Classical music is only a fraction of all live recorded music which in turn is only a fraction of all recordings.
Even classical music isn't recorded with just a stereo miking technique. There are different techniques and they all have their advantages and disadvantages. Any way you slice it, the problem is the dominance and limitations of classical two speaker stereo.
The solution is not to create strong reflections in the acoustically small playback room with the help of manipulated speaker directivity when all we have is recordings where relevant directional room information for spaciousness and envelopment (i.e. realism) has been lost.
The solution might be object based audio which takes the renderer out of the equation. A first attempt is Dolby Atmos. It doesn't break with existing production techniques - anybody who tried that in the past failed.
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By the way, here's an interesting read: A Proposal for a More Perceptually Uniform Control Stereophonic Music Recording Studios
Anechoic chambers are incredibly expensive to build, there are only very few in existence and none of them are used for recording. They are much more expensive to build than a good sounding live room.
They are only ever used for research and most belong to universities. The one I visited belonged to the Technical University Berlin.
Also the use of artificial reverb has largely gone out of fashion, it had its day in the '80s.
These days engineers prefer to use a dedicated room mic for drums if they are close mic'd (ie 8 or more mics on the kit and one placed somewhere in the room). But room mics are also popular for guitar etc but not so much for bass. Bass normally sounds horrible with added reverb, it is usually di'd with nothing done to it bar a little compression. Sometimes it is mixed with the mic'd signal from the bass amp.
That said smaller set ups for drums are becoming much more common. Usually 3 mics, one on the kick and a stereo pair for everything else.
Reverb is still used for vocals, usually a small room type which is almost unnoticeable to the listener but it makes the voice sit better in the mix.
They are only ever used for research and most belong to universities. The one I visited belonged to the Technical University Berlin.
Also the use of artificial reverb has largely gone out of fashion, it had its day in the '80s.
These days engineers prefer to use a dedicated room mic for drums if they are close mic'd (ie 8 or more mics on the kit and one placed somewhere in the room). But room mics are also popular for guitar etc but not so much for bass. Bass normally sounds horrible with added reverb, it is usually di'd with nothing done to it bar a little compression. Sometimes it is mixed with the mic'd signal from the bass amp.
That said smaller set ups for drums are becoming much more common. Usually 3 mics, one on the kick and a stereo pair for everything else.
Reverb is still used for vocals, usually a small room type which is almost unnoticeable to the listener but it makes the voice sit better in the mix.
Something I've been aware of since I started fiddling around with tape recorders as a kid, is that when you record a performance with the microphone some distance away from the performers, the result always sounds terrible ('hollow', distant etc.) and nothing like it did when sitting live in the audience. And it's just as bad whether listening on headphones or speakers. All TV and radio people know that the key to a professional sound is putting the mic right next to the interviewee - anything else sounds hollow and amateurish.
Maybe true binaural recordings listened to in headphones work better, but I have a notion that things like just moving our heads slightly while listening enable us characterise the listening space in our heads, allowing us to 'hear through' the room to the performers directly - something that the recording can't reproduce.
I have noticed exactly the same phenomenon when dabbling with speaker and room correction, whereby my room sounds pretty good when listened to directly, but very 'hollow' when listened to as a recording taken with the mic in the normal listening position. In effect, I'm going to be doing some pretty radical correction if I want to turn that recording back into a headphone-quality sound, which makes me wonder if that's what I really want to do - it sounds pretty good without the correction and I can seemingly hear past the room to the direct recording without effort.
Doesn't change anything I've said. The trend is towards unechoic chamber properties and NOT in the opposite direction ("Hass kickers" have been abandoned decades ago).
You're talking about a very specific subset of instruments within a particular genre. I don't think this represents the majority of productions.
When I talk to friends (I used to be a recording/mixing engineer) I get the feeling even more effects are used today when compared to a 80's production. But undoubtly the quality of artificial reverberation made a jump when convolution reverbs became available.
Guess we have to agree to disagree.
chances are very good, actually as far as I understand for His own use Elias has already changed it,
me too, and everyone can do it, everyone who understand HiFi as more realistic sound reproduction (exactly as Hartley understood it - fidelity to the real thing, not to producer's "artistic intent") and wants it
of course I know that my approach "compromises" producer's "artistic autonomy"
I don't give a damn though
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chances are very good, actually as far as I understand for His own use Elias has already changed it,
me too, and everyone can do it, everyone who understand HiFi as more realistic sound reproduction (exactly as Hartley understood it - fidelity to the real thing, not producer's "artistic intent") and wants it
of course I know that my approach "compromises" producer's "artistic autonomy"
Two subjects.
One: I agree. If the idea is to capture a sound exactly as it is produced, then the producer's job is to capture that sound. Useful for documentary and science.
Two: In the world of music, the producer works with the musician so the end result on the recording is what they intend it to be. The reproduction end is then free to modify the result to achieve the users level of belief so they can enjoy the music. I find it is a lot easier to start with as high a fidelity as I can and control the modifications myself, rather than accept others choices.
I don't like it when the producer is second guessing my reproduction limitations and over compensating. That typical "presence" peak in the 4K range or way boosted bass for example. Everyone does not use ear buds or TV internal speakers. The producer should target with the assumption of high fidelity on the playback and let the playback compensate for its shortcomings.
There. This mornings soapbox.
Just a little note here not to argue with any one point or any of what has been said. I only was taking about binaural recording for headphones and nothing else. I actually have no interest in binaural recording. I prefer the multi-mic techniques used with close mic application with at most a pair of ambiance mics added if needed. I also believe in DI techniques for particular instruments. Somewhere in the thread we were on the subject of headphone vs loudspeaker reproduction and that is where that came from. I spent my earlier years in a traditional studio listening back in a live end/dead end room. Multi-channel playback becomes another can of worms all by itself.
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Those are very cute
And they are setting a new trend, high level of reflected sound, a complete different trend Markus is following
- Elias
Those are very cute
And they are setting a new trend, high level of reflected sound, a complete different trend Markus is following
- Elias
Yes, "cute" - is this your idea of HiFi?
Yes exactly. Studio recording is not a performance. It is an advertisement. Highly optimised, polished and targeted.
But I don't like adds. If I see one coming I immediately change the channel
- Elias
I think that many musician would take offense to that. Yes a studio performance is not a live event per see, but that is not always something that can be captured that translates well to a recorded playback. I have been at more than one show with both a live PA reinforcement mix and a direct mix sent to a sound truck for recording. It is a rare occasion that these recordings sound great. It just isn't easy to create the live event without compromising the other feed. You always know that the recording was done at the same time it was being played live, it is in the sound track plain as day. So to say that a band or group going into the studio to make a recording for reproduction is making an ad for there music, well we wouldn't have much music to listen to without a recording studio. That doesn't mean that there aren't great and awful recordings, there are. Those that get their sound down right in a recording studio we love and when it is wrong we don't buy that crap. Would we have any Steely Dan albums without a recording studio and are they just advertisements? You need a better argument than that to say that the studio doesn't create great music.
I guess we can add the Beatles to that advertisement list also............
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First paragraph: Any subset which uses a drum kit and a bass.
For electronic and sample based stuff all bets are off.
Second paragraph: Same here. The current fad seems to be using Autotune as an effect a la Cher or T Pain. Can't wait for that one to be over.
Meanwhile the use of reverb has largely fallen out of fashion in favour of double tracking and short delays.
Charles,
Though many things these days can be recreated in the studio like the sonic signature of a particular venue, it rarely is just as good as the real thing. Electronic effects have come a long way in the studio, you won't see many without an Apple computer running software anymore, but there are just certain things that make certain studios unique. Some of the best studios still have echo chambers that have been there forever and are still used today even if we could reproduce the effect electronically. It just isn't exactly the same.... As for auto-tune, I agree, enough already, but then you would put a lot of marginal singers out of work, probably not a bad idea.......... Effects come and go, I still remember tape echo machines very well. And any electric guitar is nothing but an effects machine these days, the days of just a whammy bar are long since over. Music evolves and so do our tastes, but we all seem to agree when somebody gets it right.... It is still an art between the musician and the recording engineer to put down the sound that the musician is trying to create. To bad we have all this sub-par semi-pro equipment that makes everyone think they can record a great album. There is a difference in the sound quality of a professionally recorded record and one done in someone basement studio.
Though many things these days can be recreated in the studio like the sonic signature of a particular venue, it rarely is just as good as the real thing. Electronic effects have come a long way in the studio, you won't see many without an Apple computer running software anymore, but there are just certain things that make certain studios unique. Some of the best studios still have echo chambers that have been there forever and are still used today even if we could reproduce the effect electronically. It just isn't exactly the same.... As for auto-tune, I agree, enough already, but then you would put a lot of marginal singers out of work, probably not a bad idea.......... Effects come and go, I still remember tape echo machines very well. And any electric guitar is nothing but an effects machine these days, the days of just a whammy bar are long since over. Music evolves and so do our tastes, but we all seem to agree when somebody gets it right.... It is still an art between the musician and the recording engineer to put down the sound that the musician is trying to create. To bad we have all this sub-par semi-pro equipment that makes everyone think they can record a great album. There is a difference in the sound quality of a professionally recorded record and one done in someone basement studio.
...and then there are also really great sounding recordings that were created in a basement studio
In signal processing and especially in time-frequency analysis (wavelets being an example of such an analysis) and which Watkinson is also talking about in his article when refering to uncertanty principle, the uncertainty limit is usually called Heisenberg-Gabor limit. In some articles I've seen it is sometimes loosely called just Heisenberg.
It is very relevant in audio, of course.
- Elias
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