Awesome, thanks!
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The Truth about many "Audiophile" Piano Recordings
- Thread starter pablolie
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For recreation of a performance. I've recorded many orchestral settings without close micing any instruments and it does present as well.
IMO the best "reproductions" of live performances, are achieved using fairly simple mike technics (eg: 2 crossed mikes)
Which is the very definition of HIgh Fidelity!
The other techniques are Not a reproduction of a live event, but a different art form... more abstract - and unrelated to reproducing a live event.
Which is the very definition of HIgh Fidelity!
The other techniques are Not a reproduction of a live event, but a different art form... more abstract - and unrelated to reproducing a live event.
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XY micing has tremendous benefits, where needed. As stated I've recorded live sound and for many applications, this discussion isn't about stereo micing.
LightninBoy
Addicted to Fun and Learning
The science fiction author?
OP
- Thread Starter
- #67
I agree. I wish I knew how Bill Evans Waltz for Debby was recorded, but my best is it was a simple but optimally placed 2 microphone technique given the exquisite everything despite the venue's limitations and available tech at the time...
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Robin L
Master Contributor
Correct. Her daughter is a Baroque Cellist.
Robin L
Master Contributor
Nope, not a simple two microphone arrangement. The bass sound is close, the piano is clearly hard right. The three elements in the sound all appear to be panned mono. That 30-foot-wide piano is not an issue here, balances are fine. And as this is live, with a drinking audience, closer miking makes more sense. A typical 2 microphone arrangement would catch too much audience noise.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #70
Do you know all that or is it your educated guess (no offense intended, appreciate the input). For the longest time I have wondered how this was recorded and mastered (endlessly after the fact it seems - and I prefer the CD rip I have over the HDflac download).
Robin L
Master Contributor
Educated guess. Monitored on headphones [Drop 6XX]. A two-microphone recording would have different piano sound right and left. This is panned mostly to the right, there's no stereo spread of the piano. I've made two-microphone recordings of pianos solo and with other instruments. Two-microphone stereo, like ORTF, would have some piano in both channels and there would be a tonal difference between the two channels. But this pretty much sounds like a mono source panned to a position slightly less than hard right in the stereo image. And, as I said before, there's very little audience sound in the mix.
I've heard plenty of live Jazz on record, here's a great example, Duke Ellington, soon after the famous Newport performance. This sounds like two-microphone stereo, there's much more audience noise even though group playing is much bigger and louder than the piano trio recording. While the piano is positioned hard left, you can hear its sound splash off the walls of the room, with a different reflected sound on one side than the other. The effect is even more pronounced with the drum kit, which seems to get bigger as it gets louder. Should note there's an earlier volume in this series, I like the sound quality on that better, but the YouTube needledrop of that disc sounds like a mono fold-down, of a stereo LP. Look for "Duke Ellington All Star Road Band, Volume 1", I've got the CD. This track is from Volume 2:
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LightninBoy
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Cool. You've done some interesting things.
You seem to be suggesting that the recording (Buena Vista Social Club at Carnegie Hall) is largely the sound of the PA system. That is not how recordings are typically made. The sound in the recording is primarily from feeds from the musicians onstage microphones (which also feed the PA system). There are also microphones to capture the venue space, and they are mixed with onstage microphones to produce the final recording. In the same way, don't discount the sound quality that might be achieved from a recording in a corner bar or nightclub.
Not all of it was. Only the on-stage performances. Scattered amongst those are studio tracks. (Clue: check the number of active channels to distinguish them.)
nerdstrike
Active Member
As an aside, with the rise of "silent pianos" for practicing, they've had to resort to a binaural tricks for the headphone signal. Otherwise you get a really hard pan from left to right in the headphone and it sounds just plain odd.
Speaking as a pianist, I doubt the musician point of view is the best. First you have lots of mechanical sounds that you probably don't want to hear, like creaking pedal mechanisms, fingernails on keys and such. Then you also have the aforementioned stereo effect of being orthogonal to the strings.
On the other hand I quite like the involvement of close mic sound... That might be the player in me though.
Speaking as a pianist, I doubt the musician point of view is the best. First you have lots of mechanical sounds that you probably don't want to hear, like creaking pedal mechanisms, fingernails on keys and such. Then you also have the aforementioned stereo effect of being orthogonal to the strings.
On the other hand I quite like the involvement of close mic sound... That might be the player in me though.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #76
With Keith Jarrett, I have always wondered how they managed to clearly separate the piano -which always quite clear- from his "singing" -which sounds as if comes from far away even though he's clearly right there playing the piano. An example is "God save the child" in "Standards 1".
Prolly a beneficial effect of close mic. :-D
Prolly a beneficial effect of close mic. :-D
Nice recording, but how do you feel about the bass and drums that seem to be sharing the exact same physical space on the left?
OP
- Thread Starter
- #78
Interestingly there are several remasters out there, each can pick their favorite... ;-) The constant is that the piano is always hard on the right, the bass and main drum set on the left indeed. I have 3 versions of it, in the HD tracks remaster (which isn't my fav), they seem to reduce ambient noise some and spread it a bit more across the "room", and the cymbals hover above some covering a more widespread position (if you listen to "Detour Ahead Take 2). It's not my fav version though...Nice recording, but how do you feel about the bass and drums that seem to be sharing the exact same physical space on the left?
But you're right, it's far from a perfect recording, albeit a sublime performance... and despite the spatial limitations, sonically it is very impressive given the time and age...
PS: I happened to be listening to this on my WFH workstation via Audioengine D1 DAC and Shure SRH1540 while the topic came up here - a fun little setup that I have enjoyed tons for years, but of course especially so since the pandemic
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Robin L
Master Contributor
That's another sign of being close miked and panned into position. The album was recorded at the Village Vanguard, NYC. 1962 would still be relatively early for stereo recording of a live date.Nice recording, but how do you feel about the bass and drums that seem to be sharing the exact same physical space on the left?
Robin L
Master Contributor
There's also the possibility of sticking a microphone on Keith and folding it into the mix out of phase.
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