The New World Symphony serves as an academy that bridges the gap etween a music student's master’s degree and gainful employment in a professional orchestra.

On February 27, cellist Yo-Yo Ma joined the Symphony at the Carnival Center's Knight Concert Hall in Miami, Florida, to perform works by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich under the leadership of conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. The Symphony also supports aspiring recording engineers, and Audio Engineering Recording Fellow Gene Gerhiser was on hand to capture that performance in Pro Tools. Gerhiser tests new gear with an eye toward outfitting the program's new $200 million building with top-flight recording equipment. For the Yo-Yo Ma concert, he tested TRUE Systems’ 8-channel Precision 8 mic preamp.



"The Precision 8 has dual outputs, which allowed me to easily record a primary to Pro Tools and a backup to digital tape," Gerhiser reports. Gerhiser recorded the concert with two Schoeps MK4 capsules on CMC 6 bodies in an ORTF configuration about eight feet in front and 10 feet above the orchestra. He
supplemented those with two Schoeps omnis about 15 feet from the middle on either side and a pair of Neumann SKM 140s in an X/Y configuration on the woodwinds. All six microphones went through the Precision 8.

"The sound quality of the TRUE Systems Precision 8 was excellent, especially in conjunction with the Schoeps microphones,” Gerhiser says. “They were clean, crisp, and pristine in the 2kHz to 10kHz range and captured the ambience and vibe of the Carnival Center beautifully." For more information, visit www.true-systems.com and www.nws.edu.