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There is no absolute sound. AKA the importance of microphone placement during recording.

Blumlein 88

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http://soundmedia.jp/nuaudk/05Fl/index.html

Recordings done with spaced pairs of Schoeps 4006 omni or DPA PZM microphones in many positions with an RME Micstasy preamp. The video loads and you can use the diagram on the left to select which microphone pair you hear. You can select from instruments at the top of the page and various videos of each playing different music. Take a moment till it makes sense to you. Also the videos seem to partly load, hang for a minute load and hang for another minute before being ready to play so be patient.

Now people like to think a minimalist stereo recording can provide us the absolute sound of reality, and that exposure to real instruments in real space give us the ability to choose which recordings are the most lifelike. Indeed an influential high end magazine was named for this very concept. These recordings should put a damper on that idea.
 
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MakeMineVinyl

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Yes, but a single flute???
 
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Blumlein 88

Blumlein 88

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watchnerd

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I picked contrabass because that's what I play when I'm not playing electric bass.

I played with all the positions I normally use that were in the simulator, but they left out a few common ultra close-mic positions that really piss me off in real life because I have to change my playing style due to....

...the proximity effect.

Which would be cool if this simulator showed that, too.
 
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Blumlein 88

Blumlein 88

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I picked contrabass because that's what I play when I'm not playing electric bass.

I played with all the positions I normally use that were in the simulator, but they left out a few common ultra close-mic positions that really piss me off in real life because I have to change my playing style due to....

...the proximity effect.

Which would be cool if this simulator showed that, too.
Well you shouldn't have proximity effect with the omni mics they were using. You'd only get that with non-omni patterns. Of course when you use cardioids which are the most common you have to be cognizant of proximity effect.
 

watchnerd

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Well you shouldn't have proximity effect with the omni mics they were using. You'd only get that with non-omni patterns. Of course when you use cardioids which are the most common you have to be cognizant of proximity effect.

Yes -- and this is what has happened to me many many times in real life.

I now bring my own mics just in case.
 

PaulD

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http://soundmedia.jp/nuaudk/05Fl/index.html

Recordings done with spaced pairs of Schoeps 4006 omni or DPA PZM microphones in many positions with an RME Micstasy preamp. The video loads and you can use the diagram on the left to select which microphone pair you hear. You can select from instruments at the top of the page and various videos of each playing different music. Take a moment till it makes sense to you. Also the videos seem to partly load, hang for a minute load and hang for another minute before being ready to play so be patient.

Now people like to think a minimalist stereo recording can provide us the absolute sound of reality, and that exposure to real instruments in real space give us the ability to choose which recordings are the most lifelike. Indeed an influential high end magazine was named for this very concept. These recordings should put a damper on that idea.
Thanks! That is a fun demo, I will show it to students.

We do something similar in my institution (I wrote the Audio degree and used to run it), but we get a string quartet and record them with all of the mics in lots of different ways (Blumlein with Coles 4038s, XY, spaced omni with DPA 4060s, ORTF, NOS, and close mics). This all goes into a session in ProTools and the students can compare the sound of the mics and the different stereo images from the different mic techniques. It is highly educational - we should put out something like this for the public! Of course they also try lots of things with other instruments, from guitars to drums to flute and vocals etc etc etc.
 
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Blumlein 88

Blumlein 88

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Thanks! That is a fun demo, I will show it to students.

We do something similar in my institution (I wrote the Audio degree and used to run it), but we get a string quartet and record them with all of the mics in lots of different ways (Blumlein with Coles 4038s, XY, spaced omni with DPA 4060s, ORTF, NOS, and close mics). This all goes into a session in ProTools and the students can compare the sound of the mics and the different stereo images from the different mic techniques. It is highly educational - we should put out something like this for the public! Of course they also try lots of things with other instruments, from guitars to drums to flute and vocals etc etc etc.
That would be a good thing to put out. I've recorded practice sessions like that before. With 4 different microphone techniques going on concurrently. Plus some of them can be combined later. It is very educational to hear the differences in stereo presentation and basic sound balance.
 

PaulD

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That would be a good thing to put out. I've recorded practice sessions like that before. With 4 different microphone techniques going on concurrently. Plus some of them can be combined later. It is very educational to hear the differences in stereo presentation and basic sound balance.
Ok, here you go... I hunted around my disk and while current sessions are all at work (and I'm on summer break), I found an older version (or some of it). This is not a fancy demo, but here are some files of this activity I found from the last time I ran it (others do it now).
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15VFC-ZjxxNhw9XIsE1YgMKaf7lN62AIL?usp=sharing

It is an excerpt from a sting qt. recording, there are multiple mics and recording techniques on the session, they are:
- Coles 4038 ribbons (fig-8) in Blumlein config, 4-5-ish metres in front of the group.
- DPA 4060 omnis in AB, 300mm wide, same distance from the band.
- Studio Projects C4 omni, AB, 500-600mm wide, same distance.
- Rode M5 cardioid XY, same distance from the band.
- Neumann KM184s close on the instruments, about 0.5m-1m away, panned in the session.

No processing is done at all apart from level matching (might be a bit out in this section). 24/96 session.

The interest is in listening to the different sound of the mics and different stereo image presented by the different techniques.

It's easy to hear the bass rolloff of the velocity mics (directional: XY, Blumlein), and the better bass from the omni's. There is some proximity effect on the cardioid close mics. You can sum them to mono to hear the comb filtering in the spaced (AB) techniques, and hear a bit of stereo image difference (exaggeration) in the wider AB set. The close mics give the typical sound of such a technique, not very good on this music, but more appropriate on a pop selection.

Have a listen and enjoy! Not sure how long these will remain up, so grab a copy if you want it. This should illustrate Blumlein 88's idea at the end of the original post, and I hope you enjoy the recordings.

Edit: I will look around for the other tracks with other mics and stereo arrangements, I might find them, but they probably won't show as much difference as these do.
 
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tuga

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http://soundmedia.jp/nuaudk/05Fl/index.html

Recordings done with spaced pairs of Schoeps 4006 omni or DPA PZM microphones in many positions with an RME Micstasy preamp. The video loads and you can use the diagram on the left to select which microphone pair you hear. You can select from instruments at the top of the page and various videos of each playing different music. Take a moment till it makes sense to you. Also the videos seem to partly load, hang for a minute load and hang for another minute before being ready to play so be patient.

Now people like to think a minimalist stereo recording can provide us the absolute sound of reality, and that exposure to real instruments in real space give us the ability to choose which recordings are the most lifelike. Indeed an influential high end magazine was named for this very concept. These recordings should put a damper on that idea.

Leaving aside the fact that 2-channel stereo over speakers cannot reproduce the original soundfield, how are we expected to determine which mic setup produces the most realistic (re)presentation when we were not present and thus didn't listen to the live performers?

In my anecdotal experience, as the mic gets closer to the sound source there's a change in its tonal balance, direct sound turns overly predominant (semi-anechoic) and mechanical or mouth noises become unnaturally obvious when compared to what one would be able to listen to in a live non-amplified performance from a seat in the audience.

Once I and some friends arrived late at a music festival which took place in an old palace. The room had already closed but a nice girl let us in and asked us to sit on the floor by the door in order not to disturb the musicians. As I got in first I was forced to sit by Wispelwey's cello, must have been some 2 metres away, and I can assure you that I couldn't hear many of the finger and bow noises that often creep in to classical music recordings.

One could make a point about the missing visual cues in stereo reproduction but in my experience and for my taste close mic'ing negatively impacts timbres and realism.
I suggest comparing Reference Recordings' (Oue) vs Dorian's (Mata) recordings of Stravinsky's "Le Sacre Du Printemps".
 

watchnerd

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Leaving aside the fact that 2-channel stereo over speakers cannot reproduce the original soundfield, how are we expected to determine which mic setup produces the most realistic (re)presentation when we were not present and thus didn't listen to the live performers?

You can't.

And even if you're present, it's only semi-true if you were in the location the mic was in. If you were across the hall, the acoustics are different.

But mics hear things differently than human ears, regardless.

Thus why The Absolute Sound as a reference standard is a fallacy.
 

watchnerd

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As I got in first I was forced to sit by Wispelwey's cello, must have been some 2 metres away, and I can assure you that I couldn't hear many of the finger and bow noises that often creep in to classical music recordings.

As a bass player, I've had many times where a close mic picks up more finger noise than I hear myself when playing.
 

Robin L

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Fantastic. Of course, this all needs to be repeated with different microphones, different sorts of arrays, polar patterns. But just moving around spaced [not very much] omnis of known quality---"nothing is real". I've recorded soloists, chamber groups, chorus, orchestras, piano, all the other keyboards [including clavichord, low enough in level that a performer's and audience's breathing becomes an issue on the recording]. And nothing I ever did came out sounding like 'reality'. The violin sound is the one I've had the most exposure to, sitting real close to fiddlers in old-school country music jams. Like I've said before, microphones are unreliable narrators.
 

watchnerd

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I hadn't really thought of it before, but:

Without a belief in the Absolute Sound, there is no reference criteria for subjective listening.

All you're left with are relative comparison preferences, i.e. I preferred the sound of this recording on speaker A vs B.

Harry Pearson was smart -- he needed a philosophical foundation on which to establish subjective audio reviewers as a legitimate alternative to measurements. Otherwise, it's just opinion.
 

dasdoing

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And even if you're present, it's only semi-true if you were in the location the mic was in. If you were across the hall, the acoustics are different.

Mid/Side microphone recording gives more control over the ambience. at the end stereo recording is always a (LP) simulation you are creating in the production process.
the only way to realy record the real ambience at a listening position is binaural recording/playback
 

MRC01

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... In my anecdotal experience, as the mic gets closer to the sound source there's a change in its tonal balance, direct sound turns overly predominant (semi-anechoic) and mechanical or mouth noises become unnaturally obvious when compared to what one would be able to listen to in a live non-amplified performance from a seat in the audience.

Once I and some friends arrived late at a music festival which took place in an old palace. The room had already closed but a nice girl let us in and asked us to sit on the floor by the door in order not to disturb the musicians. As I got in first I was forced to sit by Wispelwey's cello, must have been some 2 metres away, and I can assure you that I couldn't hear many of the finger and bow noises that often creep in to classical music recordings.
...
I have a different view. On stage or in rehearsal with my friends, the tone of the instruments sounds completely different than it does from the 1st row seats. The string timbre has an extra zingy presence and I can hear everything from sliding fingers to breathing. I've used "alternate" seating at small venues where I'm behind the musicians just out their way, and I've even turned pages for the pianist. In these situations it's that same super close sound. I find that close miced recordings accurately portray this sound. It's too bright and edgy sounding for me to really enjoy, but it is natural.
 
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Blumlein 88

Blumlein 88

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I hadn't really thought of it before, but:

Without a belief in the Absolute Sound, there is no reference criteria for subjective listening.

All you're left with are relative comparison preferences, i.e. I preferred the sound of this recording on speaker A vs B.

Harry Pearson was smart -- he needed a philosophical foundation on which to establish subjective audio reviewers as a legitimate alternative to measurements. Otherwise, it's just opinion.
This is what I had in mind when I started the thread. This demo video I ran across was just the thing for such a discussion. Instead of philosophical opinions we have a few good examples.
 

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