Live versus mastered recording

[Vince2]

I was fortunate to be able to attend a live concert of Mahler second symphony yesterday. It was spectacular, and I had to admit that I had never been able to hear such an impactful performance through my respectable home audio system. I was fine with that, gave me a good reason to deal with the inconvenience of going to a concert. To my surprise I noticed that the concert was recorded and available on Vimeo. Vimeo/event/3327968
Playing the recording was eye opening. On my system I was able to realistically approximate my experience from the night before, with similar sound stage and dynamic range. Had to turn my system up to listen in the 70 dB range, but the loud pieces came through without distortion and full impact. Conclusion: recording quality matters more then I realized. The musicians were students, many playing this piece for the first time, but listening to the recording had a bigger impact than any of the reputable recordings. Do you concur?

 

[goat76]

Before I watch the video, I just want to point out that visionary cues extending your experience can be at play here, and maybe your good memories of the real event.

Do you have some examples of reputable recordings I can compare this recording with?

 

[fpitas]

Every recording has a recording engineer, and is mastered before release. That simply means someone listens critically and adjusts EQ for the best effect.

 

[Trell]

Every recording has a recording engineer, and is mastered before release. That simply means someone listens critically and adjusts EQ for the best effect.

You mean hopefully someone listened critically and actually acted on that.

 

[fpitas]

You mean hopefully someone listened critically and actually acted on that.

Lol! It has a good chance of happening with classical. Those guys are pretty serious about the recording integrity.

 

[Trell]

Lol! It has a good chance of happening with classical. Those guys are pretty serious about the recording integrity.

Most of my multichannel SACD falls in that category, with some outliers.

 

[Spocko]

You mean hopefully someone listened critically and actually acted on that.

Creator's intent (purely subjective as to how the mixer thinks the piece should be experienced) comes into play here for sure. If your listening preferences match the mastering team, then you win!

 

[Trell]

Creator's intent (purely subjective as to how the mixer thinks the piece should be experienced) comes into play here for sure. If your listening preferences match the mastering team, then you win!

I’ve a number of records where the musical content is great but the mixing/mastering is just plain bad. I’m sure you can find similar in your own collection.

 

[DVDdoug]

I'm not a classical music fan but there have been some "direct" classical recordings with no processing. I don't know how common it is. I think most of them use a few "spot mics" with some real-time mixing. Spot mics and "sound reinforcement" is also commonly used live.

I've also read that there are a few uncompressed jazz recordings. The rumor is that most classical recordings are much less compressed than popular music and I believe it. I've got a couple of "modern" big band recordings with plenty of dynamic range where a trumpet blast makes me jump out of my chair! (Also not my usual genre.)

I was fortunate to be able to attend a live concert of Mahler second symphony yesterday. It was spectacular, and I had to admit that I had never been able to hear such an impactful performance through my respectable home audio system.

The reverberation in a concert hall is a big part of it. The same amount of reverb from speakers in your living room usually "doesn't sound right". The mics are usually set-up near the orchestra for more direct sound rather than a normal or "optimum" seating position.

Most CDs would probably sound awesome in concert hall (although dense heavy metal would probably turn to mush).

I've had my speakers in a "dance hall" a couple of times for DJ gigs and they sound WAY better in a big room with some natural reverb.

 

[Vince2]

Before I watch the video, I just want to point out that visionary cues extending your experience can be at play here, and maybe your good memories of the real event.

Do you have some examples of reputable recordings I can compare this recording with?

Mahler: the symphonies Leonard Bernstein

 

[sarumbear]

You mean hopefully someone listened critically and actually acted on that.

They have listened and acted on it but their taste is different to ours. The world have changed, and tastes went along.

 

[LTig]

In the pandemic our local opera house streamed a ballet with live music. I watched it with beamer and my main system (active 2.1) and the dynamic of the audio stream was breathtaking - better than any recording of classical music I've heard before. I think the engineers applied only minor compression.

 

[LTig]

Before I watch the video, I just want to point out that visionary cues extending your experience can be at play here, and maybe your good memories of the real event.

+1. There is another thing I've noticed with live music: Somehow it opens my mind to new music, meaning I listen to it, like it and buy a CD I'd never had bought listening to the same music when recorded.

 

[Trell]

They have listened and acted on it but their taste is different to ours. The world have changed, and tastes went along.

That’s a nice excuse for producing shoddy work: Anything goes as it’s just different tastes.

 

[goat76]

That’s a nice excuse for producing shoddy work: Anything goes as it’s just different tastes.

I have no problem if a bit of reduction has been done to the dynamic of some of the elements in a mix, sometimes that is needed if sound objects with completely different dynamic natures are gonna work together in a crowded and dense mix.

What I’m against is all types of dynamic reductions made to the complete 2-channel mix. That kind of compression or limitation is just applied to make the music louder which the user's own volume control should solve, and I’m sure there’s not a single listener who will prefer the low dynamic sound over the sound that got the dynamics intact, at least not as long as they compare them at the same level.

 

[sarumbear]

That’s a nice excuse for producing shoddy work: Anything goes as it’s just different tastes.

Do you call this recording a shoddy work?

If you can tolerate the genre, listen to the entire album. With my ex-Abbey Road ears I haven't heard any "shoddy" recording on any track?

 

[goat76]

Do you call this recording a shoddy work?

If you can tolerate the genre, listen to the entire album. With my ex-Abbey Road ears I haven't heard any "shoddy" recording on any track?

There's probably nothing wrong with the recording itself, but the dynamics killed in the mastering stage were pretty "shoddy" and unnecessary. I would have loved to hear the raw mix of that recording, which should sound way better than the finished record.

 

[sarumbear]

There's probably nothing wrong with the recording itself, but the dynamics killed in the mastering stage were pretty "shoddy" and unnecessary.

If they haven’t crushed the dynamics the tracks will not sound well on mobile phones or laptop speaker, which are where young people listen to music. We had the similar issue for mixes done for AM radio.

 

[goat76]

If they haven’t crushed the dynamics the tracks will not sound well on mobile phones or laptop speaker, which are where young people listen to music. We had the similar issue for mixes done for AM radio.

Yes, I know. But when it comes to pure sound quality, we should probably keep the discussion inside the realm of a good sound system and a good listening environment where it's possible to judge the sound quality alone. Everything else is outside factors.

 

[sarumbear]

Yes, I know. But when it comes to pure sound quality, we should probably keep the discussion inside the realm of a good sound system and a good listening environment where it's possible to judge the sound quality alone. Everything else is outside factors.

Good is relative.