My father took me to his recording sessions since I was a child, maybe 4 or 5 years old.

I have witnessed amazing sessions, like Radu Lupu’s Beethoven 5th piano concerto (Emperor), La Traviata with Virginia Zeani or Radu Aldulescu’s Haydn C major cello concerto, to name just a few.

I studied music and the piano for over 10 years before leaving Romania.

During the second half of the 70s and beginning of the 80s I assisted my father in many recordings around Europe.

In the early 1980’s, I studied electrical engineering at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, majoring in acoustics.

In the same period, I started to record and edit classical music on my own, being probably one of the very few to learn to edit digitally before learning to splice analog tapes!

My very first job was to edit 5 organ albums from different Italian cities (I remember Ferrara and Carrera, but 1981 is a long way back…) on a SONY DAE 1100 digital editor. Just for the young among you, there was no graphic monitoring at all and the cueing was in …8 bit! In short you couldn’t hear s..t! Besides, try to edit on this system (or any) an organ’s basso continuo… It was fun!

My first recording was the Bären Gässlin’s Mythomania in the Blansingen church (between Freiburg and Basel), where my father and I recorded many projects due to its pleasant acoustics.

Many followed since then, being with the Collegium Aureum, Trio Fontenay, Augsburger Domsingknaben as well as the Israel Philharmonic orchestra conducted by Maestro Zubin Mehta, especially the Hungarian Rhapsodies.

More recently, I have recorded several Ami Maayani works, Phoenix Ensemble, pianist Orit Wolf, Modena Consort (in Blansingen again!), Jacob Reuven with the Barrocade Ensemble and later the Raanana Symphonette Orchestra, violinist Sivann Maayani Zelikoff, as well as the Carmel Quartet’s Ben Chaim quartets and quintets.

Philipp is first of all a musician, specializing in Celtic Harp, which he upgraded to an electric instrument, sounding beautifully.

He has many years of experience recording both renowned musicians and orchestras, as well as chamber music with promising young talents.

Philipp is also a passionate and experienced videographer with a keen eye for capturing compelling visuals.

With several years of experience in the Music Recording industry, he has honed his skills in multi-camera videography and video editing.

He specializes in Classical and Modern Music Videos and is proficient in using a variety of cameras, lenses, and editing software.

Philipp is dedicated to delivering high-quality, creative, and engaging videos that effectively communicate the artist's message and exceed their expectations.

The Bernfeld and Batescoff families have a long and rich musical tradition, going back at least two generations.

My paternal grandfather, Emanoil (Manole) Bernfeld, was a distinguished concert pianist in Romania.

He studied in Paris and Berlin, notably with Dr. Edwin Fischer in the late 1920s. He performed with renowned conductors like Constantin Silvestri and played many piano recitals.  Manole was also involved in educational concerts for young and old.

Together with his brother Benjamin (Bebe, violin) and his sister Sophie (cello) and later my father Benjamin (cello), Manole was playing chamber music in their home in Brasov, Romania.

Bebe played first violin in the Berlin Symphony Orchestra

until 1934 and was part of the Quartet, playing second violin. He also wrote 46 studies for Quartets, which I’ll be publishing soon.

My maternal grandfather, Stefan Batescoff, was playing

clarinet in the Bucharest Radio Symphonic Orchestra in the

50s and 60s, as well as the saxophone in many jazz ensembles

since the 1920s.

BEN MASTERING

I believe that in order to be a good sound engineer, you have to have a rich musical background.

I started to play keyboards (in this 70s period I had a Fender Rhodes and a Farfisa organ with Lesley) in several rock and pop bands in my teens, playing from Italian hits to Heavy Rock (especially Deep Purple), a lot of Santana and highlighting with the “Dirty Nurse” band.

Also in this period, I started DJing, which requires besides tempo/BPM knowledge and feeling also lots of leveling and EQing dexterity, the main tasks in Mastering. This was the best school for me!

My first attempts were analog, but since the BW102 provided EQ and Dynamics, I have mastered digitally, starting in my father’s studio Harmonia Mundi Acustica with a few Andreas Vollenweider re-masterings (converting the analog master to digital), in the mid 80s we were at the beginning of the CD era!

Beginning of 88 I moved to Israel and opened my Mastering studio H.M.Acustica. For the next 10 years I have mastered and re-mastered hundreds of albums of renowned Israeli bands and artists, like Kaveret, Hayehudim, Shlomo Artzi, Matti Caspi, David Broza, Noa (Achinoam Nini), Gali Atari, Ofra Haza and many more.

I used through the years many editing devices like: DAE 1100 from SONY, Sadie DAW and Wavelab DAW. For Sound Processing I always favored the BW102, but I also enjoy working with Waves plug-ins.

I used numerous HW and SW gear for Restoration. Lately I found iZotope and am amazed of their RX 3 Advanced.

Due to today’s fast Internet speed, mastering sessions don’t have to be attended anymore, which broadens possibilities and makes locations irrelevant: you can live in Europe or the US and send me your material to be mastered by WeTransfer or DropBox or any other transfer site. After mastering it, I can send it back to you for approval and later the DDP master to the CD manufacturing plant for glass-mastering (and subsequent CD duplication).

My father, Dr. Benjamin Bernfeld studied music, playing as a cellist at the Radio Symphonic Orchestra in Bucharest, as well as in a quartet with Mendi Rodan, the renowned late Israeli conductor during the end of the 1940’s.

In the early 1950’s, Benjamin studied electrical engineering in the Leningrad Institute of Motion Picture Engineers, today St. Petersburg. He received his major in acoustics with excellence.

Back in Bucharest, his first job was in research, at ICECIN (Institute of Cinematographic Research), reaching his peak with the design of a large diaphragm microphone.

During the 60’s and until we left Romania in 1974, Benjamin worked as a Tonmeister for the classical label of Electrecord, the Romanian record company, producing many brilliant symphonic and opera recordings.

Settling near Frankfurt, Germany, he worked for two years at the Ingenieurbüro für Akustik und Bauphysik Ernst-Joachim Völker as an acoustic measurement engineer.

In 1975 he received his Doctor of Engineering degree in Spatial Hearing and Stereophony from the Strasbourg Louis Pasteur University.

In 1977 Benjamin became the first chief sound engineer in IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique), the legendary music, sound and avant-garde electro-acoustical art music institute in Paris near the Centre Pompidou. He was an early adopter of Ambisonics.

Back in Germany, this time in Freiburg, he joined forces with the Harmonia Mundi (HM) record label to open the first digital editing studios in Germany and one of the first in Europe. Benjamin made numerous splendid recordings for HM, especially in the Cedernsaal of the Kirchheim Castle.
In the early 80’s, Benjamin recognized the lack of digital interfaces and sound processing tools, so he created one of the first digital sound processing systems in 1984, the BW102. Daniel Weiss (former Studer Digital) developed, supervised the manufacturing and tested the modular “hand-made” equipment, while Benjamin was deciding on the functionality, product definition and most of all developing the markets worldwide. Hundreds of BW102s were sold to many studios like Bob Ludwig’s Gateway Mastering, Bernie Grundman Mastering, EMI Abbey Road, CBS records, Sonopress and many more. A novelty was added to the system in the early 90’s with the DOS based Pinguin GUI interface and automation system developed by Ralph Kessler.

Benjamin was active for over 40 years in the distinguished Audio Engineering Society (AES). He was the President of the AES in 1986, and countless times Paper Chairman.

He also was active in the VDT (Verband Deutscher Tonmeister) for many years.

My son Guy, nicknamed Beren took piano lessons at an early stage and for his Bar Mitzvah he wished an electric guitar. I bought him a simple electric guitar and a small amp, which he used now and then. It was then, that I suggested him to switch to bass guitar.

I think Guy was meant to play the bass, as he advanced very rapidly. He was accepted in the music class of his high-school held by Iris Portugaly. First Guy bought a 4 string Schecter, which he played in a group called Inferno, followed by PieQ, a successful progressive rock band in Israel, later using his well-loved 6 strings Ibanez.

Guy is currently finishing his 3rd and last year at the Rimon School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, where he learned and specialized in playing Jazz, arranging and orchestrating.

He hopes to be admitted at the Berklee College of Music in Boston this fall.

Except PieQ, Guy currently plays in the Gag Quartet, Anakdota, Carmel Appel Pop and several jazz/fusion groups.

In addition to bass, guitar and piano, Guy writes amazing vocal arrangements, like Disney’s When you wish upon a star tune.