Guo Ya-zhi Sorrow of the River Numbered Limited Edition One-Step Half-Speed Mastered 180g Import LP

Sorrow of the River consists of traditional and contemporary Chinese music pieces performed on Suona and other Chinese instruments.

MA is extremely honored and proud to present Guo YaZhi, principal suona player in the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. Try putting Guo YaZhi's name into Google and see what you get! Guo is truly a phenomenon and we are all very fortunate to have such a spectacular recording on MA.

The suona, best described as a traditional Chinese oboe (with roots in Central Asia), has a sound that is shrill, powerful and very loud! In northern China it is prominently played in festivals, military affairs and wedding processions. On Sorrow of the River Guo YaZhi not only plays Suona, but other exotic reed instruments, in ensemble with other Chinese musicians, including his wife He Tao (also a member of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra) on Er Hu, the two stringed Chinese violin. For those with an interest in Chinese culture, this recording should prove a real gem. Perhaps the most accessible track to western ears might be the duet with He Tao on which Guo plays Soprano Saxophone ala Kenny G (!?!). Although I am not a fan of Mr. G, the track is truly beautiful, being the well known traditional "Reflection of Moon Upon Er Quan".

For those with audiophile tendencies, "The Marriage Journey" (track one) starts with a thunderous low frequency drum that will definitely shake some windows (if one is not careful with one's initial gain settings...)!!

As a final note, the title track "Sorrow of the River" is one of the most famous traditional pieces in Chinese traditional music and Guo played on the instrument for which it was originally intended.

—Text by Todd Garfinkle, 2007

Technical Data
An MA original one, point, 5.6448 MHz WSD 1 bit digital recording.
March 2007, Hong Kong Adventist College Church
Microphones: Bruel & Kjaer 4006 (one pair)
Cables: Crystal Cable Ultra; 12 meter pair, with Switchcraft connectors.
Recording Device: Korg MR-1000 1 bit digital mobile recorder
Monitored on Stax Earspeakers with vacuum tube amp
Mastered on the Pyramix DSD Mastering Workstation DSD
Mastering Engineer: Terence Lai (Hong Kong)
Engineered by Todd Garfinkle
Package design by Frankie Ho of Circus Design
Produced by Todd Garfinkle and Andy Lam (Modern Audio Ltd)

UHQLP – Pressed with High-Quality Control
UHQLP is pressed on virgin vinyl with the newest generation, German-made pressing machine, under the supervision of AQCD Technology Company. With the help of an advanced German controlling system, time duration, pressure and temperature are critically set and strictly controlled. UHQLP is a vinyl LP faithfully made to the original master source.

Half-speed Mastering – Enables better grooves cut
Half-speed mastering was done by award winning engineer Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios in the UK. The cutting lathe running at half-speed (the original being 33 1/3 rpm or 45 rpm) enables the cutting stylus twice as much time to carve the most intricate of grooves. All the difficult-to-cut high-end frequencies become relatively easy-to-cut mid-range frequencies. This results in cuts that have excellent high-frequency response (treble) and very solid and stable stereo images.

One-Step Processing – Less is more!
Instead of the standard three steps lacquer plating process, UHQLP acquires one step processing. In One-Step, the Father stamper (the very first stamper plated from the lacquer) is utilized to press the vinyl record instead of 3-steps processed stamper (the stamper plated from Mother which was plated from Father). This process ensures the lowest surface noise and more musical detail and dynamics.