Morten Lindberg is a Norwegian music producer and sound engineer who specialises in classical music productions. He is a recording producer and balance engineer with 34 American GRAMMY nominations since 2006, including 26 in the categories of Best Engineered Album, Best Surround Sound Album and Producer of the Year. In 2020, he won his first Grammy for Best Immersive Audio Album with Lux. He is the founder and CEO of the record label 2L and frequently collaborates with Norwegian and other Scandinavian ensembles.
How important is the recording process for you when producing immersive audio?
My work is exclusively recording sessions, where I act as both sound engineer and producer. This means that I interact directly with the musicians with the sole aim of creating the recording. Every project starts with me looking at the score and talking to the composer, if there is one, and the musicians. It is not our job as producers and sound engineers to try to recreate a concert situation with all its commercial limitations. On the contrary, we should make the most of the recording medium and create the strongest illusion, the sound experience that takes the listener to a better place emotionally. The beauty of the recording technique is that there is no set formula and no blueprint. It all comes from the music.
Speaking of recreating concert situations – how close can you get to a live performance with immersive audio?
There is no method today with which you can exactly reproduce the impression of a live performance. So when it comes to recording music, we are left with the art of illusion. As sound engineers and producers, we have to do exactly the same as any good musician: interpret the music and the composer’s intentions and adapt to the medium in which we perform.
Immersive audio is a sculpture that you can literally move around in and relate to. Surrounded by music, you can move around the listening room and choose angles, vantage points and positions.
What role do the musicians play during the recording process?
All classical musicians are trained to project their sound 150 feet into the concert hall. The first thing we do is move towards a more intimate communication with the listener. This way of shaping the sound affects texture, volume, timbre as well as articulation. The volume is then the next step. This is the same for singers and instrumentalists, but a string player can demonstrate it best. The first 80 percent of the added energy results in loudness and increased dynamics in the musical sense, but the addition of further vertical energy from the bow to the string only results in distortion and shrill harshness. In this sense, the musicians manage to create a more beautiful sound that I can absorb.
In the situations where I have success with this approach, even with a full symphony orchestra, something magical happens and the strings start to take out their earplugs. Fighting the acoustic loudness war makes all the difference in how they control their own sound production.
Why do your recordings often take place in spacious rooms?
There we can actually take the most intimate shots. The qualities we look for in large spaces are not necessarily great reverberation, but openness because there are no nearby reflective walls. An atmospheric and beautiful shot is the path of least resistance. Finding the fine line between direct contact and openness is the real challenge.
A really good recording should be able to physically touch the listener. This core quality of audio production is achieved by choosing the right recording space for the repertoire and the balanced placement of microphones and musicians in relation to each other in that recording space.
What is your advice for a good recording session?
I think one aspect of a good production is to step back, relax and take time to experience what is really happening. Only then can you make the right decisions on how to proceed. Pause, listen to what is happening around you, reflect and then act.
