I had been a soundman for well over a decade, but I never had the feeling that the overhead mics place the cymbals higher or lower than the rest of the drum kit.
What's your take, Prof. T.?
My best (personal opinion) commercial recording of a drum kit was done with a stereo couple of mics far away in a big room. And just little pinch of close mics on each barrel (trunk ?) to add more attack and precision.
In this case, may-be some vertical informations from the room's reflexions ?
Most of the time, it is only close miking. No vertical informations, just artificial reverb and tonal corrections during the mix.
But, you are right, often a couple on the top for the cymbals. That is adding some vertical information because it takes a part of the all drums units in the same time, but at lower level ?
I have to confess, as you, I can imagine, that i never been concentrated on vertical informations during recording/mixes sessions. And not so much when I listen to music at home ;-)
Just a psychological effect that is kinda amusing and interesting.
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Tube amps tend to major on low order distortion, not high order. That is, amps bought or made by people pursuing 'tube sound'. Other tube amps have distortion low enough to be inaudible. Room reflections should not need to faked by an amplifier; they should be in the recording, as they will be if the right microphone technique is used (hint: not one mike, not lots of mikes). In any case, distortion does not simulate a time delay. I prefer listening to music, not amplifiers.johnego said:
Oh my, I haven't been called a puritan in a long time!
The Dirty Little Secret about this "puritan" stuff is anyone can be annointed, er, I mean learn it: Cargo Cult Science
This certainly explains why people want audio that "sounds good" rather than that gives accurate reproduction.
Oh, don't get me started, virtually anything is patentable, as long as it doesn't allude too strongly of being perpetual motion. There's two patents in my name assigned to BigCorp and the way it was decided on just what to patent had nothing to do with technical innovation (the manager ASKED me and the other engineer for suggestions on what to patent, and the patents don't cover anything we suggested) and everything to do with business politics and carving out as much "intellectual property" in each patent as the USPTO would allow.
If only I knew in college what a Patent Attorney gets paid vs. an "electronic design engineer" - if only I had buckled down and studied harder in college, got both EE and Law degrees and such, I could afford a Blowtorch or whatever else I might want with "all in a day's work."
This is all good stuff!
Oh, wait, I'm a puritan, I WOULD say it's all good stuff...
Recent posts here emphasize to me that not many audiophiles WANT a transparent audio system, regardless of what they say. What they want is an audio system that SOUNDS GOOD. This is often not the same.
Dare I say it, I'm reminded of newbie stereo owners who turn the tone controls to make a smiley-face eq [there's even a Wikipedia article, LOL!], because it "sounds good."
The thing about "trained hearing" is one doesn't train ears, one trains the mind.
It must have been 20+ years ago I first saw Dave Moulton's ear-training CD set for sale (I hesitate to mention the name of the product, as the phrase is often used in a derrogatory way), and probably several times I've almost pulled the trigger on it. But one of my fears has been I would "lose enjoyment of music" if I learned all that stuff. The truth is I've always heard and been annoyed by overcompression and such in modern music production, so that fear doesn't really matter - and I'll always enjoy live unamplified music.
"Oh, but it complements the cable elevators so well."The funny part about this is I’ll bet if you look behind all the objectivists system I’m gonna wager over 50% have high end cables......only difference is they will be there for some other reason than they sound better!
“Oh, they were a gift, it would be rude not to use them”
“Oh, the snakeskin looks so cool”
“Oh, they lay so nice”
Etc.........
"Actually, I reserve the 12-gauge zip cord for my GOOD system."
Sorry to say this, but are-you attempting to give lessons at all the sound engineers in the world ? It looks like you do not have the single idea of all the the ways which things are happening in the real world of producing records.
All the sound engineers in the world, and most of them are not totally stupid or unwashed, use, more or less, the same technics.
And we all agree on those because they are the ones that work the best for each purposes.
The purposes varies, the techniques used for them varies, most of us had experienced near all of them. Very often, we use close miking, and "lot of mics". For very good reasons. Too much work to teach-you those.
You can even see, in this forum, that all the professionals implied in recording mixing, P.A. systems etc. totally agree on most of the things concerning audio. Avoiding to give lessons, but, on the contrary, trying to learn more and more. And even the electronic designers that had contacts with the pro recording audio world. Like J.C.
We just add our personal pinch of salt and tricks that makes the differences between us, using our ears, our talents and tastes, not numbers.
And we, and our families, live(d) on that. No right to lot of mistakes.
So why don't you try to listen and learn instead of preaching for things that are utopian and unreal ?
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During my university years I had a chance to spend several weeks in Supraphon recording studios and to participate in several recordings of classical music (only classical music, no pop, no rock).
The team at the recording session consisted of 3 people:
- Recording Supervisor [Musical Direction] was responsible for the precision of musical part - partiture etc.
- Sound director, sound engineer was responsible for resulting sound, choice of miking, mixing etc., but always was an expert in partiture reading as well
- Sound technician was responsible for technical part like working microphones, cables, operated the tape recorder etc.
But both sound director and sound engineer did care about numbers as well, audio paths had to be as perfect as possible. Many remarkable recordings were made in Supraphon. So yes, good ears, knowledge of music, talent was needed, but engineering skills and understanding of "numbers" were requested as well. So please let's not underestimate one or second part.
There is no vertical information in a stereo pair of mics. If you point the pair straight ahead at a source and then tilt it up and down do you think the image in the speakers moves up and down? How? There is no difference in the direct signal between the 2 mics at anytime, the tone will change with cardiods but the position won't. And you know if this did work it would be used all the time.
Human evolution suggests that we are tuned for incoming threats from the front, the side and from below - not from above - except in modern warfare. Or perhaps in olden times when there was a real risk of having ones head ripped off by a passing giant orc, or even a dragon.
OK, timbre (or tonality) of sound above the horizontal within an acoustic environment determines its positioning far more than its 3D spatiality within a twin mic stereo recording.
And to no one in particular ...... geez.
It's to do with the fact that there are two speakers in the horizontal plane, it doesn't matter how the recording was done
Pavel, I know you can perceive more subtle difference than I. What does a a reasonably good microphone miss? While not as accurate with both ears, I seem to have no problem finding the location of a sound source in 3D space with one ear while having a plug covering the other.It seems you are unable to transfer one-dimensional v(t) microphone output into 3D acoustical imaging? Then you are no audiophile!
Most of the time, yes, but not always.
One time, my former associate of my former live sound company was doing a German avant-garde band at an open air festival. I saw him carefully deploying the Neumann's and the AKG's, all mucho $$$ static mics, so I said: "What do you think you're doing?". He said: "The tone, man!".
The band came on stage, started banging on oil cans for a while, then splashed gasoline all over the place and set the stage on fire. We ran up and tried to save what we could. Luckily, there were no major casualties.
Blame the forum bug that references to the wrong page when using another setting than 10 posts per page.
Corrected link:https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/the...wtorch-preamplifier-iii-2012.html#post5803601
As for vertical cues in a stereo signal played back by speakers:
Of course it can contain those, like any other cues that are not on the connecting line between speakers. Just encode the signal with the proper HRTF manipulation. Ever heard of Q-Sound?
It does not work extremely well, but it works to some extent, the less reflections there are the better, and of course it works only when sitting in the sweet-spot.
Yep, I go along with what you say. Not all that bothered with a wide 3D soundstage as an effect, though. It has its uses, but it gets a bit tiring. What I prefer is the most subtle illusory stereo effect that gives music body within the room. And that can be done with a single mono speaker most of the time. Or like I have with two guitar amps stacked on top of each other with a stereo chorus pedal between them, set to subtle to move the air around a bit.
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