Toole says a lot of room EQ is stupid

[scottjoplin]

Demo I attended in college; guy on stage in a recital hall with two RTRs, a couple mikes (one out in the audience) and a PA. He speaks and records it on one deck, then plays that back while recording it on the other. Goes back and forth with this until all you hear is the room's sound as excited by his voice - which was completely GONE by the time he finished.

Alvin Lucier - I Am Sitting In A Room - YouTube

 

[bentoronto]

....Demo I attended in college; guy on stage in a recital hall with two RTRs, a couple mikes (one out in the audience) and a PA. He speaks and records it on one deck, then plays that back while recording it on the other. Goes back and forth with this until all you hear is the room's sound as....

The ear doesn't hear like a mic, as anyone who has a serious interest in stereo should know. For example, the mic doesn't have the Haas Effect or a whole variety of "smart" processes that result in functionally useful perception.

The fact that an interactive loop (which includes some modest speakers on a stage in every repeat) can exaggerate the challenges of ordinary hearing should come as no surprise. Your hearing can't adjust for the long time-frame echoes in a large cave, but it does just fine for all the short time-frame echoes that are always present (and loud) in a room.

Ears can't process the source. The source is the source. Ears process what the person has learned of the room, some immediately obvious to the brain and some learned over a period of being in the room.

So, within a framework of Toole's critique, we can think the ear "learns" a room (as any experienced audiophile can testify) but some sound environments are beyond the ability of ears to process successfully. So EQ'ing the source matters and some EQ'ing of the room, when it is too awful.

B.