Ulrike Schwarz Anderson's AMBEO Insights

Ulrike Schwarz Anderson

Person smiling in a city street with benches and buildings in the background.

AMBEO Expert Stories Ulrike Anderson, née Schwarz, is a sound engineer and producer of acoustic music in the radio, television and recording industries.

With AMBEO VR Mic, many producers have expanded their playground of immersive audio recording. To create unique binaural podcasts, I chose AMBEO VR Mic for my documentary podcast series entitled “It’s a Pixies Podcast” which is available on Spotify, about the making of the soon to be released Pixies album, “Beneath the Eyrie”.

The series is unique in that during the 3-week process of creating the album, the band allowed us to capture every single moment of their creative process in the studio. This verité audio, along with interviews, narration and live in-studio performances, form the foundation of the series.

The sessions for “Beneath the Eyrie” took place at Dreamland, near Kingston, NY. In our pre-production meetings prior to installing our recording gear at Dreamland, the Pixies management team made 2 things very clear; 1) They wanted the most complete, high quality capture possible of the band's activity and interactions while creating “Beneath the Eyrie”, and 2) they wanted the whole setup to be as minimalist as possible. The capture process had to be invisible to the band so that it did not distract them from the making of the album, and also so that we captured their natural creative process without them feeling like they needed to be "on".

Ulrike Schwarz Anderson

„perfect for capturing this special event in a way that included not simply the notes that were played but the energy and experience of being in the space during the performance.“

Our setup for the event included the eight microphones suspended above the audience required to generate the AMBEO cube, plus an additional front-facing stereo A/B pair pointed toward the stage—all Sennheiser microphones and many of the same selections we’ve trusted for numerous recordings in all formats. This setup gives us both the perspective of the audience being there live in the room, but also an optimized recording due to the closer microphones, ensuring we have plenty of options to bring out the best experience during the mix.

The setup is sure to render remarkable fidelity. Bass-heavy instruments in particular sound markedly better when you bring them into 3D, so I expect both the performances and recording clarity to be spectacular. Jim and I both have extensive experience working in 5.1 surround, and I have even trained on 22.2 systems in Japan as far back as 2006. We feel that AMBEO represents an exciting leap forward for three-dimensional audio. It’s great to take things into the next dimension with Sennheiser, and we are eager to dig into these mixes and bring out the magic of the Chelsea Music Festival.

About Ulrike Anderson

Ulrike Anderson, née Schwarz, is a sound engineer and producer of acoustic music in the radio, television and recording industries. Her recordings have received multiple German and international nominations and awards. Her recordings have received two Echo Klassik Awards, Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenindustrie, Ars Acoustica, Diapason d’Or, a Grammy Nomination and many others.

In October 2015 she received the Fellowship Award of the Audio Engineering Society at the 139th AES Convention in New York.
Ulrike Schwarz was AES Governor from 2004-2006.

Ulrike Anderson received her Tonmeister degree from the Hochschule der Künste Berlin (University of The Arts Berlin), Germany. She also holds an Executive Master of Business Administration in “Innovation and Business Creation” from Technische Universität München (Technical University Munich), Germany. From 2001 to 2015 she was employed by Bayerischer Rundfunk in Munich, Germany, as a senior sound engineer for large orchestral and jazz productions. She currently is in the process of building up the production house Anderson Audio New York, Inc.

Ulrike received intensive training in 5.1 surround sound from Akira Fukada at NHK (Nihon Hoso Kyokai) Tokyo, Japan, and participated in experiments for 22.2 with Kimio Hamasaki at the Research and Development Laboratory at NHK, Tokyo, Japan, in 2006. Her first 9.0 recording was Robert Schumann’s Oratory “Das Paradies und die Peri” with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir under Sir Simon Rattle at Herkulessaal, Munich, Germany, in 2010. This recording was presented at the 40th International AES Conference “Spatial Audio – Sense the Sound of Space” in Tokyo, Japan, in 2010.

She has recorded and live broadcast over 50 orchestral projects with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir in 5.0 surround sound and has been producing symphonic projects with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Norway, in 5.1 Surround sound and in 9.1 Immersive 3D Audio.