Editing Contemporary Records (section)

==Recording==
Koenig maintained high audio standards.{{citation needed|date=July 2016}} He hired Roy DuNann from [[Capitol Records]] in 1956, who, out of the label's shipping room turned studio, turned out some of the best sounding records of the time.{{citation needed|date=July 2016}} DuNann provided some details of his techniques in a ''Stereophile'' article nearly 50 years later.{{citation needed|date=July 2016}} He said Koenig provided him with German ([[Georg Neumann|Neumann/Telefunken]] U-47) and Austrian ([[AKG Acoustics|AKG]] C-12) condenser microphones and he immediately noted the very high output of these microphones, especially close-in on jazz musicians' dynamic playing. DuNann achieved his signature sound&mdash;crisp, clear and balanced without distortion or unpleasant "peak presence"&mdash;by keeping his microphone setups very simple (generally one per musician) and avoided the use of pre-amplifiers for them.

He built a simple passive mixing system that directly fed the electronics of his [[Ampex#Audio technology|Ampex]] 350 and 351 tape machines. Also, DuNann told ''Stereophile'' that Contemporary sessions were recorded "dry" (without electronic echo added or in a reverberant room). Sometimes, such as in the case of Sonny Rollins' ''[[Way Out West (Sonny Rollins album)|Way Out West]]'', a plate reverb unit was inserted between the tape machine and the [[LP album|LP]] [[disc cutting lathe]]. This is why some later LP and [[Compact Disc|CD]] reissues of Contemporary albums sound "dry" and "dead" compared to the original LPs mastered by DuNann.