Studio tinkering

I was disturbed to read (Studio Secrets, October) that the Binchois Consort are to record for Hyperion ‘in an anechoic chamber (a space with no reverb)’ with ‘an acoustic… added in post-production’. I know that modern musicians largely work in genuine and equal partnership with the engineers, but here the technicians are apparently to move in only after the artists have done their work, and done it in a situation where at best they can only guess what is to be made of it. Can those artists really give of their best in an ambience which slams down a dead hand on the close of every note? Can they, on top of this, tailor their breathing, articulation, balance, tempos and dynamics to allow for another ambience which does not yet exist? Can they work with (in effect) an invisible, inaudible ghost from the future? I hope this is only an experiment and not common practice.

Oliver Mundy, Redruth