It's funny the musical roads one comes along - I never got into ELP, no particular reason why not; one day I will have to sample it, see what the fuss is about ...
Along the lines of what you're talking about is Deep Purple's Machine Head - strangely enough, Smoke on The Water is probably the least interesting item on that album - there is a track on it where the Hammond starts to scream in agony, it sounds like it's tearing itself apart, an enthralling lead break that sends real shivers up your spine when it comes out well,
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It's funny the musical roads one comes along - I never got into ELP, no particular reason why not; one day I will have to sample it, see what the fuss is about ...
Along the lines of what you're talking about is Deep Purple's Machine Head - strangely enough, Smoke on The Water is probably the least interesting item on that album - there is a track on it where the Hammond starts to scream in agony, it sounds like it's tearing itself apart, an enthralling lead break that sends real shivers up your spine when it comes out well,
Yes, it can be a bit off.
In the early 70ies, I acquired an LP with the music from the movie "Ned Kelly", starring Mick Jagger. That's when I first heard one Waylon Jennings and inside an hour became a fan and a collector I have stayed until this day. Even better, my wife, who had never heard of him before, is now also a fan.
I had never even heard of the Incredible String Band until a friend played one of the LPs for me.
But, sometimes I was ahead of times. Until his smash hit "Streets of London", few had heard of Ralh McTell outside dedicated folk circles in the UK. But I had, again courtesy of a friend who pointed him out to me, and years before the smash hit I was listening to him. Also to Steeleye Span, long before they hit the charts with "All Around My Hat". Not to even mention the great Scottish composer/singer Bert Jansch.
Life is funny sometimes, but generally, it's all for the better.
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You're the man, Dejan,
Gotcha, Frank!!!
I simply KNEW you'd latch on to that one. The problem with that track is that it requires really top notch reproduction to deliver the ambience, almost oozing evil. If one misses that, what's left is a relatively run-off-the-mill piece from those times, nothing to write home about.
I have heard it reproduced by many a system, most of which fell pitifully short of getting the ambience right, which left quite a few people wondering why was I so bent on it.
The lucky few ripped it at once.
The Citation 24 manages to get that ambience just right, and it being a very fast amplifier with excellent timing, it will get the goosepimples to come out. It takes a brute to get that one right.
P.S. Jesus Frank, you must be as ancient as I am to even know of this track!
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Worse!! I'm an "elder", by a year's worth ... !P.S. Jesus Frank, you must be as ancient as I am to even know of this track!
BTW, another beauty I rediscovered fairly recently was CCS - The Band Played the Boogie ... big, big, big, driving, big band sound, tremendous punch, dynamics, it's got the lot! This is the one to play at 11, has to be 100% clean - should blow the roof off!
Actually, I believe it was in the 70-0es, there was a CAD called PC-ECAP which apparently was a port from that original.
I think I even reviewed it for Audio Amateur at the time.
There was no gui but you typed in the netlist, then got some graphs as output that you could print on the - of course - matrix printer!
I used it to graph the passive output filter for my discrete I/V converter for a Philips DAC.....
jan
Hi,
That does ring a vague bell. (Only the lonely?)
But, and this may surprise you, I did play a lot of Supersister, Arlequin along with Focus, Ekseption (who hasn't?), another Dutch group with an odd Persian name which I can't quite recall (Iskander or something similar?) back in those years.
Spent quite a few of the school holidays on the Sloterplas (close to A'dam) sailing with my cousin in those days.
Tempus fugit,
That does ring a vague bell. (Only the lonely?)
But, and this may surprise you, I did play a lot of Supersister, Arlequin along with Focus, Ekseption (who hasn't?), another Dutch group with an odd Persian name which I can't quite recall (Iskander or something similar?) back in those years.
Spent quite a few of the school holidays on the Sloterplas (close to A'dam) sailing with my cousin in those days.
Tempus fugit,
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Very well known downunder, Jan - their big hit was "Total Control", a slow ballad with a very distinctive rhythm guitar accompaniment, very effective ...
I had heard of ECAP in the early 1970's. You would prepare a file and run it on a timeshared computer hoping for the best. If you had access to a mainframe you could obviously have more control but access to computers was difficult then. Its why Z80, 8086 and Apple computers became so popular so fast.
Pretty much all of the current simulators start with Berkeley's SPICE and then wrap UI's and additional features, solvers etc. on to them. That's why you can take models from one and use them in another. They are all way easier to use than the early ones like PSpice was. I really have not seen a problem that LTspice was not adequate to. I'm sure IC design has requirements beyond but for discrete + IC it seems more than adequate.
My friend Martyn Miles went to meet Gordon Lightfoot. Not only did the great man say hello all of Canada greeted Martyn it seems. Martyn had just lost his son so it was a trip to calm his soul.
The point I was trying to make is real sound is not that difficult. It is when we want it to be great sound that it starts to be difficult. I have that reasonably right now. I see a day when Colleen will get the Maggie's and I use just use the OB. It's the excitement and the OB's which are not too far from the truth. It's my ears that might loose out. An 8 watt valve amp would be as much as I should be allowed. If I were to have 20 watts I can get my 110 dB if not using EQ.
Calculating an ideal 250 Hz baffle it is still large. To make it a domestic version will still need EQ. As I use a PA driver there is no bottoming on most music. If I put in a 15 Hz filter it might be none. 50 watts seems enough to use + 16 dB 30 Hz.
808 State is worth a try. At the other end of the scales Vaughan Williams The March of the Kitchen Utensils. When I was very young I could compose music in my head. This was years before I ever heard Vaughan Williams. It was very similar music. I guess being English is more than we know and that will go for all places. That ability vanished. The tune so like the one I mention is primitive by comparison and now a faded memory. I would describe it as walking down a country lane. It has violin which I wouldn't have known at that age. I would describe it as dreaming whilst awake. I would have been less than three years old when music was so easy for me. I did learn music. I have no passion for it as a mechanical process. Hi fi started age four to thirteen and now nearly sixty just starts to be something I understand. What I know is like having many books and some are not in a common language. Even books on motorcycle engineering are musically important and the harmonics of diesel engines ( yes ). Did you know that diesel engines are about as efficient as jets!!! The reason is simple. The jet engine must survive birds being sucked in. One day this will be solved and the jet engine will show it''s true ability. In a car it could. The jet engine is isothermal which is a requirement for high efficiency. The diesel engine vibration robs it of power! It is a sine-wave output with one in four movements a square-wave. A better recipe for disaster it is hard to think of.
The point I was trying to make is real sound is not that difficult. It is when we want it to be great sound that it starts to be difficult. I have that reasonably right now. I see a day when Colleen will get the Maggie's and I use just use the OB. It's the excitement and the OB's which are not too far from the truth. It's my ears that might loose out. An 8 watt valve amp would be as much as I should be allowed. If I were to have 20 watts I can get my 110 dB if not using EQ.
Calculating an ideal 250 Hz baffle it is still large. To make it a domestic version will still need EQ. As I use a PA driver there is no bottoming on most music. If I put in a 15 Hz filter it might be none. 50 watts seems enough to use + 16 dB 30 Hz.
808 State is worth a try. At the other end of the scales Vaughan Williams The March of the Kitchen Utensils. When I was very young I could compose music in my head. This was years before I ever heard Vaughan Williams. It was very similar music. I guess being English is more than we know and that will go for all places. That ability vanished. The tune so like the one I mention is primitive by comparison and now a faded memory. I would describe it as walking down a country lane. It has violin which I wouldn't have known at that age. I would describe it as dreaming whilst awake. I would have been less than three years old when music was so easy for me. I did learn music. I have no passion for it as a mechanical process. Hi fi started age four to thirteen and now nearly sixty just starts to be something I understand. What I know is like having many books and some are not in a common language. Even books on motorcycle engineering are musically important and the harmonics of diesel engines ( yes ). Did you know that diesel engines are about as efficient as jets!!! The reason is simple. The jet engine must survive birds being sucked in. One day this will be solved and the jet engine will show it''s true ability. In a car it could. The jet engine is isothermal which is a requirement for high efficiency. The diesel engine vibration robs it of power! It is a sine-wave output with one in four movements a square-wave. A better recipe for disaster it is hard to think of.
Hmmm ... "real sound is not that difficult" and "when we want it to be great sound that it starts to be difficult" - I find it very difficult to understand what that means ... for a start, a count of systems that I've encountered, other than my own at times, that do "real sound" leave a few fingers on one hand untouched ...
It's easy. In real life often the acoustics are not that great and the seat also might be so so. To exceed that sound is not difficult. OK little things that have nothing to do with sound can not be faked. Even people either side of me is not the experience I seek at a concert.
Considering we are sunk before we start we do get OK sound. It is like thinking the cinema is real life. If it were we could see behind if we choose and above.
Now the bad things. Two microphones held over the orchestra will capture sound only the conductor might hear. Oxford town hall never sounds as good as the recording I made. It is faster and more dynamic than the soup the public get. OK a sting quartet might be different. Recorded sound has no choice, it is selective. Out of this comes a surreal sound which is often preferable. Not to me as I like the warts of real sound. Most people seem to hate it. If not recording companies would serve their needs. From my own experience getting the warts is not difficult. People don't like it and record companies even less like it.
Hi Fi out of need enhances the sound. If not something neither accurate nor pleasant results. The ultimate rabbit is to suit all music. A gigantic surplus of power and some refinement seems to be what it needs. 1950's cinema sound with some refinement is about right.
You only have to stand in the corner of a room then move forward to hear sound changes to speech. Mostly we don't hear it as it is commonplace. Our brains says yes that always happens thus OK . If we set up a cheap tape recorder and record a friend in a quite restaurant on playback we hear everyone else. For some reason we can filter real sound and not recorded sound. With that being true what chance does hi fi have? Do the restaurant test. If you try very hard all the junk of other peoples conversions is clearly heard. For some reason being real we seem to change it in our heads. I supect it is real 3 D and that helps. Not a bi mono snap shot as in a View-master 3D viewer.
The one thing I could never capture even in the dreadful Oxford town hall was true dynamics. A soprano will really hurt. That is something CD did worse. I doubt the microphones can give 70 dB so again we are sunk. It is a dilemma as if I can cope with 80 dB dynamic range in real life I might cope at home. DGG thought 45 dB a realistic figure. This means for Joe Average that 10 dB might be as good as it gets when all the compound errors added. Most box speakers to me start to make the 10 db into a reality. The neighbours and what they will stand finishing the job. If the Quads is better than my Maggie's it is the ability to give much music at almost no volume. 78's are not how they should be on the Quads. That is the recordings are far better than usually heard. 78's also have the warts and thus sound more real. I suspect it was the lack of hi fi monitoring that allowed the warts in?
If you wonder about warts a book on recording said a wise thing. If a starting pistol was set off in a multi microphone set up none of the signals would be in phase. Thus multi-microphones are wrong. What they give is enhancement . Alas because the phase relationships are wrong the sound is then hi fi and not real. If the source is wrong the hi fi is not able to be correct. We process phase very well. It is the primary cause of listening fatigue if the hi fi itself is innocent I have been told.
Considering we are sunk before we start we do get OK sound. It is like thinking the cinema is real life. If it were we could see behind if we choose and above.
Now the bad things. Two microphones held over the orchestra will capture sound only the conductor might hear. Oxford town hall never sounds as good as the recording I made. It is faster and more dynamic than the soup the public get. OK a sting quartet might be different. Recorded sound has no choice, it is selective. Out of this comes a surreal sound which is often preferable. Not to me as I like the warts of real sound. Most people seem to hate it. If not recording companies would serve their needs. From my own experience getting the warts is not difficult. People don't like it and record companies even less like it.
Hi Fi out of need enhances the sound. If not something neither accurate nor pleasant results. The ultimate rabbit is to suit all music. A gigantic surplus of power and some refinement seems to be what it needs. 1950's cinema sound with some refinement is about right.
You only have to stand in the corner of a room then move forward to hear sound changes to speech. Mostly we don't hear it as it is commonplace. Our brains says yes that always happens thus OK . If we set up a cheap tape recorder and record a friend in a quite restaurant on playback we hear everyone else. For some reason we can filter real sound and not recorded sound. With that being true what chance does hi fi have? Do the restaurant test. If you try very hard all the junk of other peoples conversions is clearly heard. For some reason being real we seem to change it in our heads. I supect it is real 3 D and that helps. Not a bi mono snap shot as in a View-master 3D viewer.
The one thing I could never capture even in the dreadful Oxford town hall was true dynamics. A soprano will really hurt. That is something CD did worse. I doubt the microphones can give 70 dB so again we are sunk. It is a dilemma as if I can cope with 80 dB dynamic range in real life I might cope at home. DGG thought 45 dB a realistic figure. This means for Joe Average that 10 dB might be as good as it gets when all the compound errors added. Most box speakers to me start to make the 10 db into a reality. The neighbours and what they will stand finishing the job. If the Quads is better than my Maggie's it is the ability to give much music at almost no volume. 78's are not how they should be on the Quads. That is the recordings are far better than usually heard. 78's also have the warts and thus sound more real. I suspect it was the lack of hi fi monitoring that allowed the warts in?
If you wonder about warts a book on recording said a wise thing. If a starting pistol was set off in a multi microphone set up none of the signals would be in phase. Thus multi-microphones are wrong. What they give is enhancement . Alas because the phase relationships are wrong the sound is then hi fi and not real. If the source is wrong the hi fi is not able to be correct. We process phase very well. It is the primary cause of listening fatigue if the hi fi itself is innocent I have been told.
Nigel, you've hit on precisely the behaviour I exploit when I optimise systems: ordinary recorded sound when played back is often impossible to filter in the brain, you get the "hearing everyone else as well as your friend" effect - what I work on lifts the standard so that you end up with the "I can clearly focus on my friend and move everything else in the background, effortlessly". You feel it's due to the recording process that this difference occurs, I know it's because the playback is faulty - why? Because, I can turn a recording that's working at the Viewmaster level into one that's 3D - and I've done it over and over again - it's a question of refinement of the playback chain that allows the "transformation" ...
I think this is what Michael Gerzon's 3D encoding did so well. It allowed as much or as little decoding as was practical and was stereo compatible. The funny thing is it can be remixed 1000 years later and would be as if the microphone cluster was moved to another place in the concert hall. Warts can be heard or rejected. In my car conventional works best as engine noise and speaker location are not ideal. However car stereo is a nice sound. The door pressure seals and identical layouts help a good cheap design. The battery is a good power source.
Michael Gerzon Audio Pioneer
Michael Gerzon Audio Pioneer
Oh the truth of this. I even know the instrument.
http://www.michaelgerzonphotos.org.uk/articles/Harpsichord recording article.pdf
http://www.michaelgerzonphotos.org.uk/articles/Harpsichord recording article.pdf
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