SONICA INSTRUMENTS

A sense of spaciousness is essential to the taiko sound. This is because the final sound is the amalgamation of sounds coming from all directions. To capture every nuance of the taiko’s allure and beauty in JTP, we employed a squadron of microphones — three stereo pairs of ambient mics and four direct mics. The mix of these mics can be individually controlled in BFD2.1. In particular, changing the balance of the four direct mics makes a huge change in the sound’s character. In this way, you can match the taiko sound to virtually any musical style — from the most modern electronica to the oldest traditional Japanese folk music — without EQ or effects.

The recordings were made at GOK Sound in Tokyo’s Kichijoji area. GOK Sound looks like a chaotic garage, but it is well loved for its rich ambience. Although fairly ordinary mics were used in the recordings — Sennheiser MD421, Neumann U87Ai, AKG C414, Sony C-38B, Crown PCC-160, among others; an SSL 4032G console was used as the mic amp — these were found to best match the instruments and faithfully render the original sound.