We've come a long way from the days when all a producer wanted was to see 604s in the control room, eh?
I disagree. Your points are addressed in the paper. Did you even read it?
The fundamental problem in music production still is Audio Musings by Sean Olive: Audio's Circle of Confusion
I don't care much which standard will break that circle as long as there is one.
Ok, let me rephrase the last sentence in my previous post:
It is a solution in search of a solvable problem.
Back in the days of old where almost only corporate studios (1950s to '60s) existed it may have been possible to conceive a standard for control rooms.
This chance disappeared when artists took more control of their work and moved away from corporate commercial studios.
These days commercial studios are dying at an alarming rate, even venerable places like Abbey Road only continue to exist because it is now a listed building. Recording wise it is a money pit.
Standardized control rooms are simply not enforceable by any means other than total governmental control over the recording process. I don't believe a band like for example the Rolling Stones would have taken kindly if they were told that the stuff they've done during the '70s in a rented french chateau can't be released because the control room was non-standard and with the advent of computer-based recording in conjunction with the proliferation of home studios it is a total impossibility nowadays.
You may not like the current situation but there is nothing that can be done to change that. Personally it doesn't bother me at all, largely because music would have been very boring indeed had there ever been an enforceable control room standard which would have stopped many an important and influential act from recording and releasing anything as there would have been no independent record labels.
As it is there are no standards and to my mind that is a good thing albeit one that at times leads to sub par products from a sound quality point of view. An enforced standard would have lead to sub par products from a content point of view.
I know which situation I prefer, I wouldn't want to live in a world without Lee Perry or Guy Stevens and their productions.
It is a solution in search of a solvable problem.
Back in the days of old where almost only corporate studios (1950s to '60s) existed it may have been possible to conceive a standard for control rooms.
This chance disappeared when artists took more control of their work and moved away from corporate commercial studios.
These days commercial studios are dying at an alarming rate, even venerable places like Abbey Road only continue to exist because it is now a listed building. Recording wise it is a money pit.
Standardized control rooms are simply not enforceable by any means other than total governmental control over the recording process. I don't believe a band like for example the Rolling Stones would have taken kindly if they were told that the stuff they've done during the '70s in a rented french chateau can't be released because the control room was non-standard and with the advent of computer-based recording in conjunction with the proliferation of home studios it is a total impossibility nowadays.
You may not like the current situation but there is nothing that can be done to change that. Personally it doesn't bother me at all, largely because music would have been very boring indeed had there ever been an enforceable control room standard which would have stopped many an important and influential act from recording and releasing anything as there would have been no independent record labels.
As it is there are no standards and to my mind that is a good thing albeit one that at times leads to sub par products from a sound quality point of view. An enforced standard would have lead to sub par products from a content point of view.
I know which situation I prefer, I wouldn't want to live in a world without Lee Perry or Guy Stevens and their productions.
Of course there's something that can be done. There are several standardization organisations and finished standards. The problem is that the music industry doesn't adopt them for whatever reason. The movie industry doesn't seem to have these problems. As a result mixes translate very well between dubbing stages and movie theaters and even home theaters. Something the music industry can only dream of. Look at this mess:
There is a standard for CDs. Did this stop anybody from releasing their music??
"There is a standard for CDs. Did this stop anybody from releasing their music??"
This is a complete non-sequitur.
What does CDs software standard have to do with control room building standards?
The RIAA phono eq standard didn't stop anybody from sending their stereo masters to the pressing plant either, neither did the CD redbook standard.
The film industry is pretty much still under complete corporate control, very much unlike music. Another non-sequitur.
This is a complete non-sequitur.
What does CDs software standard have to do with control room building standards?
The RIAA phono eq standard didn't stop anybody from sending their stereo masters to the pressing plant either, neither did the CD redbook standard.
The film industry is pretty much still under complete corporate control, very much unlike music. Another non-sequitur.
Why would the definition of something like "reference level" be problematic? And, I didn't talk about building standards but about standardizing certain parameters (for example a target curve that would remedy the desaster that can be seen in the Genelec graphs above). How (and if) a studio achieves it is up to them.
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LOL. If there would be a widely spread cultural phenomena of music theatres where people would pay 10€ to be able to sit one hour to listen through one predetermined music recording, the situation could be different.
This could be called Musima in contrast of Cinema. At least on musima should exist in all towns accross the globe.
Then perhaps there would be standards regarding stereo reproduction.
Luckily we are not in that situation yet. Days of totalitarism are over (at least for temporarily).
- Elias
If it is up to the studio if it adheres to the standard or not we would be in exactly the same situation we are in now and nothing would be gained at all.
The Musima exists, it's called "Symphony Hall". And people even spend more than €10 to go there. Some people even try to re-create the sound at home with all sorts of "unconventional" means.
Is calibrating a monitor also totalitarism to you?
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I remember a few years ago I asked a small local studio to comment on a pair of my active speakers under development, and got a response that they sounded very much like NS10. The main problem was when they adjust the bass, they could not hear the amount of change corresponding to the adjustment. They loved the NS10, but with that kind of limitation plus the amount of bass adjustment in the type of music they were doing, their customers complained about the results. The drop in high frequency was more acceptable, but I found it interesting that there are other factors that effect perception of the high frequency.
I do calibrate my TV and it's pretty easy to see which "studio" messed up.
If it involves any method of enforcement then yes it would be totalitarian.
On the plus side NS10s would disappear overnight but that would make many big name producers very unhappy indeed so again a non-starter.
Then we seriously need to re-think the use of speech, let alone learning to write
I have never found theater audio systems convincing. At most we can say exciting or surprising.Of course there's something that can be done. There are several standardization organisations and finished standards. The problem is that the music industry doesn't adopt them for whatever reason. The movie industry doesn't seem to have these problems. As a result mixes translate very well between dubbing stages and movie theaters and even home theaters. Something the music industry can only dream of. Look at this mess:
There is a standard for CDs. Did this stop anybody from releasing their music??
No problem Markus, here in the US our schools seem to teach neither. From many of the ideas in this forum, they don't teach physics either. Hmmm, the don't seem to teach logical thinking come to think about it.
Such little things like a producers preference for eq seems trivial when they can't even deliver the video and sound in sync. Half the country is getting half-scan cable stretched to wide format and don't know the difference. So they produce to the audience.
Such little things like a producers preference for eq seems trivial when they can't even deliver the video and sound in sync. Half the country is getting half-scan cable stretched to wide format and don't know the difference. So they produce to the audience.
Human hearing is evolved in a reflective environment and we can deal with lots of reflections. Except when the reflections deviate to much from the direct sound, witch happens with conventional speakers.
Conventional studio monitors do not work well in reflective environments, so there are 2 solutions: 1 keep using conventional speakers and use a dead room or 2 adapt the speakers to the living environment. JW opts for the 2th.
The problem with the dead room approach is that it forces the consumer to adopt a similar listening environment. Something that will never happen because a fairly dead room is not a pleasant place to be in.
And if you have a fairly dead room the few reflections of your mixing desk or coffee table will cause very serious comb filtering.
If you must have a standardised control room it should have the RT60 of the average living room with its reflections evenly spaced across the frequency band.
Conventional studio monitors do not work well in reflective environments, so there are 2 solutions: 1 keep using conventional speakers and use a dead room or 2 adapt the speakers to the living environment. JW opts for the 2th.
The problem with the dead room approach is that it forces the consumer to adopt a similar listening environment. Something that will never happen because a fairly dead room is not a pleasant place to be in.
And if you have a fairly dead room the few reflections of your mixing desk or coffee table will cause very serious comb filtering.
If you must have a standardised control room it should have the RT60 of the average living room with its reflections evenly spaced across the frequency band.
This just happens to be one of those discussions or arguments, depends on your perspective that nobody can win. We have a multivariate problem here with anarchy thrown in as an exponent. While a classically trained recording engineer working in a high end studio has one way of doing things, a band recording in there own space has no idea of the standard practices that should be followed. We have no standards for not only the room to record in but the frequency response curve of the playback system. Then throw in the situation with consumers of the music and it is again anarchy. Creating music that can be played on our high end systems and optimized rooms or even speaker placement have nothing to do with the mass of consumers who are listening to music on cheap earbuds. Then we have the major manufacturers selling speakers, B..e. comes to mind that remove so much information from the music what is an engineer to do. I see the proliferation of higher priced headphones as perhaps a good thing, if they just sounded half as good as what an old set of decent headphones sounded like, The new crop of so called studio headphones for the consumer are pretty bad to my ears anyway. So who are you trying to hit with your music mix, the few audiophile types, hate to use that term, or the masses listening to MP3 sound on there cell phones and earbuds. Who do you think is buying the most music, it sure isn't us who they are trying to please, we are to few and far between to have much influence except for the smaller boutique producers that are not producing the hit records today. When anarchy rules nobody rules, that is the only given here.
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Then we seriously need to re-think the use of speech, let alone learning to write
Is there a point to this comment?
If so please elucidate me!
soongsc,
That is a nice reference there of the Genelec monitors. Just goes to show you how great a difference there is in control rooms. The range of response curves is fairly wide. Yes you could eq the room response so most would be the same, the live rooms would be the most problem though. We also have to remember that were the monitors are sitting are going to change things also. When those Genelec monitors are on a stand verses sitting on top of the console you will have very different direct to reflected mixes going on. At least they aren't NC10's, they are much better than that. And when you go out to the car to listen is that a generic car stereo or perhaps a JBL, Harmon, Pioneer, Bose or what? Another can of worms there.
That is a nice reference there of the Genelec monitors. Just goes to show you how great a difference there is in control rooms. The range of response curves is fairly wide. Yes you could eq the room response so most would be the same, the live rooms would be the most problem though. We also have to remember that were the monitors are sitting are going to change things also. When those Genelec monitors are on a stand verses sitting on top of the console you will have very different direct to reflected mixes going on. At least they aren't NC10's, they are much better than that. And when you go out to the car to listen is that a generic car stereo or perhaps a JBL, Harmon, Pioneer, Bose or what? Another can of worms there.
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