Re: [ARSCLIST] A fundamental Flaw: Was Sampling Theory (was Fred Layn's post on the Studer list re: Quantegy)

[David Lewiston <david.lewiston@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

There's only one way to get the richness of a concert experience, and that's
to attend the concert.

What those of us who record acoustic music are attempting to do is present
the music in a way that makes it enjoyable for people who listen to the
recording.

An example: A decade ago I was present at a huge festive occasion in Ubud,
Bali, where a very large gamelan played the traditional Barong repertoire as
two famous Barongs danced. It sounded amazing. By good fortune, the two mics
suspended overhead captured the music very well. It was an exceptional
event, the loudness and richness of the gamelan, the enthusiasm of the huge
crowd, and the power of the dancing. But when I returned home and played the
recordings, they seemed flat. Eventually, putting a limiter (L 2) into the
chain, I realised that the very large dynamic range of the recording robbed
it of excitement, which was restored by hefty limiting.

Another example: Tibetan chanting accompanied by the ritual instrumental
ensemble has a huge dynamic range. Retaining all of this results in a
playback experience where the volume control has to be twiddled constantly,
turned down to avoid being deafened by the instruments when they are
playing, and turned up when only chanting is taking place, so that it's
audible. The solution: Decrease the dynamic range. It still sounds amazing.
On an average playback system, the instruments sound *really* loud, but the
chanting is audible.

These instances are typical, in my experience: I want the released versions
of the recordings to convey the excitement that was present in the live
performances. Often, this means that some modification of the recorded sound
is necessary.

Salutations, David Lewiston
The Lewiston Archive, Recordings and Documentation of the World's
Traditional Music


----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Kj" <edisone1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 9:02 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] A fundamental Flaw: Was Sampling Theory (was Fred
Layn's post on the Studer list re: Quantegy)


> So, as long as the purpose of recording is to create an artificial
> experience instead of recreating the original sound, it will be pointless
to
> compare recordings to original performances or expect realistic results ;
> they are purposely different.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
>
>
> > We are speaking of live musicians performing on acoustical instruments
in
> > an
> > acoustical environment.  When recording, we are not attempting to
capture
> > the concert experience.  By artfully placing the microphones and
enhancing
> > the results by further processing, we are trying to create an audio
> > imitation of that experience to be reproduced in an area of much smaller
> > cubic volume in which playback is accomplished through speakers, not
> > headphones.