Live vs Reproduced Sound - your thoughts?

[Timcognito]

 

[Nopiano]

Thank you for a very interesting thread, on a topic I’ve often pondered. I’ve got a few random thoughts on this:-

1. I’ve never thought that realistic concert volume levels can be achieved domestically, rather a reduced scale facsimile. I’m talking mostly here about orchestral and solo instruments, rather than stadium rock.
2. Thinking of the volume control as more like a zoom lens, there is often an optimum level that seems most realistic, even if it’s still not really that much like ‘live’.
3. As several posts have said, the detail and balance often available at home from commercial recordings exceeds that from most concert hall seats unless you can afford the best in the house.
4. At live events, I’m often taken aback how much power a single instrument can project, for example a solo cello in chamber music can resonate in a big hall.
5. Over-simplifying rather, I tend to find compact two-way speakers are often more believable with voice or small scale sound, whereas larger speakers more readily deliver scale yet often do so with less focus or precision.
6. Hearing recording engineers talk about their art, I’m struck how much intervention most aim to achieve. They seem to know that simply leaving well alone will not deliver a particularly good end result for a typical consumer.
7. At a recent presentation, an engineer explained in detail how each microphone was chosen to suit different instruments and different vocal ranges. The idea that one or two might work for everything was pretty much dismissed!

All very interesting! I’m just happy that I can enjoy both recorded and live experiences without feeling short-changed with either.

 

[pablolie]

There are recordings that sometimes motivate me to really crank things up LOUD for a while, and it actually becomes pretty awesomely lifelike.

In turn, there are miserably poor live recordings that actually capture what the venue sounded like very accurately...

 

[Flaesh]

this needs a good soundman to balance PA with backline, and muso's that keep

If Suffocation plays in a small club in your area, go)). I'd be interested in your opinion.

 

[Mr. Widget]

There are recordings that sometimes motivate me to really crank things up LOUD for a while, and it actually becomes pretty awesomely lifelike.

In turn, there are miserably poor live recordings that actually capture what the venue sounded like very accurately...

100%

Personally, musically I often prefer live recordings to the studio recordings, but not every performance deserves to be recorded, and many deserve a better recording.

 

[MattHooper]

Are you saying that most live concerts that we watch on YT use auto-tune for the vocals? Check out the videos on YT of the English band 'Wet-Leg' .

Yes, I think wet leg terrific! Their vocals do not sound auto tune at all to me.

 

[wadude]

I prefer reproduced music at my house now. It was always a lot of work in my younger days to clean up the mess after my band finished practicing and partying.

Cigarette butts in quarter full plastic cups of beer on every horizontal surface. Gawd, that smell.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

I love live music and attend and/or play 2-3 shows a week most of the year. I also love listening to music at home. I don't really connect the two all that much, and I've never ever felt that a recording somehow "transported" me to a live performance (or transported a live performance into my home), and I'm 100% fine with that.

 

[killdozzer]

Altogether, results demonstrate that live music strengthens dynamical responses to musical rhythm within the brain, which provides a candidate neural basis for the widespread appeal of live music and theories of social bonding through music.

From lab to concert hall: effects of live performance on neural-acoustic phase-locking and engagement - PMC

Live music performances continue to captivate audiences despite widespread availability of high-quality recordings, yet the neural mechanisms underlying the experience of live music remain poorly understood. This study investigates the effect of ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Live music is preferred over the same music reproduced via loudspeakers, a preference confirmed by EEG measurements. Live music synchronizes brainwaves more closely with the music.
Intra-individual EEG synchronization is more pronounced when listening to live music. Live music fosters a stronger sense of social connectedness
Several other studies have shown that live music synchronizes brain activity and fosters social bonding among listeners to a greater extent.

The question is—what is the difference that leads to different perceptions?

JM

This is interesting, but I think it's conflating aspects. Social connectedness is something that gets in the way IMO. I agree it might be stronger, but that's the downside.

I bet this study lacks introverts and their preferences since they probably don't go to concerts. But measure those and it will even itself/cancel out.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

I bet this study lacks introverts and their preferences since they probably don't go to concerts. But measure those and it will even itself/cancel out.

I know lots of introverts who go to concerts, fwiw

 

[Keith_W]

One of my geekier hobbies is model making. The aim is to make our models look as realistic as possible, so if you take a photo of it, it should look like the real thing.

But no matter what we do, no matter how skilled we are, no matter how good the photography - there is always something that gives away the fact that you are looking at a scale model. Perfection is futile, yet we pursue it anyway. You ask: why doesn't it look like the real thing? And the answers can be surprising. For example, you can not use the same shade of colour. If the deck of a ship is tan, you can not simply take the same shade of tan and paint that on your model. It will look too bright. You have to tone it down a bit, try to desaturate it. That's because in real life you would be looking at a ship from a distance, and the environmental conditions naturally desaturate the colour.

So look at the two models above and ask why they look like models. Excellent as they are, there is something your eye catches that breaks the immersion. You see it, but you may not know why you see it.

It's the same with audio. You always know you are listening to reproduced sound. You have to ask yourself why it doesn't sound like the real thing. And the answers are really fascinating, if sometimes counterintuitive.

But every now and then, you can achieve suspension of disbelief. And those moments to me are magical.

 

[Timcognito]

Excellent as they are, there is something your eye catches that breaks the immersion.

Tell that to Stanley Kubrick. Your models look awesome.

 

[Keith_W]

Tell that to Stanley Kubrick. Your models look awesome.

Not my models! I found those on the internet!

 

[audiofooled]

It's the same with audio. You always know you are listening to reproduced sound. You have to ask yourself why it doesn't sound like the real thing. And the answers are really fascinating, if sometimes counterintuitive.

The sense of scale would apply to audio, yes. You can tell if it's a large system at a distance or a small system up close.

This system is simply large. Outdoors there's also air movement that blows away some of the direct sound. At home, even with immersive system that's also not limited in dynamics and able to create a believable illusion, the wavefront would have travelled only this far.

 

[mpw]

The sense of scale would apply to audio, yes. You can tell if it's a large system at a distance or a small system up close.

This system is simply large. Outdoors there's also air movement that blows away some of the direct sound. At home, even with immersive system that's also not limited in dynamics and able to create a believable illusion, the wavefront would have travelled only this far.

Wow, it sounds good to me playing on via my: Mackbook Pro m1, Hk 330c and rogers Ls2 speakers. Thanks interesting !

 

[Flaesh]

model:

 

[Keith_W]

The sense of scale would apply to audio, yes. You can tell if it's a large system at a distance or a small system up close.

Modellers and photographers know that the quality of light helps define the realism of a model or a photograph. You can usually tell if it's artificial light - and it's not just the colour temperature. It's because real sunlight has parallel rays, as opposed to divergent rays if you used artificial light. This is why photographers bounce flash off ceilings to try to lengthen the light path to make the light more "parallel".

I wonder if there is a similar, and as yet un-studied effect in audio. If you have ever watched a jet taking off, or witnessed an explosion or controlled demolition, or some kind of loud natural phenomena ... there is a certain sense of scale in the sound. Many years ago, I worked in a hospital in a mining town. The mining company would post a timetable for their controlled explosions, and you could go to an observation deck to witness the explosion. You know it's big, and I don't think it's just your eyes that tells you it's big. Even though it's far away you can feel it in your bones and you are immersed in sound.

 

[MattHooper]

Modellers and photographers know that the quality of light helps define the realism of a model or a photograph. You can usually tell if it's artificial light - and it's not just the colour temperature. It's because real sunlight has parallel rays, as opposed to divergent rays if you used artificial light. This is why photographers bounce flash off ceilings to try to lengthen the light path to make the light more "parallel".

I wonder if there is a similar, and as yet un-studied effect in audio. If you have ever watched a jet taking off, or witnessed an explosion or controlled demolition, or some kind of loud natural phenomena ... there is a certain sense of scale in the sound. Many years ago, I worked in a hospital in a mining town. The mining company would post a timetable for their controlled explosions, and you could go to an observation deck to witness the explosion. You know it's big, and I don't think it's just your eyes that tells you it's big. Even though it's far away you can feel it in your bones and you are immersed in sound.

Your comment reminds me of something I’ve mentioned before: the psychological/perceptual sense of scale and how variable it can be.

I remember specifically one pair of loudspeakers I had in my room, they were quite wide dispersion, and my room is about 15’ x 13’.

These speakers completely disappeared as a parent sound sources, and they imaged precisely and three-dimensionally.

But what I struggled with, is that the impression didn’t seem to convey a convincing sense of space and distance.

So when I would play a symphonic record recording for instance, the mental impression I was getting of say the horn section wasn’t
“ hearing through a distance to a large horn section far away from me” but rather it was like all the images had been brought into the room, so it was more like observing toy-stored representations of a horn section placed in my room.

And I liked it to the effect of Tilt-Shift Photography which creates a similar miniaturizing perspective, taking real sized objects and making them appear like miniatures closer to you:

I found this miniaturizing effects can happen if the sound seems too “dry” of the recorded acoustics or reverb which would describe the space. But also I think add to that the small room reflections added to the sound.

So I have always sought to avoid this “ they are here” miniaturizing effect by making sure I hear as much of the reverb and acoustic information in a track, as well as cutting down some of the more obvious smaller room reflection cues. For me as long as I have the bass soundings smooth enough I can get a lot of the way there just by manipulating how much upper frequency reflections are going on using curtains at reflection points, etc.

When I have cut down a lot of the upper frequency reflections obscuring acoustic details in the recording, that is when the room has been made more on the dead side.

This is great for the sense of opening up a very distinct acoustic between and beyond the loudspeakers in the room. I think of this as the “ porthole effect.” I’m still aware of somewhat of the separation of the room I’m in, and in a symphonic recording, how the different acoustic of the large space happens between and beyond the speakers.

But if I start reducing absorption of the wall reflections, carefully, at one point perceptually the recorded acoustic seems to merge with the acoustics of my room. It’s not to the point of so much obvious acoustics as to overwhelmed the recording and introduced the small room effect. But it’s like a merging of the “airy frequencies” of the recording with the room. So now the space I’m sitting in feels more continuous with the space opened up of the bigger acoustic beyond the speakers. It’s less of the portal effect, and more of the “ transporter” effect, where it feels more effortless to imagine “ I am there listening through this real acoustic space.”

And that is especially effective in giving me the impression, when listening eyes closed, of hearing through whatever acoustics are represented in a record recording (whether real or artificial).

Just last night, I was listening to a modern re-recording of a Bernard Herrmann score, in which there’s a really distinct cave-like acoustic in which the orchestral instruments seem to be playing.

Playing that back on the system last night, the sensation of hearing into that “ real” acoustic to distant symphony instruments was almost eerie. With my eyes closed there was no sense of border to the sound, no sense that there was a stomping point between two speakers. It was just open to this big space. With great depth. So it felt more effortless to sink into the illusion of transported to a different acoustic hearing live instruments play within that acoustic.

I have to admit that sure gives me some audiophile jollies . Musical as well.

 

[Keith_W]

You can't fool me, @MattHooper! The first two photographs are real tilt-shift photos. The third is a model.

 

[MattHooper]

You can't fool me, @MattHooper! The first two photographs are real tilt-shift photos. The third is a model.

Then your system isn’t resolving enough!