Ormandy came to the project with experience in the studio - as a violinist playing light classical pieces, as a conductor of his own salon orchestra, and as a soloist with the Dorsey Brothers Concert Orchestra. Ormandy later said, "We gave them every single day, including Sundays, six hours of recording and anything they chose. This we did for two years, and we made hundreds of records through those four weeks of recordings, because I record very fast. I always did."

Fig. 2: The Victor engineers recorded the sessions using two microphones, seen here suspended behind Ormandy's head. The staff did what they could to improve the acoustics of the auditorium by placing sound-absorbing fabric around the stage. In a history of the orchestra's music directors, Roy Close writes, "Years later, on a rare return visit to Minnesota, [Ormandy] was asked by a reporter if he had any suggestion for improving Northrop Auditorium's acoustics. 'Dynamite,' he replied."