Reality Is Overrated When It Comes to Recordings (Article from music Engineer/Producer)

[watchnerd]

It may not be close, that depends entirely on the quality of the recording and the playback chain. But at least you know what the original does sound like and what the reproduction should sound like.

No....

Because the bass instrument pressurizes the room differently from the speakers and the microphones hear differently from my ears.

I have no idea what the reproduction 'should' sound like because

a) The recording is not being played back through the acoustic bass itself, so the radiation pattern is already different

b) My ears, when playing, aren't located where the microphone is when I record

They're two completely different artifacts that are acoustically different on multiple levels.

The only thing I can really compare is my playing.

 

[watchnerd]

If we listen to any music at our homes without applying the concept of “suspension of disbelief” we will always remain frustrated.

Right.

We don't delude ourselves that movies are realistic.

We know they're entertainment designed to 'evoke' more than 'reproduce' reality.

I don't know why audiophiles think music play back is any different.

 

[watchnerd]

EDIT to add:
Your agument seems to be that home audio playback of recorded music is deficient. The point I was making has nothing to do with that, it was that in the presence of an acoustic original we can judge how deficient it is or how close it gets. This, we cannot do with electronic music, or any other form of performance that relies on amplification and speakers.

That's the same kind of stuff Harry Pearson used to say and it doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.

There can be fewer variables in purely electronic music than in acoustic.

If I make a 40 Hz synth tone with a 2nd order harmonic overtone at 80 Hz, I can see exactly that on a scope at the electrical level (no need to record it) and I can measure how close a speaker comes to that.

I can even make a verifiable null test to objectively measure the deviance.

That's much less complicated, less subjective, and more data-driven than deciding if a speaker/recording sounds like a 'real violin'.

 

[IPunchCholla]

Stupidest audiophile cliche ever. I have never heard what an early 19th century cannon shot sounded like, and I most certainly don't want to recreate that in my listening room. My ears would be damaged, my cat and neighbors highly displeased, plus other negatives.

I have. At a Civil War re-enactment. From a good ways away. You could feel the shockwave. Be fun to try and reproduce it close miced with the same impact. Not sure how that would work on the speaker end of things.

The smoke ring would be hard to simulate too.

 

[Robin L]

Right.

We don't delude ourselves that movies are realistic.

We know they're entertainment designed to 'evoke' more than 'reproduce' reality.

I don't know why audiophiles think music play back is any different.

First off, I blame Harry Pearson. Second, I think willing suspension of disbelief is more likely with recordings of music than other home entertainment media, particularly if you've already downed a few to help with that suspension. At a certain point, one is focusing on the music and not thinking too much about the sound, unless the auditioneer is hopelessly obsessive about sound or the music is boring.

 

[watchnerd]

or the music is boring.

AKA typical audio show demo music

 

[Robin L]

AKA typical audio show demo music

That would be a "twofer", boring music for neurotic audiophiles.

 

[Newman]

… All the production choices and effects in so much recorded music is what it is: artistic choices for the most part, and that's what one wants to hear, not some enforced "realism" per se. …

“Artistic choices” is a stretch. Not every choice by an artist is an artistic choice. If an artist chooses to go to the toilet, it’s not an artistic choice. If a musician good enough to be called artist makes some music, finishes that, then chooses to go to the toilet market, and makes a bunch of toilet market related decisions, those aren’t artistic choices.

It’s not hard to distinguish the two sets of choices. If the Beatles put mics inside drums, or play tape loops through the music, or Led Zep put the drum kit in the stairwell of an old house, they are in pursuit of a certain sonic tone and sound within the music and its structure. Artistic choice. But when the studio master is used to make distribution masters for various formats — cassette tape, LP, iTunes download, CD, MCH file…the global mastering overlay applied is a commercial choice in almost every case.

Studio engineer Mark Waldrep made a similar comment to McNair’s: when asked how they want it to sound, the artist almost invariably says “whatever sells the most units!”, which they usually think means the biggest, most spectacular sound, but they couldn’t care less what it actually takes. Not an artistic choice, more a commercial choice.

Is that “what one wants to hear”, in your words? Well, no. I mean, just for starters, which one of those distribution masters does “one want to hear”? It’s illogical. I think “what one wants to hear” as an audiophile with standards is more like the studio master: all the artistic choices are in there — all the tape loops, mics inside drums and “smashed through a Fairfield compressor”, etc — but not the commercial choices made purely to sell to the lowest common denominator market.

What disappoints me is the music distribution industry doesn’t cater for us, even though it would be so easy, especially in this day and age of online distribution with no physical product to make. And they would not even need to make an extra version for us: it is already there in the studio file server! Just offer it, guys! Sure, we are a small market segment, but you know what, car makers put out each model in a range of colours, and I bet the least popular colour only sells a few percent of volume, and if they dropped it the buyers would still buy the car but in another colour (just like we buy music in less-preferred masters), but the car makers still offer the least popular colour. Even in a physical product. So how about catering for us, you music industry guys?

cheers

 

[Newman]

I can't even say how much I LOATHE movies that mix down the actual dialogue yet amplify the BS special FX. You have to turn up the volume to understand what people say, then regret doing so when the next boom-bang sequence plays. It is idiotic.

You could choose to watch movies for grown-ups….or just use your AVR’s built-in features:

 

[Ricardus]

I've used Schoeps CMC6, Neumann TLM 103, AKG C14, and some Sennheiser and Shure mics owned by my bandmates.

OK, so when you say distortion, do you mean real serious ugly distortion, or do you mean every transducer distorts things in some small way?

I've made hundreds of bass guitar recordings and am able to capture what comes out of the amp without distortion.

 

[MattHooper]

“Artistic choices” is a stretch. Not every choice by an artist is an artistic choice. If an artist chooses to go to the toilet, it’s not an artistic choice. If a musician good enough to be called artist makes some music, finishes that, then chooses to go to the toilet market, and makes a bunch of toilet market related decisions, those aren’t artistic choices.

It’s not hard to distinguish the two sets of choices. If the Beatles put mics inside drums, or play tape loops through the music, or Led Zep put the drum kit in the stairwell of an old house, they are in pursuit of a certain sonic tone and sound within the music and its structure. Artistic choice. But when the studio master is used to make distribution masters for various formats — cassette tape, LP, iTunes download, CD, MCH file…the global mastering overlay applied is a commercial choice in almost every case.

Studio engineer Mark Waldrep made a similar comment to McNair’s: when asked how they want it to sound, the artist almost invariably says “whatever sells the most units!”, which they usually think means the biggest, most spectacular sound, but they couldn’t care less what it actually takes. Not an artistic choice, more a commercial choice.

Is that “what one wants to hear”, in your words? Well, no. I mean, just for starters, which one of those distribution masters does “one want to hear”? It’s illogical. I think “what one wants to hear” as an audiophile with standards is more like the studio master: all the artistic choices are in there — all the tape loops, mics inside drums and “smashed through a Fairfield compressor”, etc — but not the commercial choices made purely to sell to the lowest common denominator market.

What disappoints me is the music distribution industry doesn’t cater for us, even though it would be so easy, especially in this day and age of online distribution with no physical product to make. And they would not even need to make an extra version for us: it is already there in the studio file server! Just offer it, guys! Sure, we are a small market segment, but you know what, car makers put out each model in a range of colours, and I bet the least popular colour only sells a few percent of volume, and if they dropped it the buyers would still buy the car but in another colour (just like we buy music in less-preferred masters), but the car makers still offer the least popular colour. Even in a physical product. So how about catering for us, you music industry guys?

cheers

Thanks, though to be honest I don't really see anything in there in opposition to what I meant to convey.

 

[watchnerd]

OK, so when you say distortion, do you mean real serious ugly distortion, or do you mean every transducer distorts things in some small way?

I've made hundreds of bass guitar recordings and am able to capture what comes out of the amp without distortion.

The latter.

 

[MattHooper]

Right.

We don't delude ourselves that movies are realistic.

We know they're entertainment designed to 'evoke' more than 'reproduce' reality.

I don't know why audiophiles think music play back is any different.

I've used the movie analogy before too.

But I think we seem to diverge somewhat on this issue (from what I can tell).

It's true that movies are not fully realistic, and that it requires us viewers entering the bargain, a certain suspension of disbelief. But that doesn't mean movies can't be "more" or "less" realistic. Some movies are utterly fantastical, some are highly "realistic/naturalistic" and everything in between. A hell of a lot of effort goes in to many movies to make them more "realistic" - everything from perhaps the research that makes a script more authentic for characters in a given situation or occupation, to research/training of the actor, to authenticity and realism in set design, wardrobe, etc.

The same would go for aspects of reproducing movies, for instance in a home theater (like mine). Actors on a flat screen are always going to look pretty much flatter than life (among other things). Yet it also matters that my projector's calibration isn't skewed so that skin colors aren't purple or green - that people have "natural enough" skin color to make them "more believable and natural looking" - more "realistic" in that sense, which allows easier "suspension of disbelief." (That's why I have my projector calibrated).

So, while of course it's foolish to ask for Total Realism from a TV or projected image, that doesn't mean that real life isn't often a useful reference, and that one can appreciate a sliding scale towards "realism" when appropriate.

The same approach can be taken with audio systems. I too have attended a ton of symphonic work. And of course my floor standing speakers are never actually going to reproduce a full orchestra indistinguishable from the real thing. BUT...movements more in the direction of "real, natural, accurate to the real thing," DO help. I was listening to a symphonic work tonight, a fantastic recording, the strings and horns had startling vividness yet sounded appropriately "distant" as heard in a symphony hall. If I simply adjusted my expectation - imagined with eyes closed I was listening to a symphony from, say, further back in the hall or even from a balcony, the "illusion" of listening in to a symphony hall to an orchestral performance was pretty amazing, and hugely satisfying.

 

[watchnerd]

The same approach can be taken with audio systems. I too have attended a ton of symphonic work. And of course my floor standing speakers are never actually going to reproduce a full orchestra indistinguishable from the real thing.

I think we're drifting away from the original subject of recordings.

Let's take the symphony as an example.

Because I do volunteer work with the symphony, I've actually made binaural recordings (during rehearsals) in the same seat I sit at in the symphony. Whether listened to via speakers or headphones, they're pretty 'natural' sounding, and definitely minimalist.

You know what? They're also pretty boring.

(Stereophile's demo disc of minimalist recordings were also some of the most boring 'good quality' recordings I've ever heard)

As compared to professional recordings, where they put a spot mic on the soloist and boost up that track relative to the rest of the symphony, crank up the percussion and tympani so they sound so much more dramatic, and somehow make the massed strings into a 'wall of sound' in a way that is an exaggerated, more uniform blend from what it sounds like in person.

The professional recording is not even trying to be realistic to begin with -- the recording is larger than life to make it more evocative and entertaining at home.

(and sell better)

As your OP points out.

 

[Newman]

The professional recording is not even trying to be realistic to begin with -- the recording is larger than life to make it more evocative and entertaining at home.

And rightly so IMHO. Part of the emotion of attending live music is the "being there" factor, which is missing in the home playback scenario, even if the sound field was somehow perfectly replicated. To provide some compensation for that loss is appropriate and balanced IMHO.

cheers

 

[watchnerd]

And rightly so IMHO. Part of the emotion of attending live music is the "being there" factor, which is missing in the home playback scenario, even if the sound field was somehow perfectly replicated. To provide some compensation for that loss is appropriate and balanced IMHO.

cheers

Exactly!

 

[mhardy6647]

well... in my college days, we were wont to say:

Reality is for people who can't cope with drugs.

It was the 'seventies, after all...

 

[kthulhutu]

That would be a "twofer", boring music for neurotic audiophiles.

Time and time again I see audiophiles and even beginners chasing the highest quality DSD 512 nonsense and turning their nose up at anything less. I couldn't imagine letting my perception of my system's performance determine what I listen to.

I listen to anything from 240p youtube videos, to royalty-free oggs and some of the most well-recorded jazz ever and it only ever sounds better on a good system to me.

 

[Dilliw]

My thoughts are that its a damn shame this has to be explained or is in any way controversial. Spend 10 minutes looking into how recordings are done and it should be blatantly obvious that "reproducing the physical event" from your home audio system is not a rational quest.

The rational goal for a playback system is to accurately reproduce the recording. And if the recording happens to strive for a natural presentation, then the system will reproduce it as such.

I think once you get to the end of chasing "accurately" you eventually head towards what sounds good to you.

 

[MattHooper]

I think we're drifting away from the original subject of recordings.

Let's take the symphony as an example.

Because I do volunteer work with the symphony, I've actually made binaural recordings (during rehearsals) in the same seat I sit at in the symphony. Whether listened to via speakers or headphones, they're pretty 'natural' sounding, and definitely minimalist.

You know what? They're also pretty boring.

(Stereophile's demo disc of minimalist recordings were also some of the most boring 'good quality' recordings I've ever heard)

As compared to professional recordings, where they put a spot mic on the soloist and boost up that track relative to the rest of the symphony, crank up the percussion and tympani so they sound so much more dramatic, and somehow make the massed strings into a 'wall of sound' in a way that is an exaggerated, more uniform blend from what it sounds like in person.

The professional recording is not even trying to be realistic to begin with -- the recording is larger than life to make it more evocative and entertaining at home.

(and sell better)

As your OP points out.

Yes I'm aware of all that, and in reply would repeat what I said (whatever the artifice used in recording symphonies, I often find it "works" in providing a pretty good illusion of hearing a symphony playing in a hall).


As to the artifice of recording: Anyone who records and works in sound also knows that the artifice involved in recording/production doesn't necessarily equate to artifice in sound. Because of the nature of microphones, and the fact they don't have brains attached interpreting the sound, you often have to mic things in ways you wouldn't place your ears, which is one reason spot mics are combined with ambient mics. Ambient mics placed where are ears are at a distance from a sound source will often sound too distant, vague and less vivid, more dominated by the surrounding acoustics, than the real experience. Our hearing system tends to "hear through" ambient acoustics, so in that sense a singer or violinist, heard at the depth of a hall, would still be percieved as more vivid than ambience mics placed in the same spot. That is one of the reasons you combine spot micing and blend the two. You can better approximate what we hear in that respect.

I'm manipulating sound in the most artificial way all day long, but it's in the service of producing results that sound natural to the ear...since the original recordings do not. Another point is that many recordings, including many symphonic, aren't necessarily trying to capture a symphony "exactly as it sounds in that space" but are still attempts to produce a sensation of a symphony playing in a hall, which I think is often successful.

But of course symphonies are recorded in different ways depending on the goal - from a more "naturalistic goal" to utterly unnatural for effect. I've said before that I am just as happy with "unnatural" symphonic recordings (many of the soundtracks I love are clearly crazy close mic'd and mixed for effect rather than recreation of the typical symponic listener experience). However, plenty of orchestral recordings are quite successful, IMO, in sounding more like a symphony in a real hall, however they were recorded.

So I guess we still see things a bit differently.