Ok it's easily doable: we must find some royalty free spoken word text in english ( i would not impose my accent and pronunciation to anyone... could be seen as some kind of punishment!)... maybe a native spoking member could read some poetry or any classical book.
How long are each tracks?
How long are each tracks?
Hold on to your ears and try not to get a neck twist when you try to find out where the sounds are happening. That guy is a genius at spatial cues.
Just that text (lol) "far left" and so on.
I've often used the tracks from the animated movie Rango for placement in Home Theatre, as their imaging is wonderful. We could use snippets of that I suppose.
Spoken word, like: Left, far Left, Extreme far left, left mid, far left mid extreme far left mid, center, far center etc.
As there is no standardization of how a stereo recording should image ( except maybe a binaural recording) all efforts to get this 'perfect' are kind of a waste of time
Just enjoy whatever lucky combination of your room acoustics combined with your speakers and all the magic the recording engineer put into it ends up in a nice 'image'.
Have you read the paper from Dr. Griesinger? Sadly that other source is long gone, but the papers that page referred to say the same thing. The low notes in imaging don't spread out as far as they should while the higher notes may even spread out to far, hence an 'S-curve like' mid/side EQ to restore that balance.
It has been the base of all tweaks that followed for me. It is night and day how much "fuller" and "more real" the background vocals sound after these tweaks. The tonal balance between side panned sounds and phantom center sounds is restored and it ends up in a more "believable" rendition of the songs played. On top of that, it creates space for each individual sound and imaging is improved.(*) And not just for a couple of songs.
I don't mind the imaging I get right now, in fact, I love it. What I want to do is see (or rather hear) if the tweaks that are responsible for that sound did indeed line up bass notes with higher notes as far as imaging goes.
If it doesn't? Lesson learned. But if it does, or even somewhat restores the positional balance of low and high notes it would at least be an explanation of why this sounds so much more compelling to me. Plus it would bring an opportunity to tune for that specifically.
Either way, I'll continue to enjoy it. But curiosity is a strange thing, and thus far has brought me quite a bit of joy and improvements...
(*) How many times have you read that if one takes EQ too far or if one treats the room too much, the whole thing becomes dull and less interesting. I say they simply stopped too soon and should have asked the question: why? I did and got great rewards. It's save to say my room is far from dull though. I still have a lively room, just less strong (early) reflections at the listening area.
It has been the base of all tweaks that followed for me. It is night and day how much "fuller" and "more real" the background vocals sound after these tweaks. The tonal balance between side panned sounds and phantom center sounds is restored and it ends up in a more "believable" rendition of the songs played. On top of that, it creates space for each individual sound and imaging is improved.(*) And not just for a couple of songs.
I don't mind the imaging I get right now, in fact, I love it. What I want to do is see (or rather hear) if the tweaks that are responsible for that sound did indeed line up bass notes with higher notes as far as imaging goes.
If it doesn't? Lesson learned. But if it does, or even somewhat restores the positional balance of low and high notes it would at least be an explanation of why this sounds so much more compelling to me. Plus it would bring an opportunity to tune for that specifically.
Either way, I'll continue to enjoy it. But curiosity is a strange thing, and thus far has brought me quite a bit of joy and improvements...
(*) How many times have you read that if one takes EQ too far or if one treats the room too much, the whole thing becomes dull and less interesting. I say they simply stopped too soon and should have asked the question: why? I did and got great rewards. It's save to say my room is far from dull though. I still have a lively room, just less strong (early) reflections at the listening area.
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I wanted to have my cake and eat it. I wanted it all at once! It seems we always had to pick one or the other.
Remove early reflections and imaging improves, yet some of the traits of those reflections will be gone too. If you're in luck just a little bit with a good enough room, the reflections will give you a level of excitement and a feel of space. I did notice the absence of reflections to have some advantages too though. The clarity it brought and more believable imaging. The "stage" varied with songs played, instead of the opposite; the room with reflections, that kind of pours the same sauce on every thing you play. Spacious, but the same recipe on every song.
But that feel of excitement is fun too! And we want dynamics, don't we? In short, my quest was build on getting all those 'finer' elements into one setup. I've ran many tests, more than I've written down here (and that is saying a lot, lol) to learn and understand what each element needs, to present itself to our susceptibel brain. After all, it's only an illusion, but a fun one! I regard it as my "job" to make it easier on the brain to tap into that illusion.
For that, the studies of Dr. David Griesinger are excellent food for thought. Although he did write about Stereo in rooms, much of his work is on perception alone, things like intelligibility and psycho-acoustics, envelopment with the goal of improving the joy of the experience. The effect of (great) halls and how to improve them etc. One only needs to listen to a Lexicon Reverb to understand this man really knows how this game works.
Just typing this down for the casual reader, I can understand perfectly well that not all will take the time nor the effort to read this whole thread.
Remove early reflections and imaging improves, yet some of the traits of those reflections will be gone too. If you're in luck just a little bit with a good enough room, the reflections will give you a level of excitement and a feel of space. I did notice the absence of reflections to have some advantages too though. The clarity it brought and more believable imaging. The "stage" varied with songs played, instead of the opposite; the room with reflections, that kind of pours the same sauce on every thing you play. Spacious, but the same recipe on every song.
But that feel of excitement is fun too! And we want dynamics, don't we? In short, my quest was build on getting all those 'finer' elements into one setup. I've ran many tests, more than I've written down here (and that is saying a lot, lol) to learn and understand what each element needs, to present itself to our susceptibel brain. After all, it's only an illusion, but a fun one! I regard it as my "job" to make it easier on the brain to tap into that illusion.
For that, the studies of Dr. David Griesinger are excellent food for thought. Although he did write about Stereo in rooms, much of his work is on perception alone, things like intelligibility and psycho-acoustics, envelopment with the goal of improving the joy of the experience. The effect of (great) halls and how to improve them etc. One only needs to listen to a Lexicon Reverb to understand this man really knows how this game works.
Just typing this down for the casual reader, I can understand perfectly well that not all will take the time nor the effort to read this whole thread
.
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Neh, it's http://www.davidgriesinger.com/spatialization_and_loc.doc
If the link does not work, just right click on it and choose 'save link as'.
But many many more are worth reading too!
If the link does not work, just right click on it and choose 'save link as'.
But many many more are worth reading too!
As there is no standardization of how a stereo recording should image ( except maybe a binaural recording) all efforts to get this 'perfect' are kind of a waste of time
From where do you get there is no 'standardization' of how a recording image?
It's just untrue: how could we hence define the artefacts existing in the different mic couples types/family if it didn't exist?
Of course if you just listen to multimiced production pan pot and haas effect can blur things but even an overhead couple in drum mic can gives you info on stereo and image...
Once you try recording in stereo and compare the different techniques it become obvious you can identify the different type of rendering and the artefacts they brings ( hence standards on how each should 'sound').
To tell the truth i'm bothering Wesayso to try this by himself for some times now: it's the only way to have reference regarding imaging and stereo: being present during recording HE made so have direct comparison with reality.
That said it's not as easy as it seems as you need to first identify each rendering and associated artefacts of mics couples, then compare this to recording you made, etc,etc,...
It takes time, commitment and investment ( small capsule multipolar mic couple and associated preamp, converters, adc, cables, stands,..). I totally get someone doesn't want to go this way...
As well if the rendering he gets his stisfying to him why bother? As long as you are satisfied and doesn't need this.
If you wanna dig ( a bit, it's an introduction...) you can read this and focus on SRA, angular distortion, angular compression and things like that. As you'll see there is recommendation about how to set up loudspeakers and such.
And Mr Williams was no kidding about 'true stereo' recordings and his own setup: he is the 'one other independant implementation' of C.I.D. acoustic concept Robert Walker talk about in his BBC paper describing the principle ( acoustic treatments focusing on improving stereo rendering, published 1995 in BBC librarie of whitepapers).
https://mymic.rycote.com/uploadresources/images/The_Stereophonic_Zoom.pdf
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Sure recording ( especially 'true stereo') is a whole rabbit hole in itself.
But please apologize Wesayso, i don't buy the 'one has to know his limit' argument from you, you exposed many times in here your limits are way ahead....
Anyway, it's for teasing you. As i previously said i totally get someone doesn't want go this way.
But please apologize Wesayso, i don't buy the 'one has to know his limit' argument from you, you exposed many times in here your limits are way ahead....
Anyway, it's for teasing you. As i previously said i totally get someone doesn't want go this way.