To reverb or not?
 

"Iain Churches" wrote in message


A few words from Iain's little fantasy land:

It's generally a matter on convenience.

No, it is usually a matter of utmost importance.

You could
achieve the balance by having the soloist physically
centre, and much closer to the stereo pair than the other players,
providing that
he/she could sing/play loud enough to maintain the
internal balance of the performance, in just the same way as you layer an
ensemble, and you retain the perspective that way without having to
place a pan -pot mic into the stereo picture.

The above paragraph has enough hedge words in it to render it meaningless,
if you really try to understand it.

There are many cases where the vocalists will get lost in the maelstrom,
unless you spot mic them.

For example it is not unusual to put your stereo pair well above stage level
(a critical fact that Iain would know if he'd ever placed a stereo pair in
his life). Unless you put the vocalists on step ladders, they'll never get
close enough to the mics to cut through.

I could deconstruct the rest of the Iain's muddle, but why waste the time?
Some people are simply unteachable. :-(

To reverb or not?
 

"Iain Churches" wrote in message


"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

Calling spot micing a tiny fraction of the musicians
"multi micing" seems to confuse the issue.

No. Once you add a spot you have entered the realm of
multi-mic technique, in trying to compensate for the
problems in producing a satisfactory recording from the
ensemble's own acoustic balance.

I might have actually believed the above 10 years ago, when I restarted
doing live sound and recording of vocal and instrumental groups. 10 years
and actually over 1,000 live perforances (in a recent post I *forgot* about
all the festival recording that I do)...

Iain has in another post tacitly admitted that he's never ever placed the
mics for an orchestral recording. Weigh what he says accordingly.

It puts the whole thing into a totally new perspective
and it is a very short step to adding a second, third and
fourth spot each to compensate for the one before. It's a
slippery slope to section mics and then individual mics.

It is simply a matter of the right tool for the job.

When I record good groups in good venues, minimal micing is the only
reasonable answer.

Throwing in a few spot mics and dribbling a little something into the group
sound is sort of like restoring natural color to a really good painting that
has just a few flawed patches. It's nothing like starting the painting over
from scratch. This is accepted practice in the industry.

To reverb or not?
 

"Iain Churches" wrote in message

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...

I provide SR support for a small orchestra - less than
20 pieces. We have a number of electric/elecronic
instruments, guitars, keyboard, etc. We also mic the
woodwinds. strings, and the more mellow brass
instruments such as a French Horn. We don't have enough
instruments to achieve a natural balance, so the
electronic assistance vastly improves the sound quality.

:-)

Both hyenas and Iain laugh at anything you say in their presence, no matter
how relevant and correct.

Presumably each of your electric/electronic instruments,
guitars, keyboard, etc has an amp?

Shows how little you know, Iain.

The answer is that we presently have zero amps that are dedicated to any
particular instrument. There are zero MI amps on the premises these days.

From time to time we've put instrument amps into the orchestra pit and miced
them or otherwise bled them into the main mix, and worked with them. We got
it to work, and pretty well. We quit doing it when we moved on to something
better.

Today, our approach for monitoring electric/electronic instruments can be
explained with one word that Iain has obviously never heard even once in his
life: Aviom. Presumably Iain has heard the word Fender, but that is so
60s....


So it would be quite
within the realms of possibility to create a pleasing acoustic
balance without extra mics. After all, you are probably
not looking for the punch of a big band.

Wrong again Iain. Some of our music director's musical arrangements pay
tribute to a well-known group that I believe still currently performs:
Chicago. Probably too contemporary for Iain since we've advanced the
discussion to the 1960s.

You need to pay careful attention to the physical
layout of the ensemble, and sit with the producer
and the conductor a few rows back to listen before
making any changes. The French horn is a difficult
instrument to play, and amateur performers are often
understandably over-cautious. If he/she can play at
the proper marked dynamic, there should be no
difficulty in being heard. Or bring him/her closer to
the front to sit with the woodwinds.

That's what layout is all about:-)

Anybody who wants to really understand how to mix electronics and live music
whether for SR or recording needs to ignore Iain's speculative prattle. He
doesn't even know the names of some of the tools, let alone have hands-on
experience with using them. He even completely disses some of the best
tools such as mid-sized digital consoles.

To reverb or not?
 

"David" wrote in message

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in
message ...
Nothing you can do to vinyl sorts its inherent faults.

Indeed, the big question is why oh why does it sound so
good?

Because you've grown to like its flaws. In exactly the
same way as some will turn up the bass (or treble) on an
otherwise well balanced system. Or watch over saturated
TV pictures.

I've never had anybody prefer the sound of my digital
system to my analogue system and they can't all have
grown to love it's flaws! (very few have turntables
afterall).

Your body language when you demo your system probably cues them to provide
gracious responses.

To reverb or not?
 

"Don Pearce" wrote in message

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 10:39:02 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

Swim wanted to max out the sax thing for once and for
all and went for this rather pricey but nice Selmer.
Cab't fault the tone, it sounds beautiful and Moira says
it plays like a dream - big step up from the worthy but
somewhat agricultural eBayArbiter she started out on.


Someone's been busy with the Brasso. Must be an evening's
work getting that to shine. But yes, it is easy to hear
the quality in the tone.

The problem with isolating the various influences of such things on sound
quality is that musicans almost always know what they are playing, and that
srongly influence how they play. Playing a musical instrument is very
strongly a head game, and a musican's complete life history shows up in
every note he plays or sings, just weighted a little differently.

To reverb or not?
 

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
Your body language when you demo your system probably cues them to provide
gracious responses.

:o)
Are you saying that you think that any digital (CD) source is superior to
any vinyl source?

To reverb or not?
 

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 08:29:07 -0500, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

"Don Pearce" wrote in message

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 10:39:02 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

Swim wanted to max out the sax thing for once and for
all and went for this rather pricey but nice Selmer.
Cab't fault the tone, it sounds beautiful and Moira says
it plays like a dream - big step up from the worthy but
somewhat agricultural eBayArbiter she started out on.


Someone's been busy with the Brasso. Must be an evening's
work getting that to shine. But yes, it is easy to hear
the quality in the tone.

The problem with isolating the various influences of such things on sound
quality is that musicans almost always know what they are playing, and that
srongly influence how they play. Playing a musical instrument is very
strongly a head game, and a musican's complete life history shows up in
every note he plays or sings, just weighted a little differently.


To an extent, and it depends on the instrument. For example I could
press a key on a piano, and there is no way you could distinguish that
from Glen Gould doing it. But make that a violin, and the difference
between me and Nigel Kennedy would be obvious inside half a second.

The sax comes somewhere between the two. There is sufficient of the
instruments's own quality in that playing for me to be able to hear
that it is not a cheap and nasty instrument. The playing standard is,
of course, plenty high enough for me to hear that without trouble.

d

To reverb or not?
 

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 12:30:19 +0000 (GMT), Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , Don Pearce
wrote:


It's quite difficult to see how the exterior finish could affect the
sound which is produced not by the metal, but by the air column. Of
course the metal interacts strongly, but all the same...

Well, I'd expect the amplitudes of the displacements of the vibrations of
the metalwork to be much smaller than those of the air in the column.
However the stiffness is also very different. And the shape, etc, of the
instrument presumably determine how effectively it acts as an 'antenna' to
couple the vibrations into the surroundings.

For a thin tube it would not surprise me if a surface coating affected the
mechanical impedance, velocity, damping, etc.


I was really thinking a step further removed. I was taking the lacquer
as a given, and thinking about the colour of the pigments in it.

But I have no idea if any of that would have any audible significance.
Presumably someone sometime *has* measured this? I recall that one of my
ex-colleagues (who used the anechoic chamber before myself) used to do
measurements on how the constructions affected the sounds, etc. IIRC he did
some work for Salvi (is that spelt correctly?) harps years ago.


Now harps are a whole nother thing. The sound comes off a sound board
which is absolutely key to the tone. I've recently put a finish on a
guitar which had matured to the tone I liked. I didn't want to affect
it too much so I used french polish rather than something like
polyurethane. There is a difference, but I still like the tone.

Could there be a little of the idea that the appearance affects the
player's mood, which in turn affects the style and performance here?

A coating may also affect how the instrument feels to the touch as well?

Oh yes.

d

To reverb or not?
 

In article , David
wrote:
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
Your body language when you demo your system probably cues them to
provide gracious responses.

:o)
Are you saying that you think that any digital (CD) source is superior
to any vinyl source?

To clarify what question you are asking perhaps you could define what you
mean by:

A) 'any'. Do you just mean that there may be one 'digital (CD) 'source' to
meet this, or 'all' or what?

B) 'source'. Are you meaning a player, or a physical CD, or the entire
medium/chain?

C) 'any vinyl source'. As per (A).

D) 'better'. Judged by whom, in what circumstances, and what basis?

I'm not clear if you are asking if one or more CD players sound 'better' to
one person in one case compared with one turntable-LP, or what. So I'm not
sure what point you are asking about.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

To reverb or not?
 

"Don Pearce" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 08:29:07 -0500, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

"Don Pearce" wrote in message

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 10:39:02 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

Swim wanted to max out the sax thing for once and for
all and went for this rather pricey but nice Selmer.
Cab't fault the tone, it sounds beautiful and Moira says
it plays like a dream - big step up from the worthy but
somewhat agricultural eBayArbiter she started out on.


Someone's been busy with the Brasso. Must be an evening's
work getting that to shine. But yes, it is easy to hear
the quality in the tone.

The problem with isolating the various influences of such things on sound
quality is that musicans almost always know what they are playing, and
that
srongly influence how they play. Playing a musical instrument is very
strongly a head game, and a musican's complete life history shows up in
every note he plays or sings, just weighted a little differently.


To an extent, and it depends on the instrument. For example I could
press a key on a piano, and there is no way you could distinguish that
from Glen Gould doing it. But make that a violin, and the difference
between me and Nigel Kennedy would be obvious inside half a second.

The sax comes somewhere between the two. There is sufficient of the
instruments's own quality in that playing for me to be able to hear
that it is not a cheap and nasty instrument. The playing standard is,
of course, plenty high enough for me to hear that without trouble.



Kind comments which have been passed on to the instrument's owner and player
who was most appreciative.