You are in the church

The Cowboy Junkies recorded The Trinity Session in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto. I had played Mining for Gold many times. In the new room, for the first time, I was in the church.

The ambient noises, the background elements, the space itself, all there in the right size and position and everywhere around me. The sense of space was no longer a suggestion. Take Five did the same in its own way: the quartet more organic and alive than ever, and on the drum solo the kick drum filled the room for the first time.

Let me be direct with you about where that came from. None of it was new information. When the Wilsons first arrived, I heard reverb tails and room ambience that had been on the recordings all along and that I had simply never heard. The new room took the same step again, with the same speakers and the same electronics.

That changes how I think about a recording. The church, the hall and the air around the drummer were captured on the day; they are sitting in the file and in the groove. The question is never whether they exist. It is whether your room lets them out.

I did not buy a better recording of Mining for Gold. I finally stopped my room from editing the one I had.