He was, and is, excited about digital recording. This disc is less a recording than a clone. What Hamelin played on the Steinway was picked up by our microphones and immediately digitized, translated into the same kind of electronic information handled by computers. The sound was stored as digital information, with electric bits switched either 'on' or 'off', just as they would be to store any information in a computer. As you know, when you copy a computer file, the information doesn't degrade.
Nothing is lost in the process, as happens with phonograph or analog tape masters.
It's really an amazing advance. Also amazing is the fact that so much music is recorded at the U.I. Over the years, word of the facility and Cross's expertise have spread, carried across the country by classical and experimental artists who have come to campus. More than 30 compact discs have been recorded, edited, produced, or mastered under Cross's care. A partial list includes the Mirecourt Trio playing Brahms, John Jensen's renditions of Charles Ives's piano sonatas, sacred music by the Tibetan monks of the Drepung Loseling Monastery, the U.I.'s Kantorei singing Mozart's Requiem Mass with the Leningrad Philharmonic, and Ursula Oppens playing selected piano music by Beethoven. In 22 years of recording, we've pretty much learned the acoustics around here, and some of our spaces are excellent.