Just one more reason to stop drinking the tube kool-aid.In case of new commercially available tube amps it means that we go into vehicle price realm.
Just one more reason to stop drinking the tube kool-aid.In case of new commercially available tube amps it means that we go into vehicle price realm.
Got bored with [in this order, more or less] the Fisher 500C, Dyna 70/PAS 3, Marantz 8b power, Audible Illusions pre. Ampex MX 10 was way too much trouble, as were Schoeps tubed microphones. I had a "starved tube" hybrid microphone preamp that had some useful limiting and rounding off of the sound. My Stax hybrid tube/JFET headphone amp/energizer never was boring. The Scott 299B was perfectly lovely playing 1950's LPs 'til the tubes gave out. Couldn't do much else with it as it didn't play well with modern gear.Understandable!
Yes.
But people don't want you to reduce their illusion and mysticism to something as simple as that.
I don't think there is anything magic going on in my tube amps. But as I said, I personally did not find it easy to simply mimic the characteristics just with an EQ.
Like it or not, all of us are living with a permanent EQ. That is the speaker, and we choose our speakers based on their colorations - no speaker is totally uncolored. Some like more high end, some like more low end, and some like combinations of both with bands of emphasis spattered through the range. But make no mistake, we are already living with coloration and lack of 'neutrality' whether we acknowledge it or not. As long as we wiggle physical things back and forth to produce sound, this state of affairs is unlikely to change significantly.
Then there is the room which layers on a whole 'nother bunch of colorations.
A 'flatter' speaker does not have to be 'boring', and a speaker with wildly fluctuating response is not necessarily 'more fun'.
I don't think there is anything magic going on in my tube amps. But as I said, I personally did not find it easy to simply mimic the characteristics just with an EQ.
Actually contemporary loudspeakers are pretty much transparent, given that they include the ability to adjust for the room’s additions.Like it or not, all of us are living with a permanent EQ. That is the speaker, and we choose our speakers based on their colorations - no speaker is totally uncolored. Some like more high end, some like more low end, and some like combinations of both with bands of emphasis spattered through the range. But make no mistake, we are already living with coloration and lack of 'neutrality' whether we acknowledge it or not. As long as we wiggle physical things back and forth to produce sound, this state of affairs is unlikely to change significantly.
Then there is the room which layers on a whole 'nother bunch of colorations.
A 'flatter' speaker does not have to be 'boring', and a speaker with wildly fluctuating response is not necessarily 'more fun'.
If the frequency response isn't a straight line, it ain't completely transparent.Actually contemporary loudspeakers are pretty much transparent, given that they include the ability to adjust for the room’s additions.
Keith
If the frequency response isn't a straight line, it ain't completely transparent.
Which raises the question, when a solo violinist is recorded and played back in studio conditions, should it sound like that violinist playing that violin in that studio, or your (romanticised?) idea of what a violin "should" sound like, probably achieved by "aggressive equalisation"?As typical real instrument sounds. Most of them are really bad in nearfield without aggressive equalization.
It depends on the intent. If the violin is playing a classical piece then the objective would be to have it sound as natural as possible and probably no EQ would be used. If its playing as background to some song, then it will sound the way the engineer determines that will blend with the other tracks.Which raises the question, when a solo violinist is recorded and played back in studio conditions, should it sound like that violinist playing that violin in that studio, or your (romanticised?) idea of what a violin "should" sound like, probably achieved by "aggressive equalisation"?
Note the loaded language - I tend towards one of the choices, obviously.
The answer, surely, should be somewhat more nuanced - the real answer is that there are reasons why that performer played and interpreted that music when that recording took place, and that the recording's job is to allow us to listen and respond to the performance on our domestic playback systems.
Nice answer, though it shows a tendency of people on forums like this to go straight to a practicality when faced with a more abstract or philosophical question.It depends on the intent. If the violin is playing a classical piece then the objective would be to have it sound as natural as possible and probably no EQ would be used. If its playing as background to some song, then it will sound the way the engineer determines that will blend with the other tracks.
Note however that microphones, like speakers, are colored intentionally, some more or less than others. Microphones for recording music (as opposed to instrumentation mics used for measurements) most typically have an emphasis on the upper end of the audio spectrum, and may have a proximity effect which boosts bass when the instrument or especially voice is close to the mic. Recording engineers pick the microphone's coloration to work well with a particular instrument, so in this sense essentially every music recording is 'equalized', either via electronic manipulation or by the character of the microphone.
I gather that you have made recordings of classical music?Nice answer, though it shows a tendency of people on forums like this to go straight to a practicality when faced with a more abstract or philosophical question.
to respond to your points:
Except in a studio creation where everything is multitracked, there should be no difference between properly capturing a "classical piece" (by which I take it you see the violin as the solo instrument) or whether the violinist is playing a part in an ensemble/group recording. Part of any musical performance is the performer's response to their surroundings and to other players in a group, and the group members (perhaps conductor when used) should be responsible for the balance, the engineer's job to capture rather than determine it.
Perhaps we should be arguing for more accurate microphones and subsequent EQ. Colouring the performance in advance of it even happening just feels wrong in an age where we now have accurate choices available..
I was speaking practically since I spent the beginning of my career as a recording engineer, initially owning my own studio (8 track 1") and freelancing doing classical and rock sessions, and ultimately working as a recording engineer at Sound City (the one they made a movie about).Nice answer, though it shows a tendency of people on forums like this to go straight to a practicality when faced with a more abstract or philosophical question.
to respond to your points:
Except in a studio creation where everything is multitracked, there should be no difference between properly capturing a "classical piece" (by which I take it you see the violin as the solo instrument) or whether the violinist is playing a part in an ensemble/group recording. Part of any musical performance is the performer's response to their surroundings and to other players in a group, and the group members (perhaps conductor when used) should be responsible for the balance, the engineer's job to capture rather than determine it.
Perhaps we should be arguing for more accurate microphones and subsequent EQ. Colouring the performance in advance of it even happening just feels wrong in an age where we now have accurate choices available..
Actually THD is a poor predictor of subjective preference.
The GedLee Metric correlates much better with subjective preference. It looks at the transfer function directly and includes weighting based on psychoacoustic principles.
After he had completed the data analysis which resulted in his AES papers on the subject, Earl remarked to me, "Duke, now I understand why you and your friends like tube amps."
I've done some field recordings with portable recorders, but nothing like what we're talking about here.I gather that you have made recordings of classical music?
Of course, I know a lot of this and still put forward the dumb version of the proposal, despite your prompting. What I'm really asking. and the question is still dumb, is whether we can get microphones that accurately (or very close) translate the sound into the studio into a form that is accurate to the average human ear, and use those. In the general case the answer is still no - microphones are no more transparent than loudspeakers.I was speaking practically since I spent the beginning of my career as a recording engineer, initially owning my own studio (8 track 1") and freelancing doing classical and rock sessions, and ultimately working as a recording engineer at Sound City (the one they made a movie about).
At any rate, you certainly don't want to use a perfectly flat microphone to record music, and there are several reasons for this. The main sonic problem with using a 'flat' microphone to record instruments is that the result will end up sounding subjectively dull and lifeless. Microphones for recording have the typically elevated high end in order to overcome this since our ears hear differently than microphones. The result will subjectively sound 'natural' rather than sounding like it has its treble boosted. This is just as true of classical sessions as it is of other types of studio recording.
Another practical reason is noise. Recording with a 'flat' microphone and subsequently boosting the high frequencies (trust me, you'd end up doing that) will increase any electronic noise from the microphone. This is especially harmful when recording classical music with its wide dynamic range (I usually recorded using three spaced omni microphones).
Perhaps most practically, when there is a studio full of musicians earning union-scale and the clock is running, you absolutely don't have time to tweak around with EQ to 'get your sound'. You have to place microphones you know will complement the instruments at hand and get on with it. Some preliminary EQ might be added here or there based on experience, but the focus of a tracking session is getting the performance down on tape (in those days) and not wasting time.