August 2021

Video: Kostas Metaxas Lecture On Purist Recording

  During the Munich HIGH END Show years ago Kostas Metaxas, an award winning artist-designer as well as an electrical and recording engineer, was asked to lecture on purist analog tape recording techniques. Below is an edit including some recording excerpts. One of Kostas' biggest pleasures in life is recording music. It is an indescribable pleasure — bliss. Particularly when all the planets are aligned — when the musician is "in the zone", the audience is on the edge of their seats... you literally get "lost in the music".

"Sadly," says Kostas, "I wasn't able to release lots of this music, only use excerpts for Broadcast TV interviews, but the pure pleasure was worth it. From 2003 to 2008, I recorded over 300 concerts including covering two Melbourne Jazz Festivals , two Bangalow Classical Music Festivals, over 50 Opera Australia Operas, The Asia-Pacific Chamber Music competition, and many others. In 2005 I was sponsored by BMW to record a series of concerts at the Federation Square "Edge" Concert Hall. This gorgeous glass/wood/steel venue was one of my favourite venues."

Kostas Metaxas continues, "I also worked closely with Andrew Wales, conductor of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir to record many of their concerts at the Town Hall (including three Messiahs) and both St Patrick's and St Paul's Cathedrals. As an artist, I viewed every opportunity as an experiment to extend the recording art. Many of these recording are my most treasured 'references'." Enjoy the Music.com is sure you'll enjoy learning more about purist recordings by Kostas Metaxas within his video below.

Bonus Podcast Interview!
Press Play is Reel Resilience's podcast dedicated to all things tape and tape-recorder. Here they interview Kostas Metaxas of Metaxas & Sins. "Despite the resurgence of the tape format, few people, or companies, have created a new tape-recorder," says Reel Resilience. "Kostas has not just done this once, but twice. First with the TRX recorder, positioned as a replacement for Nagra and Stellavox field recorders, and later with the Papillion 15, a studio based, or high-end audiophile, product. In part 1 of this two-part podcast Kostas takes us through his early years in hi-end hi-fi and music recording, to the story of how the TRX, and recently the Papillon, came about."

Part 2 below with Kostas Metaxas of Metaxas & Sins you'll hear about the TRX recorder, then they move onto discuss the new limited-edition product Papillon 15 and then about Kostas' beautiful pens. We will also hear, straight from the designers mouth, the answer to the question so many ask when they see the these new recorders: How much are they?