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

goat76

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Interesting. I like the singers; really nice voices together.

But sonically it has that "dead" limpid sound and lack of energy that I associate with so many audiophile recordings. (Even the acoustic guitars lack upper frequency presence and sparkle etc).
Yes, the way it is with current recoding technology it's pretty clear closer placed spot microphones are needed to get the full sound of every single instrument. I just wish someone came up with microphones more representative of how we hear things, a single stereo microphone that could be placed at the best sounding spot in the room in front of a full band without that "dead" limped sound. I bet the live sound has much more dynamic energy and more engaging "movement" if we were there.

But I like the natural aspects a single stereo microphone brings to the recording. Many close microphones with a similar distance to every single sound source will, unfortunately, build up a lot of frequency masking and other problems, and EQ and other tools will most likely be needed to solve them.
 

Kvalsvoll

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I bet the live sound has much more dynamic energy and more engaging "movement" if we were there.
This is to me the most important property that is usually lost in reproduced music. But it turns out that in most cases it is not the recording that is at fault, it is the reproduction through speakers. And that can be fixed, to a level that manages to replicate this sense of engagement and energy.

Ability to play loud enough can be a part of this, but it is actually possible to still have much of this sense of live music also at low listening volume.

For a truly realistic reproduction, it is necessary to play at realistic spl levels, and this requires capacity from the speakers to be able to do that.
 

Soundmixer

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For a truly realistic reproduction, it is necessary to play at realistic spl levels, and this requires capacity from the speakers to be able to do that.
This is the Achilles heel of most "audiophile" speakers. The inability to playback at realistic levels with low distortion.
 

pablolie

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This is the Achilles heel of most "audiophile" speakers. The inability to playback at realistic levels with low distortion.
What is realistic? I love going to live events, but honestly it has not ever even once been the highest fidelity I have heard. It is often totally overdriven for the smallish venue (Hello Yoshi's) or you sit somewhat off, or you realize they're using pre-recorded loops... the list is endless.

"Realistic" is... what? Just loudness? I prefer to keep my hearing intact. I have been to concerts where I popped earplugs in to not hear damaging levels of SPL. thank you sound engineers but no. you realize often "realistic levels" drive distortion in your hearing?

if we're talking about "audio science" we have to admit that despite of the magic of a live performance, it seldom sets a reference for a perfect recording. very seldom. it can be magic like "waltz for debby"... but even that magical performance is flawed audio wise.
 

watchnerd

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What is realistic? I love going to live events, but honestly it has not ever even once been the highest fidelity I have heard. It is often totally overdriven for the smallish venue (Hello Yoshi's) or you sit somewhat off, or you realize they're using pre-recorded loops... the list is endless.

"Realistic" is... what? Just loudness? I prefer to keep my hearing intact. I have been to concerts where I popped earplugs in to not hear damaging levels of SPL. thank you sound engineers but no. you realize often "realistic levels" drive distortion in your hearing?

if we're talking about "audio science" we have to admit that despite of the magic of a live performance, it seldom sets a reference for a perfect recording. very seldom. it can be magic like "waltz for debby"... but even that magical performance is flawed audio wise.

+1

With the way people write about the glories of live sound, I sometimes get the impression that some of the contributors to the thread don't actually go see very much live music.

The vast majority of the time for me, the enjoyment of live performances comes from the energy of the musicians and the crowd.

It's almost never the sonics.
 

Blumlein 88

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I don't know I've been in a few Jazz clubs where you can sit pretty close and the room is full of people with lots of drapes or soft surfaces around. Those can have a nice, live, jumping, sound which is something like live hifi in a good sense of the word.

Same thing with some small venues (300 or so people with a stage so controlled acoustics) and live unamplified guitarists or piano trios or classical chamber music. It is much larger than my home of course, but not a huge venue and the more up close intimate music and audience location works extremely well.
 

Soundmixer

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What is realistic? I love going to live events, but honestly it has not ever even once been the highest fidelity I have heard. It is often totally overdriven for the smallish venue (Hello Yoshi's) or you sit somewhat off, or you realize they're using pre-recorded loops... the list is endless.

"Realistic" is... what? Just loudness? I prefer to keep my hearing intact. I have been to concerts where I popped earplugs in to not hear damaging levels of SPL. thank you sound engineers but no. you realize often "realistic levels" drive distortion in your hearing?

if we're talking about "audio science" we have to admit that despite of the magic of a live performance, it seldom sets a reference for a perfect recording. very seldom. it can be magic like "waltz for debby"... but even that magical performance is flawed audio wise.
Remember, we are talking about loudness levels, not audiophile sound quality. They are two different things.

While I understand your comment about Yoshi's(I have been there too many times to mention), I would not consider Yoshi's sound system as a reference - which is why they allow artists to bring in their own equipment. Not everywhere is like Yoshi's. I've been to Jazz clubs in LA that had a sound system that sounded terrific.

When I go to live concerts, I choose my seat wisely - and I do bring earplugs with me just in case. What I consider realistic levels is what I get from sitting in the front few rows but not near a speaker or speakers.
 

Robin L

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What is realistic? I love going to live events, but honestly it has not ever even once been the highest fidelity I have heard. It is often totally overdriven for the smallish venue (Hello Yoshi's) or you sit somewhat off, or you realize they're using pre-recorded loops... the list is endless.

"Realistic" is... what? Just loudness? I prefer to keep my hearing intact. I have been to concerts where I popped earplugs in to not hear damaging levels of SPL. thank you sound engineers but no. you realize often "realistic levels" drive distortion in your hearing?

if we're talking about "audio science" we have to admit that despite of the magic of a live performance, it seldom sets a reference for a perfect recording. very seldom. it can be magic like "waltz for debby"... but even that magical performance is flawed audio wise.
I do believe another poster 'round here is familiar with "What is reality?" in the context of Pico and Alverado.

In my case, my guitar, positioned "just so" [I use an indestructible baking pan in lieu or a proper foot stand, more reliable, long term] is reality. For a lot of musicians, the instrument they are playing and vantage point within which they are playing is reality. Other POVs are interesting, but reality is where they live.
 

2020

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So how does everyone feel about the audiophile obsession with dynamic range? There is a particular website that rates albums on how much dynamic range is on the recording, holding up a particular version of the 1812 Overture as the ideal because the cannons are 20db louder than the music itself. By comparison, Power Trip's "Nightmare Logic" (a thrash metal album) is rated very poorly, yet to my ears it sounds excellent.

I'm fine with loud music but everything has been too squashed for like the last 20 years. There's a difference between artistic distortion and broadband loudness. It affects the actual clarity. The late 2000s were notorious for this. You look at most music and it's a brick wall, so much for attack/sustain/decay/release. The sustain phase might as well be the attack, and you'll see stuff run straight into the limiter or get it's head chopped off in real time through an oscilloscope. And then it's distributed in lossy formats and played with shit Bluetooth codecs, as if it really needs to be run though additional meatgrinders!

The people who are into dynamic range scores don't really do it only for space (so there can be real level changes), but because excessive loudness comes with a cost in the overall perceived audio quality. If it was easy to make everything loud, it would have been solved a long time ago. There wouldn't be endless plugins and psychoacoustic tricks employed.
 
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watchnerd

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Milli Vanilli has nothing on this.

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Be sure to hang in for "Tony's Got Hot Nuts" -- it's pretty good, too.
 

Spkrdctr

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At home, it ought to be your own business. You want an extra +15 db @ 50hz "just because"? I'm sure you're not alone, 'cause I often do. If you want to hear uncompressed acoustic music with a bare minimum of production, I'm sure you'll be able to find it.

Just don't bitch when the most popular artists make production choices you dislike---the production decisions they made are part of why they are so popular.
Many, many times that is me. I sometimes like to shake the walls. I just revert to that inner 15 year old and do stupid stuff that annoys the neighbors. Explosions in home theater that makes the neighbors think a war just started on their front lawn!
 

fatoldgit

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How many mics needed to fully/accurately capture the sound of single cello? One certainly isnt enough due to the frequency dispersion in different directions.

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What we hear from our seat at a live recital is a combo of all of these frequencies.

Sticking a mic close to the cello wont allow all the combination we hear at our seat to occur. Same with any acoustic instrument.

So its all an illusion and even the starting point (the mic placement) can only ever capture a thin slice of the tonal richness.

Take a look at any photo of a 60's stereo Jazz recording session... all brass is close mic'ed... that aint what I hear in a non-amplified session in a small club.
 

Soundmixer

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How many mics needed to fully/accurately capture the sound of single cello? One certainly isnt enough due to the frequency dispersion in different directions.
If you place a single omnidirectional microphone directly overhead of that cello, you will capture enough of the essence of that instrument to balance with the other instruments - or as a solo instrument. More than one microphone would certainly give you more control to shape the sound, but just one could do the job (and this is key) under certain acoustical conditions (a baffle behind the instrument is one - directly overhead is another).

"
What we hear from our seat at a live recital is a combo of all of these frequencies.
And a healthy dose of reflections that affects how you hear this combo of frequencies. It is not ruler flat, and likely not any better than a single mike capture from overhead.
Take a look at any photo of a 60's stereo Jazz recording session... all brass is close mic'ed... that aint what I hear in a non-amplified session in a small club.
Two different listening experiences that cannot be compared in any way. I think that was what the article is trying to point out.
 
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fatoldgit

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If you place a single omnidirectional microphone directly overhead of that cello, you will capture enough of the essence of that instrument to balance with the other instruments - or as a solo instrument. More than one microphone would certainly give you more control to shape the sound, but just one could do the job (and this is key) under certain acoustical conditions (a baffle behind the instrument is one - directly overhead is another).

"

And a healthy dose of reflections that affects how you hear this combo of frequencies. It is not ruler flat, and likely not any better than a single mike capture from overhead.

Two different listening experiences that cannot be compared in any way. I think that was what the article is trying to point out.

Agree entirely.

Even in the case of a small venue with acoustic jazz, where I sit, the treatments (or other wise) of the venue, the ambient noise level etc all vary (even within the same venue) so that potentially the same band at the same venue on two consecutive nights will have a different acoustic presentation (including how much fluid intact I might have had before and during!!!)

All we can hope to achieve as listeners is to optimize what we can, to reproduce what was laid down on the recording in a way that is pleasing to us.

My vision of perfect reproduction will no doubt be different from anyone else although we might broadly agree on equipment types that help us to achieve this.

Peter
 

orangejello

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As I implied, above, I'd rather not get into the debate over number of microphones nor post-recording manipulation. I'm not sure that either of these issues necessarily has lot to do with achieving the "simulacrum of reality" as I phrased it.

I'm brought to mind of the Mercury Living Presence recordings of Robert Fine and Wilma Cozart Fine in the '50s and '60s. These recordings, (all originally distributed on LP obviously), were made with 3 microphones generally suspended above the orchestra; recording in many cases was made on magnetized 35mm film. I never owned any of the LP but have several CD, (not the SACD), transcriptions of these recordings.

The sound quality of the LP versions of the recordings was highly touted as the be-all & end-all of realism back in the LP era -- and since by many audiophiles, both the LPs and CD transcriptions. From my own small sampling they tend to have a unique sound that is very good in terms of conveying the "presence" the actual recording venues, however IMHO, they are overrated in terms of "realism" or at least the impression of desirable reality.

Frankly most of my MLP CD transcriptions sound a bit bright and rather like they were made in echoy high school gymnasiums. Many, (by no means all), contemporary recordings sound much better in convey the sense of real ensembles performing superior auditoriums.
The Mercury Living Presence recordings were fetishized by Harry Pearson writing for The Absolute Sound. I collected them on a “catch as catch can” basis over the years. I wound up with quite a few very good copies because I lived in Boston during the ascendency of CD when everyone was ditching their records. For performances that I really liked I got the CD version as well. I used these to calibrate my system because of the simplicity of the recording and the timbrel accuracy. Not only were there only three microphones involved, the recordings were essentially live and had very little post-processing. They struck me as very realistic in terms of soundstage, room ambiance and immediacy of the recorded event. Dorati‘s recording of Respighi’s Ancient Aires and Dances is a favorite. As my system improved I heard deeper and deeper into the recordings. You can hear the musicians shifting in their chairs, the protium creaking, the hall reverb, etc. The recording engineers Robert Fine and his wife Willa Cozart had an aesthetic value of getting out of the way of the performance. Hence the minimalism. So they aspired to ”realism” in as many dimensions as possible. That is no longer much of a value these days.
 

agiletiger

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All the subtle details, such as sound from opening of lips, breathing, bow sliding on the strings and other subtle sounds cannot be heard in a live performance.
Not always sure that this makes recordings “better”. None of the sounds you mention are central to musical decisions other than maybe the breath. There are many musicians that strive to not make their breaths audible, for instance. Just because the audiophile world has told others to listen for these things doesn’t mean that a recording or a system is more “hifi”. You’ve been conditioned to think that hearing all that is “better”.
 

agiletiger

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"But many of us are also missing something essential about audio recording for people without dog's ears: human ears don't want “clean” sound. Rather, we’re drawn to harmonic distortion. People don't really want realism or even accuracy; we prefer "larger-than-life." That's what Van Gelder gave the world, to the best of his ability and equipment: the biggest, hottest sound he could form. Like his pioneering home studio setup, that passion for “larger-than-life” sounds among both listeners and music-makers is truly the state-of-the-art today."
This! People like his recordings along the lines of people who prefer vinyl. They are a euphonic equivalent of that music, not an accurate representation of the performance/sessions. It’s a different experience. If we are going to stay true to the spirit of this forum, we need to recognize these distinctions and understand them for what they are. I am willing to admit that despite all the manipulation that RVG has done, I love the sound. I love it even better on vinyl! With the several layers of distortion on top!
 

2020

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"But many of us are also missing something essential about audio recording for people without dog's ears: human ears don't want “clean” sound. Rather, we’re drawn to harmonic distortion. People don't really want realism or even accuracy; we prefer "larger-than-life." That's what Van Gelder gave the world, to the best of his ability and equipment: the biggest, hottest sound he could form. Like his pioneering home studio setup, that passion for “larger-than-life” sounds among both listeners and music-makers is truly the state-of-the-art today."

Speaking from an acoustic standpoint, I think people want realism and a "true to life" accuracy, but they are using a different definition of what that entails. And it starts with the elephant in the room: the room!

Regular listeners are not hearing instruments played in anechoic chamber, let alone tons of content in this environment to get used to this sound profile. And by regular people, I mean the average person, not an audiophile, ie somebody who listens to their kids play instrument at a school or at home, local events, or has their own instrument, etc.

I also heard somebody say this a while ago and it's a real good technical point: rooms are fundamentally minimum phase with no ability for delay, therefore we're looking at no delay minimum phase fast roll off (non apodizing - yes it looks similar at first but apodizing is an inherently created digital technique, not something in nature). Without getting into a whole debate of whether or not different DAC filters can or can't be perceived in real life, I'll just leave you with my takeway after hours or research I did in the past: they offer subtle tone and EQ shaping options that intentionally active listers or those with good hearing (golden ears/young/gifted) may pick up on, and several direct manufacturers like AKM and ESS espouse this view as well. Now with that in mind, what do they say about minimum phase fast? It's been called distinctly "analogue", think and think about what analogue means from like a synth perspective - not-perfect, fatter, euphonic. As a fast roll off, it is one of the cleanest bandwidth wise, no high frequency drop like you'd see in slow filters, this also means no aliasing artifacts or ultrasonic being let through the filter. As a minimum phase, preserved transients but a ton of gibbs effect (aka "ringing"/ripple). Additionally, since it's not linear phase, you get a non-symmetrical impulse response (booo). Manufacturers say this filter increases bass power and overall width/ambience, while also increasing distortion. My phone has this option and I agree with these things.

What is this all trying to say? It's building up the concepts of what "clean" or "real" means to the average person. For the tech people or audiophile nerds, clean means something else... it means accuracy through technical basis, like frequency response, impulse response, phase shift, signal to noise ratio, radition patterns, recording at a high sample rate, oversampling, calibrated mics, etc. Now you can see where the two conflict - clean from an audiophile standpoint is nowhere near what a regular person thinks clean is. To get a clean sound for a regular person, you need to try to emulate the circumstances that made instruments sound "real" in the first place to them - put some room back, minimum phase, etc.

This! People like his recordings along the lines of people who prefer vinyl.
Good thing iZotope has a free vinyl plugin. Add it to your DSP chain!
 
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Suffolkhifinut

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This article appeared a while back in an on-line audiophile review site. (The type I'd guess most people here wouldn't visit).

I thought it was quite insightful as a message from a recording engineer/mixer/producer to audiophiles wanting naturalistic recordings and realism.
It does cover aspects of discussions here and in most audiophile forums. But it was nice to see it sort of tied up in a bow in an article:

Reality Is Overrated When It Comes to Recordings:


My take: Assuming one agrees with the gist of the article, it does make sense of the approach of those audiophiles (typical of ASR members I think) where you just want to accurately reproduce the recording. 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. (But also, if a recording is meant to sound natural, it should come across that way in an accurate system).

Personally I generally agree: I consider all the production choices and artificiality to be part of the artistic content (which they obviously are). And, as cliche as it may be to say, so many of those "audiophile recordings" - minimalist micing, low compression yadda, yadda - often come across as pretty bland. I remember when a pal of mine who was a guitarist in a local artsy pop/folksy band became an audiophile and convinced the band and recording engineers to go for a more audiophile-approved "natural" minimally mic'd presentation. Well, yeah, it sounded a bit more "real" or natural in some aspects, but artistically it took a step back and just sort of "sat there" in that bland way of many audiophile recordings. To my ears it was a failure relative to their previously produced recordings.

(BTW, I'm on record here on being fascinated by live vs reproduced sound, and wanting to nudge my sound a bit more towards "natural/real" in some ways, but not in some fool's errand goal of everything sounding truly real, just enough flavour to taste, without losing the distinctive character of different recordings).

I'm curious about other people's thoughts on the article or subject.
Been listening to Blues Bar on internet radio MP3 and it sounds more authentic then any of my SACD / CD / Vinyl recordings. Many years of going to Rock & Blues clubs when I was younger and this is the first time it sounds real on my HiFi. Classical music concert halls are acoustically as neutral as possible. Rock / Blues clubs no one gives a toss you’re there for the music and the vibe.
 
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