About LCS Hi-Res
LCS HI RES is a division of Leslie Carrick-Smith & Associates and was founded by organist and forensic psychologist L. Carrick-Smith in 2009 to release high resolution organ and choral recordings for music lovers with high end audiophile music systems.
Orchestral and instrumental recordings have not been forgotten and we shall be drawing on our extensive back catalogue as well as exciting new projects.
Our picture shows Carrick (l) with legendary Mastering Producer Everett Porter (r) at the Polyhymnia Mastering Studio in Baarn, The Netherlands.
Not for the faint hearted, all the recordings on this website are without equalisation, limiting and unadulterated by any form of intervention designed to interfere with the original recorded sound. They will reproduce with a precise fidelity the largest of the King of instruments as well as an orchestral bass drum or 32ft organ pipe providing one has the CD/SACD player, amplifier and speaker monitors of sufficient quality to reproduce the original recorded sound. Nothing has been filtered out at any stage of the recording, editing or mastering process.
As Executive producer Carrick comes with a lifetime’s experience in church music. Subsequent to organ study at New College Oxford, he was Organist and Director of Music at Rotherham Minster and Worksop Priory for many years. Carrick has broadcast on radio and television both as a musician and as a internationally consulted forensic psychologist.
Ever since producing his first Soundstream digital recordings with Dr Thomas Stockham under the tutelage of the legendary Thomas Frost (long time director of CBS Masterworks) in 1980, our multi award winning producer Jonathan Wearn’s constant mission has been to provide the highest quality 3 dimensional music reproduction possible. Now, with the development of the Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD), which utilizes the extraordinary Direct Stream Digital (DSD) recording technology, the foundation exists to launch a new era of high resolution 3 dimensional stereo and multichannel surround recordings of unparalleled quality.
With more than 40 years experience producing Recordings for EMI Angel, CBS, Vox Cum Laude, Phillips, Guild and numerous other labels, Jonathan has recorded many famous artists and world renowned orchestras including 15 recordings with The Philharmonia Orchestra. Artists including Sherrill Miles, Eugene List, Nicolas Kynaston, Lowell Greer, Edison Quintanar, Doris Stephenson, Carrol Glenn, Franz Hauk, Reginald Elson, Fernando Germani, Douglas Reed, Jorge Federico Osorio, Rafael Jimenez, Carlos Prieto, Richard Markson, Michel Block, London Philharmonic, Djong Victorin Yu, James Kreger, Mikis Theodorakis, Frances Mason, Razumovsky Quartet, Symanowski Quartet, Rudens Turku, Donald Joyce, Miriam Freed, Robert Silverman, Robert Clark, Johannes Geffert, Jan Van Mol, Professor Gerard Gillen, Orquesta Sinfonica de Xalapa, Orquesta Sinfonica de Mineria, Orquesta Filarmonica de la Ciudad de Mexico, Orquesta del Estado de Mexico, Tlen Huicani, The Choir of Christ’s Hospital, The Palestrina Choir – St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral Dublin and many more……. Credits include numerous TV Classical Music Spectaculars for PBS Television and the Univision (Spanish Speaking) network. Operas include: Martinu’s Mirandolina, Mozart’s Cosse fan tutti, Rossini Cenerentola, Beethoven Fidelio, Stravinsky Rakes Progress, Mozart & Friends Der stein der Weissen, Mozart Il re Pastore, Rossini La donna del lago, Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos, L’incorazione di Dario, Donizetti Don Pascuale amongst others. 2010 recording projects include the Palestrina Choir in Haydn and Flor Peeter’s Masses, organ recordings in Ingolstadt on the mighty Klais with Franz Hauk and D’Arcy Trinkwon and three operas: Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream Gioacchino Rossini’s Armida and Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at Garsington. His recordings with Professor Douglas Reed of the William Albright organ works at the University of Michigan are due for release this year.
All our High Resolution Surround Sound Recordings are made and edited using Pyramix, Sonic Solutions and Nuendo Work Stations, B & K/DPA 4006 and Schoepps microphones, Prism 88.2 kHz ADA8 Converters, Monitored using B & W 801, Genelec and PMC speakers and Classe Amplifiers.
The new Super Audio Compact Disc format, created by Sony and Philips, provides unprecedented sound quality in stereo and discrete multi-channel surround. To achieve its sonic performance, SACD employs DSD, a radically new digital encoding technology.DSD samples the musical signal at a phenomenal 2.8 million times a second, 64 times the amount of a traditional CD. The result is an extremely smooth digital waveform with unparalleled frequency response and dynamic range.
The potential benefits OF SACD do not stop with its performance. The SACD format supports several disc configurations, including a Hybrid SACD designed to be completely compatible with the millions of CD players in the market today. Hybrid SACDs actually contain two complete layers of music information. One layer contains the high density DSD recording that can be played in the new generation of stereo and surround SACD players.The other layer is a conventional CD layer, which can play on any CD player. Our recordings are all made using this technology even our regular Cds and it tells. Played through superior Hi Fi systems these recordings will reproduce Orchestral Bass Drums and 32 foot organ pipes with astonishing fidelity true to the original. No digital or analogous intervention is made on any of our recordings. EQ, Limiting or other adulteration of the original sound is never ever utilised.
Our surround recordings are mastered by producer Everett Porter of Polyhymnia in Baarn – and manufactured by Sony’s DADC in Austria and Worthing.