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Behind the Scenes at Polarity Records
Hello friends, Samm Bennett here, owner and proprietor of Polarity Records, where QUALITY is more than just a slogan! We here at Polarity work tirelessly to make EVERY recording a shining masterpiece of audio perfection that will delight and entertain even the most discerning of listeners. That's right, friends, we are NOT effing around! And here at this page you'll see some of the reasons why POLARITY Records has risen to the very apex of musical excellence. Let's take a look around then, shall we?
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First, let's meet our busy receptionist, Percy "the Pencil" McDudge. Percy fields hundreds of phone calls a day, and his is the first smiling face you'll encounter when you visit our studios. Many have noted that even with the intensely high-pressure and hectic nature of the job, Percy maintains a uniformly cheerful disposition and a friendly yet highly professional demeanor. He's a six-time winner of the annual American Chamber of Commerce's "Clean Desk Award", and prides himself on wearing a different diagonally striped tie every day of the year. And speaking of years, we look forward to many, MANY more years with "the Pencil" at the front desk.
Here's Polarity Records Quality Control Manager Esmerelda Koczinsky, who makes SURE that every I is dotted and every T is crossed. NOTHING gets by Esmerelda! Her track record in quality control speaks for itself, and she is an indispensable part of the Polarity team. She also makes a killer bundt cake, and outside of her work here at Polarity she is a ballroom dancer of renown, capturing the North Michigan Tri-County Ballroom Dance Grand Prize for 1997 and 1999!
Pictured above is Pete Dingleworth, our waveform analyzer. It's safe to say that without Pete, every mix coming out of Polarity Studio would be a worthless, unlistenable failure that would hurt your ears and wound your spirit. But with Pete keeping our waveforms aligned, we've been able to maintain a standard of sonic excellence that is the envy of the recording world. We were so fortunate that the Pleasant Valley State Prison at Fresno, California created the work-release program that enabled convicted felon Pete to join our team.
Remote recording is an important part of what we do here at Polarity, and without the clever and ingenious remote recording devices custom made for us by Wolfgang and Dieter Schlümpfendorfer, our remote operation would be a pale shadow of what it is. Dietie and Wolfie (as we affectionately refer to them) are brothers from Schniglsbürg, Austria, who came to Polarity five years ago with little more than a dream and a chunk of Emmentaler cheese, but they've built Polarity's Location Recording Department into a formidable enterprise boasting success after success in this highly competitive (some might say cutthroat) field.
When you do as much recording as we do on a daily basis here at Polarity, you use some MAJOR electricity. Our high powered recording equipment needs PLENTY of juice to keep things humming and keep the music coming to YOU, and our in-house power generating station makes that possible. Here's Lucy Blankenschtupt, in position at the main dynamo. Lucy knows more about electricity than you can shake a lightning rod at, and can take this big monster of a machine apart and put it back together in two hours flat! Thank you Lucy, and keep the power coming!
Dials. Big, fat dials that need five fingers to turn. What's a recording studio without dials? Nothing! NOTHING! That's why here at Polarity we've got the BIGGEST dials, and what's more, we know how to USE 'em! Pictured here is Polarity engineer-in-chief Bert Scrapton working the dials as only Bert can. You'll note that Bert still keeps an old-fashioned dial phone at his workstation, too. No buttons for Bert! Nuh-UH! He's strictly a DIAL man! And that fellow to Bert's left? That's, well... we don't actually know his name. He comes in every so often, unannounced, sits down beside Bert, and starts reading off numbers from a big sheet of paper. The tiny numbers are meticulously hand-written, and their meaning and purpose, if any, are unknown to us here at Polarity. But the fellow is nice enough, and occasionally he brings a bottle of rum with him which he's happy to share, so... it's worked out.
Good, reliable monitoring is essential to creating the very best quality recordings. Here at Polarity Records we've created new monitoring methods that blow the competition out of the water! Ordinary monitor speakers and conventional headphones are no match for our patented Sound Egg technology! In this photo we see Monitoring Systems Designer Hugh Clot closely observing and fine tuning one of our Sound Eggs as assistant Reginald Krebs listens to one of our acclaimed mixes.
At Polarity, we are keenly aware of the importance of good public relations. Our Public Relations Manager is Mr. Ernest Wonkshaw, seen here explaining the Polarity philosophy to two guests who dropped by for a studio tour, Mr and Mrs Ralph Bundt, of the Better Homes and Studios Community Liaison Association of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. As you can see, Wonkshaw dresses in formal attire for these all-important duties, putting a proud face on our operations here.
It's no secret that Polarity Records has established itself as one of the top earners in the music business, but what you might not know is that we are a cash-only enterprise, and we do NOT trust banks! We bag up all our coins and bills at the end of every month and keep it all in a storage shed located on the sprawling grounds of the Polarity Records complex. But what with crime on the rise, our security personnel are ever vigilant, keeping the proceeds safe and sound and out of the hands of nefarious thieves and ne'er-do-wells of ill intent. Pictured here is Chief of Security Eustus McGluck, keenly guarding the precious bags of cash with his trusty Parker VH-12 gauge double barrel. Don'tcha mess with Eustus!
Shown above is the view from the control room of Studio D, one of the smaller of our recording rooms here at Polarity. As you can see, the equipment is state of the art, and the convenient wall clock assures us that our engineers are always aware of the time. And while at first glance the instrument in the room might appear to be a grand piano, here at Polarity nothing is *quite* that simple! It's actually an ingenious instrument designed and built by one of our top instrument makers, Monsieur Jean-Claude d'Crachoir-blessure. It's played by blowing into a small hole bored into one of the legs, and sounds like a cross between the Scottish bagpipes and a injured hyena.
People often ask about why Polarity Records compact discs sound so much better than other companies' products. The answer is simple: we hand-craft each and every CD ourselves, in house. Each physical disc represents hours of meticulous cutting, metal plating, sanding, polishing and more. Here we see sparks fly as Chief Metallurgist Arnie Spindledorp does some spot welding on a disc. Arnie practically LIVES in that welder's mask, and indeed, is said to never take it off, even upon returning home each night after a hard day's work. That's dedication, Polarity style.
“Keep the customer satisfied” is our mantra here at Polarity, and we’re ready to “bend over backwards” to accommodate singers who “bend over forwards”. When recording star Tallulah Skeeve was laying down final vocal tracks for her smash hit single “You Better Straighten Up”, our chief engineer Bert Scrapton couldn’t help but notice her unorthodox posture. “That’s the way that crazy dame likes to sing!” chuckled Bert afterwards. But our indefatigable “Scrappy” sprung into action, racing over to our Engineering Department, where master electronics tinkerer Bud “Soldering Iron” Higgins instantly crafted this handsome, floor-model mic for Tallulah’s use. “My voice never sounded better!” enthused Ms. Skeeve upon hearing the playbacks. Just doing our job, Tallulalh!
By now it should be readily apparent that Polarity is at the razor-sharp cutting edge of recording technology. Our constant innovation in sound-capturing and reproducing has been a key factor in cementing our position as the solid front runner in the competitive field of enregistrement, as the French say. Let us introduce you, then, to one of the talented and dedicated young technicians in our Research and Development department, Mr Oswald Phlemington. For the past seven years “Phlemy” has been steadfastly observing the subtle machinations of this device, making careful notes regarding its minute, essentially undetectable fluctuations. While neither he nor any other member of the R&D team are entirely sure of what this particular machine actually *does*, we are sure of one thing: making every piece of equipment operate at optimum efficiency is essential to bringing YOU, the consumer, the finest in recorded sound, thus maintaining our absolute dominance in the industry.
As has been noted by audio experts and casual listeners alike for many years now, the stereo imaging found in Polarity releases is some of the finest and most exact in recorded music history. A big part of our continued success in this area is Marjorie Schnapl, our Chief Stereo Field Analyzer. Her simple yet ingenious invention, the Double-Aural Anti-flangelator, enables Marjorie to determine whether or not the stereo field is being properly established and conveyed. With this device, and, of course, with her fine-tuned listening skills, Marjorie is absolutely key to our operations. As we like to say, she's "outstanding in her stereo field!"
Most folks are by now aware that Polarity churns out hit record after hit record, but it's not as well known that we are also leaders in the recording of sound effects for film and television, known in the industry as "Foley work". Bill “Boon” Doggle is the head of our Foley Department, and is seen here with the ingenious machine he created for recording footsteps. The ever-crafty “Boon” put his creation to good use on movies like The 39 Steps, Step Up, and Step Off, as well as on the classic Miles Davis album Seven Steps to Heaven.
Signal routing. For the professional audio recording studio, signal routing is EVERYTHING. Without it, your signals can so easily wind up in the wrong place, like, say, Pell City Alabama, or some godawful little village in Austria, or amongst a pile of rubbish by the side of some lonely dirt road in some place no one’s ever even heard of. Rest assured, though, that you’ll NEVER have any routing problems at Polarity! Pictured here is the nerve center of our signal routing facility, where millions of discrete signals are quickly and accurately routed to the exact place where they belong. NEVER sent elsewhere!
A big factor in the ongoing success story that is Polarity Records is our careful study and analysis of what sort of music playback equipment the average customer uses at his or her home. Through polling and other types of research, we’ve gathered enough solid information to recreate, here at our own headquarters, the kind of audio setup you’re most likely to find in the average abode. But knowing that trends and developments in home audio gear are ever-evolving, we dedicate a great deal of time and effort to continually tweaking and improving our in-house, model system, in much the same way as you and millions of others do at home on a continual basis. Here we see Mort Twillinger, co-head of our Home Audio Research Division, making adjustments to the kind of system found in homes all across the globe. Thanks to Mort, we know what our audio products sound like when YOU get them home! Sounding good, Mort!
What are THESE two doing, you ask? Well, these tireless workers are brothers Butch and Bernard Beasley, or, "BB", as we call them collectively. When we record sound here at Polarity, we rearrange magnetic information onto tape, but we know that in matters of audio perfection, the ears ALONE cannot be trusted 100%! The "brothers BB", possessed of highly developed powers of observation, VISUALLY inspect every inch of magnetic tape, to add another layer of quality control to our recorded sound. These guys can spot sonic anomalies like a hawk can spot a mouse running along the forest floor!
When you record here at Polarity, you can be assured of sound separation that is superior to any other studio you'll find. "Muddy recordings"? "Murky soundscapes"? These terms cannot be found in our dictionary! And how do we achieve the crystal clarity that make our recordings the most sought-after in the audio world? Simple: every single sound recorded at Polarity is routed into its own discreet cable. Thousands upon thousands of individual cables! Every pluck of the washtub bass, every toot on the nose flute, every scrape of the washboard, crank of the hurdy-gurdy and snap of the finger is separated and sent to its proper place in the mix, unmasked by any other sound! And as you'd imagine, keeping up with all those cables, and making sure they carry ONLY their specified sound to the right place, is no small feat! But our Chief Sound Separation Technician Madeline Middlestropp (M&M, to friends) keeps it all flowing. Amazing!
Here at Polarity Records, we are firm believers in diversification, and in having all our employees involved in all aspects of what we do here. These four ladies from the typing pool, for example, were recently called in to a recording session for which the client (an avant-garde composer of some renown in Romania) expressed a need for the sound of nails being hammered. Chief Assistant Engineer Bobby "Knob" Nobson didn't miss a beat: he dashed over to the office and rounded up Midge, Madge, Esther and Louise and got the ladies HAMMERING! The composer was delighted, and we're happy to say that only Esther had a wee bit of a thumb injury. You took one for the team, Esther! Bless her heart.
There's much more documentation of our extensive activities here at Polarity Records to come in the future, so drop by again sometime, won't you?
SPECIAL NOTE: Polarity Records exists essentially for the cultural enrichment of society as a whole, and should you wish to support our tireless efforts in this regard, we invite you to make a donation, NO MATTER HOW SMALL, to our PayPal link HERE. Many thanks!