Thanks David for sharing these insights with us.
Having just manufactured a CD with lute recording on it,
I really appreciate all that you are saying here. I think I
got lucky and made a good recording, at least I'm very
happy with it. A few noises here and there, but overall
very clean.
Looking forward to the next installment of your article.
Thanks again,
Tom
http://www.heartistry.com/artists_tom.html
Part 2: noise.
Rest assured dear reader, that I have done my Maths. You will find
many opinions on sample rates, and presumably for all the rest of
these posts, and that is a good thing.
Part 2A: noise. noisy lutes. too much noise, Dude.
If you listen to a few hundred lute recordings, you will see that
almost all of them are too noisy. This post will talk briefly about
the noise from the lute, and how to make your recordings less
noisy. The other parts of this post will go into the noise that
comes from microphones and other parts of the recording process.
[sidebar: the reason we are working backwards is because we need to
arrive at the result--no amount of theory will be good unless the
result is good, and science can only help for part of the task]
Lute recording noise has several components. There is the noise
from the recording gear, the noise from the lute, the noise from
the player, and the noise from outside.
In dealing with the noise, we must make a musical, interesting
recording. It is not enough to simply remove the noise.
And here, we must, again working backwards from the nice, low-noise
musical recording, start with the lute. In starting with the lute
it is important to understand what can be fixed right now, what can
be fixed in the next few years, and figuring out what the recording
is for. In the previous post, I talk about how the traditional
sample rate is not ideal for the new marketing and aesthetic
considerations of the internet, and down the line we will see how
that connects to video. But first, we have to separate out the
sounds that the lute makes that are problematic for noise. And
here, the considerations are technique, stringing, and the setup.
There are three parts to the lute as far as noise: setup, paired
string technique, and tone. As long as the player can play every
note in a composition, even one note at a time, it is possible to
assemble those notes into an edited sequence. So there really is
very little difference between a highly skilled player and one who
isn't, as far as the notes are concerned. But the real difference
is the tone and the noise. The highly skilled player has figured
out how to strike the string and set up the lute. So the first key
here is that the lute must be set up properly to make a beautiful
sound, and, once it is set up, the players must learn the simple
method of striking the paired strings so that they vibrate
together, and then the player must be able to produce a sequence of
good tones.
Obviously, there is more to playing the lute, this is just about
the recording.
NB: The fact is, unless these three criteria are met, no
microphone, no Zoom, no gear, no reverb or anything else will
remove the noise and make a good recording. You could buy a
truckload of zooms and they would all sound pretty much the same
(but not exactly the same). It would be a complete waste of time.
And, unless the lute is set up properly, the player will only be
able to progress to certain point, but that's a subject for another
day. You can easily reduce the amount of noise your instrument
makes.
Using pairs of strings under controlled conditions, it is possible
to measure interference patterns that the strings create. It turns
out that the strings must be in a certain phase relationship to
make a good sound. You can see this phase with a high speed camera,
and you can measure, in different ways, what happens when the pairs
vibrate. That's not to say you can quantify a good sound, but most
lute players know intuitively when the pair of strings seems to
just pop out of the lute. That's when they are in phase, and that's
why double strings are seriously cool.
So step one is to get the setup right, and learn how to hit both
strings so they vibrate together--the majority of players will hit
one of the pairs before the other. If the strings are struck in
sequence, instead of together, they clash, they interfere with each
other. If the spacing and the setup is not right, it won't work.
Most lutes simply have too little space between the pairs, or too
much space. A narrow, roughly parallel pair can vibrate in phase,
as well as a pair that is for example about 5.2 mm wide at the
bridge. Most lutes fall in between these two workable dimensions,
and they clash. Unless the strings can vibrate as pairs, the
recording will always be noisy. There's a certain trick to hitting
two at once, and you need the combo of the spacing and the stroke.
Then you must hit pairs as you play. It is easy to do, but it takes
patience.
The next source of noise in the skritch skritch skritch of the
fingers on the strings. Again, most lute recordings really have way
too much surface noise, and though some of it can be removed
digitally, there is just too much noise in relationship to the core
tone. OTOH, if you are striking pairs, you will produce
substantially more volume and so there will be more tone, less
noise. This does not help, however, on the top string which is
often single.
So to remove this next layer of noise, one must stop sliding the
finger on the strings, and also make sure that the surface of the
string reacts with the finger is a way that does not produce noise.
Of course, at this point, you can say "I like the noise", and that
is absolutely a valid choice.
Some strings simply make less noise. Carbon is the least noisy, and
rectified nylon is one of the most noisy. Unrectified nylon can
squeak. If you use just the right amount of oil, such as almond
oil, you can remove most of the sound from gut strings. Depends on
the strings. And there are other ways to make strings sound true
and relatively noise free. Interestingly, there are references in
treatises to using walnut.
NB: If the interface between the gut string (not nylgut, not
carbon, not nylon but gut) and the plucking point of your finger is
just right, you will hear the perfect lute sound. However, you can
make a very good, noise free recording with artificial materials.
It is important to recognize that each type of string has its own
noise properties. There is absolutely no point in using strings if
they just make a lot of noise with very little center to the sound.
So to review, the main source of noise is from the lute and the
player, and if the lute is not set up right, there is no way to fix
the noise issue. You can put a $2,000 mic in front of the noise,
and it will amplify and record it. Good news is, if the lute is set
up right, it is relative easy to make a good tone, and therefore a
good recording, and, in the wild world of digital, you can play
thousands of mistakes and still make a great recording, as long as
the core tone is there.
Now it could be that we would all be better off making realistic
recordings that reflect the actual sound we make, and, in fact,
there was a wave of recording realism in the early 1980s. The
larger picture for me is that I realized at a certain point that I
had just gotten used to all the extra noise, and decided to do
something about it.
And you may think this is obvious--make a good sound, make a good
recording? Parts of it are obvious, it is putting together the
pieces that is complex. It is easy, but still complex.
Next up: room noise, mic noise, preamp noise, all go poof.
--
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Tom Draughon
Heartistry Music
http://www.heartistrymusic.com/artists_tom.html
714 9th Avenue West
Ashland, WI 54806
715-682-9362
