Andrew York - Equations of Beauty (1957 Hauser II ex. Bream)

We’re truly pleased to present Andrew York with his new suite The Equations of Beauty in six movements, each named after a mathematical constant. We had talked to York about his playing some of the Cleveland Collection guitars, and the Bream Hauser appealed to him the most, and it turned out to be a pretty perfect fit for the piece, so rather than try to record a bunch of different guitars we decided to record the entire suite on Bream’s 1957 Hauser II.

In York’s words:

“The Equations of Beauty” is a six-movement suite, and each movement is named for a mathematical constant or variable. The names are h, e, π, i, ∞ and c. These symbols stand for the smallest, the fastest, the infinite, the beautiful and mystical transcendental, irrational and imaginary numbers; all the utmost extremes that inhabit the realm of mathematics. I chose the names to match the spirit of each movement. “Equations” is entirely played with a capo on the fifth fret, and the tuning is D A D F# B D.”

We are very grateful to the folks at Apogee Digital who lent us their studio, Berkeley Studios, and their fantastic Symphony interface/converters as well as Bob Clearmountain’s legendary Neve board, whose pres we used. The folks at AEA (www.ribbonmics.com) lent us some fantastic microphones – their 44ce and N22 – which, despite the mic overkill you see in the videos, were the only microphones we used in the final mix.