The Truth about many "Audiophile" Piano Recordings

[beefkabob]

Maybe not.
I listen to many hours of piano recordings every week, have since I was a teenager. The audience perspective of a piano in a good sized hall lacks the focus of a good piano recording. And, of course, one has to love the repertoire to fully embrace that kind of music. Most of the really good seats for that sort of music cost a lot. In any case, there are plenty of forms of popular music that are just a wall of noise to me. We are not required to love all forms of music.

I'm not describing the music itself. I'm describing the mix, as it were. The acoustics. Imaging just isn't much of a thing in those situations. From anywhere but right up close, a piano is a point that reverberates through a hall. We have a baby grand that my son plays, a yamaha, and it's just so damn loud. I'm not getting imaging.

 

[Waxx]

I personally think you should record a piano play like you would listen to it. Those close mic piano recordings of classical music don't sound like a piano concert to me. I've also assisted (in my student years) for the Belgian national radio (VRT Klara it's called now) in several recordings and saw how the experienced engineers always mostly took the sound from room mics, with close mic fill ins from the solist. Never with boundary microphones inside the piano. They mostly used Schoeps microphones at that time (arround the millenium change). and the closesst they went to the piano was at least 50cm from the snares with the lid open.

Close mic'ing a piano is good for pop or jazz recordings, but not for classical in my opinon and those "audiophile recordins" that are close miced don't sound real to me.

 

[Sal1950]

I've known musicians in the Classical Music community who were involved in High-End audio, it's not some hard and fast rule. And some musicians became recording engineers (or recordists, as only two I've known has an Engineering degree) so naturally they became concerned with the things folks in the high-end community were involved with. However, those folks were less likely to be snared by audiofoolery than a lot of folks in the high-end community.

Robin, I was reviewing your post in my head and thought I'd debate that one a bit.
I do know a bunch of of folks who are both musicians and audio-nuts on the believer haunts (and even here occasionally). From them I oft hear statements like, " I'm a pro X instrument player and know what good playback sounds like. And I can tell you I can easily hear the changes from (x powercord, widget, grounding box, whatever) LOL
Any kidding aside, I've found the musicians easily sucked into the snake-oil audiofoolery cult, with Classical genre maybe even more so.
They're just cock-sure they hear better than any layman, and what they hear from sighted, uncontrolled listening is reality. Their ears are beyond sighted bias.
YMMV.

 

[pablolie]

... I oft hear statements like, " I'm a pro X instrument player and know what good playback sounds like. And I can tell you I can easily hear the changes from (x powercord, widget, grounding box, whatever) LOL ...

I think most of us see that as a typical red flag, just as much as "I have a PhD in Engineering" (aka False Authority Fallacy).

 

[beefkabob]

My somewhat famous musician friend can recognize a quality recording. He spent plenty of time in studios. He called out clipped snares in a jazz recording, though he's a guitarist. However, he knows jack all about sound reproduction and loves his vinyl because magic.

 

[Sal1950]

However, he knows jack all about sound reproduction and loves his vinyl because magic.

That right there reveals how susceptible he is to Snake-Oil

 

[Robin L]

Robin, I was reviewing your post in my head and thought I'd debate that one a bit.
I do know a bunch of of folks who are both musicians and audio-nuts on the believer haunts (and even here occasionally). From them I oft hear statements like, " I'm a pro X instrument player and know what good playback sounds like. And I can tell you I can easily hear the changes from (x powercord, widget, grounding box, whatever) LOL
Any kidding aside, I've found the musicians easily sucked into the snake-oil audiofoolery cult, with Classical genre maybe even more so.
They're just cock-sure they hear better than any layman, and what they hear from sighted, uncontrolled listening is reality. Their ears are beyond sighted bias.
YMMV.

I'm just referring to 2 recordists I've worked with who were knowledgeable, rational folks, not sucked into "High-End" nonsense. With recordings the microphones are the most important element, even more important than the monitoring gear. Once one knows how a given set of microphones will perform, the monitoring gear isn't all that crucial until post-production. One of these engineers I was assisting pointed out to me that cable/wire didn't make a real difference, but microphones do. Wish I paid more attention to him sooner.

 

[LesterNZ]

Yes, the room in a performance, and the actual live audition, plus how it's recorded is a massive variable. Recording a dipole soundboard with a reflective lid (or not), mic type & placement, and sometime "bleed" from other instruments are just the start of sonic variations where a 'Reference Standard' cannot be solidly established. The delightful Marbeck Live series shows how different artists' have timbre and technique as part of their essential sound signature. Or, is it mostly about what their favoured engineers & producers provide?

We've come a long recorded way, but there's still quite a distance to any "agreed" perfection.

 

[pablolie]

Yes, the room in a performance, and the actual live audition, plus how it's recorded is a massive variable. Recording a dipole soundboard with a reflective lid (or not), mic type & placement, and sometime "bleed" from other instruments are just the start of sonic variations where a 'Reference Standard' cannot be solidly established. The delightful Marbeck Live series shows how different artists' have timbre and technique as part of their essential sound signature. Or, is it mostly about what their favoured engineers & producers provide?

We've come a long recorded way, but there's still quite a distance to any "agreed" perfection.

I like piano recordings, and to this day I don't hear a coherent and agreed upon way to provide a balanced performance. That goes with many soloist big names. I am not a recording engineer but I suspect a lot of it is simply dictated by artist ego.

 

[Robin L]

Yes, the room in a performance, and the actual live audition, plus how it's recorded is a massive variable. Recording a dipole soundboard with a reflective lid (or not), mic type & placement, and sometime "bleed" from other instruments are just the start of sonic variations where a 'Reference Standard' cannot be solidly established. The delightful Marbeck Live series shows how different artists' have timbre and technique as part of their essential sound signature. Or, is it mostly about what their favoured engineers & producers provide?

It's the "Maybeck Live series". Maybeck recital hall is north of the UC Berkeley campus, very close to Chez Panisse. A very small venue but with good acoustics and two excellent Yamaha pianos back when I was recording concerts there. The venue seats 40. As I recall, Concord Jazz Maybeck Live series used the same engineers and has a tendency to use very close miking.

 

[Mnyb]

I like your discussion, even if I can’t provide further insight.

To me it’s a variation of the problem that microphones are not ears and stereo is a “medium” of sort ? A fake , a produced illusion ?
Like books and movies.

The trick seems to be to not brake the “ suspension off disbelief “ similar to the first Alien movie, it’s literally a guy in a rubber suit running around in a warehouse , but you throw that notion away and gets sucked into the narrative

Classical music has an added twist that you can enjoy it without any electronic aid directly in situ it exists in reality here and now.
Where pop/rock is the produced record .

A good producer can give us a believable illusion of a “ piano concert “ ?
You guys seems to have a peculiar sensitivity to how the piano is reproduced mostly due to a lot off actual hands on experience .
I hear that they’re different in every recording, but as novice “pianoish” fools me .

Do we have a companion tread with good piano recordings ( don’t pollute this one )? Preferably relatively modern as classic music buffs always inevitably point to some vax cylinder as being the pinnacle off any given sub genre

 

[Robin L]

Do we have a companion tread with good piano recordings ( don’t pollute this one )? Preferably relatively modern as classic music buffs always inevitably point to some vax cylinder as being the pinnacle off any given sub genre

There isn't a piano specific thread as far as I can tell. However, there are multiple classical music threads with lots of piano recordings listed. And I don't think giving examples of good piano recording would "pollute" this thread:

 

[stvnharr]

It's the "Maybeck Live series". Maybeck recital hall is north of the UC Berkeley campus, very close to Chez Panisse. A very small venue but with good acoustics and two excellent Yamaha pianos back when I was recording concerts there. The venue seats 40. As I recall, Concord Jazz Maybeck Live series used the same engineers and has a tendency to use very close miking.

The Maybeck recordings from Concord records are wonderful. I have many of them.

 

[dualazmak]

Do we have a companion tread with good piano recordings ( don’t pollute this one )? Preferably relatively modern as classic music buffs always inevitably point to some vax cylinder as being the pinnacle off any given sub genre

Just for example, how about these my posts on my project thread?
- Excellent Recording Quality Music Albums/Tracks for Subjective (and Possibly Objective) Test/Check/Tuning of Multichannel Multi-Driver Multi-Way Multi-Amplifier Time-Aligned Active Stereo Audio System and Room Acoustics; at least a Portion and/or One Track being Analyzed by Color Spectrum of Adobe Audition in Common Parameters:
[Part-02] Solo Piano Music: #590

The following posts within "the post series" also contain nice excellent piano sound in the tracks:
[Part-06] Female Vocal in Jazz and Popular Music, and One Male Vocal Track for Comparison: #596
[Part-08] (Smooth?) Jazz Trio: #640
[Part-11] Violin Music: #643
[Part-14] Piano Concertos: #650
[Part-18] An Interlude or Provisional Finale of the Post Series: #669

Based on the "post series" I have already started an independent thread:
- An Attempt Sharing Reference Quality Music Playlist: at least a portion and/or whole track being analyzed by 3D color spectrum of Adobe Audition

 

[dualazmak]

And, as one another typical example, my post here #688 on that remote thread where Ivo Janssen was/is using YAMAHA Grand Piano C7.
Not only the recording quality but also his "style" of performance is the critical factor, at least for me, in this case.

Spoiler

After waiting for more than three years, finally I could purchase this CD; JS Bach "Fantansies Capriccios Variations", VOID 9810, by pianist Ivo Janssen recorded in 2004:

You can hear his performance of my most favorite Fantasy in C-minor BVW904 in this CD on YouTube;

During 1994 - 2007, Ivo Janssen played and recorded all the keyboard works of JS Bach on his own label VOID Classics, and the amazing work is now available in a 20-CD box (ref. here VOID Classics).

During the Corona virus pandemic period, however, it looked Ivo Janssen had very difficult situation in his music endeavors, and CDs from VOID Classics were not available especially in Japan for several years.

Recently I was much delighted finding that Ivo restarted the VOID Classics web site successfully; I could order/purchase the specific CD VOID 9810 on his web site.

I have several CDs of piano performance of Fantasy in C-minor BVW904 including the famous (and popular?) one by Alfred Brendel, but at least for me this performance by Ivo Janssen is the best! Very interestingly, he uses YAMAHA Grand Piano C7.

As for performances by harpsichord, I like this 4K UHD YouTube video clip by Yuko Tanaka under Voices of Music release;

 

[MickeyBoy]

I like your discussion, even if I can’t provide further insight.

To me it’s a variation of the problem that microphones are not ears and stereo is a “medium” of sort ? A fake , a produced illusion ?
Like books and movies.

The trick seems to be to not brake the “ suspension off disbelief “ similar to the first Alien movie, it’s literally a guy in a rubber suit running around in a warehouse , but you throw that notion away and gets sucked into the narrative

Classical music has an added twist that you can enjoy it without any electronic aid directly in situ it exists in reality here and now.
Where pop/rock is the produced record .

A good producer can give us a believable illusion of a “ piano concert “ ?
You guys seems to have a peculiar sensitivity to how the piano is reproduced mostly due to a lot off actual hands on experience .
I hear that they’re different in every recording, but as novice “pianoish” fools me .

Do we have a companion tread with good piano recordings ( don’t pollute this one )? Preferably relatively modern as classic music buffs always inevitably point to some vax cylinder as being the pinnacle off any given sub genre

I understand this thread to encompass all the elements of a piano recording: the instrument, the pianist, and the quality of the recording - not just what the engineers have done. So I very much appreciate Haskil's comment that Claudio Arrau's Philips were good approximations of his fabulous sound. This comment covers all three aspects. Many contributors have much welcome experience with the recording side. Let's encourage more contributions from them. And if I were to comment that Cho's interpretation of Debussy on DG given below by Robin L, while excellent in every way, strikes me as what the French would call 'parfumé', overrefined or a bit precious, I would hope that I would not be exiled for that.

 

[Robin L]

I understand this thread to encompass all the elements of a piano recording: the instrument, the pianist, and the quality of the recording - not just what the engineers have done. So I very much appreciate Haskil's comment that Claudio Arrau's Philips were good approximations of his fabulous sound. This comment covers all three aspects. Many contributors have much welcome experience with the recording side. Let's encourage more contributions from them. And if I were to comment that Cho's interpretation of Debussy on DG given below by Robin L, while excellent in every way, strikes me as what the French would call 'parfumé', overrefined or a bit precious, I would hope that I would not be exiled for that.

 

[dualazmak]

Maybe we have come a little bit far away from the perspective(s) of OP @pablolie...
Nevertheless,,,
If we do not care about "recording quality", and we would pay intensive attention on "style" of performance, I can "count", for example, this piano accompaniment by Tasso Janoupolo to the famous Jaques Thiboud's Vitali Chaconne performance always bring tears in my eyes...

 

[pablolie]

Maybe we have come a little bit far away from the perspective(s) of OP @pablolie...
Nevertheless,,,
If we do not care about "recording quality", and we would pay intensive attention on "style" of performance, I can "count", for example, this piano accompaniment by Tasso Janoupolo to the famous Jaques Thiboud's Vitali Chaconne performance always bring tears in my eyes...

I have learned a lot in this topic and simply enjoy the different perspectives.

Two things clearly need to be balanced:

1. If you don't like the artist or performance... why would you care if the recording is great?

2. If you love the artist/performance... you'd probably be able to overcome deficiencies in the recording and still greatly enjoy the music.

There's probably a sliding scale between the two somewhere.

And I myself have drifted off topic in this thread, so just keep it up from all those angles we are exploring.

 

[beefkabob]

Maybe we have come a little bit far away from the perspective(s) of OP @pablolie...
Nevertheless,,,
If we do not care about "recording quality", and we would pay intensive attention on "style" of performance, I can "count", for example, this piano accompaniment by Tasso Janoupolo to the famous Jaques Thiboud's Vitali Chaconne performance always bring tears in my eyes...

What about this performance do you love so much?