

Changing kids' lives through jazz

 I never thought I’d be giving a shout out to CNN from this blog, but the article they wrote about Wynton Marsalis and his musical ministry was exceptional.

The story begins “Jazz musician Wynton Marsalis knows how important education is for youth, but what feeds their minds and souls, he says, often lies beyond traditional classroom walls.”  Amen!

Growing up in New York City, I had always taken the City’s icons as givens, as if Tiffany’s, or The Metropolitan Opera, or the Empire State Building had always been a part of the city, because they were all part of the city by the time I became aware of them.  When Wynton Marsalis co-founded Jazz at Lincoln Center, he changed the architectural, musical, and cultural landscape of the city, thereby also changing the fixed points of reference that I had presumed were immutable since I was a boy.  Something really new in New York?  Amazing! Continue reading “Changing kids' lives through jazz”