BIS have very good engineers, and Thore is a terrific producer as well. One of the problems with YouTube is they change their encoding process every few months. Audio wise, you can upload th same video a few hours apart and get different audio. Although it is better now, Vimeo and Facebook have much better quality.
dt At 11:51 AM 7/23/2010, you wrote: > Hello Ned: > Your point is well taken. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to > convince the average listener, even those acquainted with the actual > sound of the lute, that a real, dry, non-reverberant sound is ideal. > The problem, as I see (or hear) it is that more people have heard the > lute on recordings than live and close up. Certain > prolifically-recorded players have opted for a sound that was described > some years back by a Gramophone reviewer as a 'psycho-acoustic > nightmare, distant and close at the same time'. If we don't gravitate > towards a reverberant sound, we can be easily dismissed as not ideal. > Another dimension of the problem lies with available technology. It is > very, very difficult to find a recording engineer who understands the > simplicity of the lute sound well enough to record it simplistically. > When we first approached our current engineer (Grammy-award winner, > Will Russell) and played as an example our favorite recording of Emma > Kirby and Jakob Lindberg on BIS, his immediate reaction was to ask > permission to make us sound better than that. It was a process, but we > finally convinced him that a simple mic placement yielded the sound and > natural balance we were seeking. > We have experimented on Youtube with a few different representations of > sound, and it is interesting to see the results. Typically, the more > reverberant sound seems to get more repeated hits. Our recent posting > of Sicut cervus/Sitivit anima by Palestrina is recorded in a live space > with absolutely no tampering with the Zoom H2, place about 10 feet > away. > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUDplApE45U > But we deliberately recorded the Christ Child Lullaby at home in a dry > acoustic with the Zoom closely placed in an attempt to judge how > listeners would react. The appeal of the music seems to have attracted > hits despite the dry sound. > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9atiweh44WU > Personally, I agree that one does not want to hear a lute's volume > boosted to represent something it is not. The idea of having my head > trapped inside of a lute makes me afraid. But the fact is, we have to > aim for a standard that is not going to drive the average listener away > because the music is 'better than it sounds.' A quandary indeed. > Best, > Ron Andrico > www.mignarda.com > > Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:53:26 -0400 > > To: [email protected] > > CC: [email protected] > > From: [email protected] > > Subject: [LUTE] Re: Vice Nisee > > > > I think my point about lutes being 'enlarged' in the recording > process could best be made by referring to specific lute recordings. > Comparing Jakob Lindberg's recordings of Dowland (reissued on Brilliant > ) with Hopkinson Smiths recording "Dowland: A Dream" on Naive, I hear > considerably more reverberation on the Smith recording than on the one > of Lindberg. At the same approximate volume, Smith's instrument sounds > much larger (to me) than Lindberg's. More importantly, Lindberg's > instrument sounds more natural to me than Smith's; more like what I'm > accustomed to hearing from a lute played live. To be sure, the > recordings of both instruments underwent some electronic processing > before being transferred to CD. My subjective impression is that > Smith's received more added reverb than Lindberg's. That's what I hear > in the Vice Nisee video/audio and - perhaps(?) - what Suzanne also > heard. > > > > Ned > > On Jul 22, 2010, at 6:37 PM, howard posner wrote: > > > > > The lute would necessarily be amplified and there would necessarily > be microphones; that's the nature of electronic transmission of sound. > If it sounds too loud for you, turn down the volume on your computer. > If it then doesn't sound loud enough, turn the volume up. Repeat > process until it sounds just right. > > > > > > On Jul 22, 2010, at 3:05 PM, Edward Mast wrote: > > > > > >> I agree with Suzanne, both about the sound and the playing. I've > made this observation here before; the tendency of recording engineers > today seems to be to make lutes sound as large as concert grand pianos. > > >> > > >> Ned > > >> On Jul 22, 2010, at 11:36 AM, Suzanne Angevine wrote: > > >> > > >>> Was it the acoustic that was lush? I almost had the feeling that > it was an amplified instrument and was looking for the cord or tiny > mike somewhere. But it was nice playing. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > > > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > > > > > > __________________________________________________________________ > > Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from > your inbox. [1]See how. -- > >References > > 1. > http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_2
