Hugely long. But one point cries out for comment:
It is simply nonsense to say that it would not
be useful to have the results
available for pink noises sources at various
spots on the stage recorded via various microphone
positions. It is well known and completely established
that pink noise is a very good indicator of general
tonal character. It is for instance by far the most
reliable identification tag for different loudspeakers
or different EQ settings. That one can become
fatigued--take a break occasionally!
This is just not true to say that this would not give
a lot of information.
In fact, David's whole response is just more
of the kind of argumentation that prevents
audio from getting anywhere. People seem
unable to understand how analyitical thought works.
One starts with simple situations and answerable
questions: What does this microphone technique
do to the frequency response of a standaidzed source
located at various positions?
It is silliness to say that this is not information.
It is also silliness to say that this is the
only information one needs. But the former silliness
is worse because no one would think the latter.
The truth is that the field or recording seems almost
intent upon keeping their methods intellectually mushy.
It is as if they do not want to know how things work.
And the really odd thing is that other people in
the sound world are not like this. Auditorium
acousticians try like crazy to figure out what
does what in concert hall sound. They do a good job too
(Harris got Benaroya to match Vienna GMVS reverb time
with in 0.1 secs bottom to top--try that with mushy methods).
And people who make and adjust instruments study
constantly the effects of things. All violinists know
which strings do what to the sound. It is part of our
work. Knowning such things does not make life less
"artistic"--it makes it possible to advance.
Only recording(and playback) seems to be attached to
the idea that no one ought really to know anything.
No one who has made a recording has failed to notice
that unexpected and complex things matter. Blumlein
miking a one point can sound quite different from
the same at another point not far away for example.
But once again, a field progresses by analyzing its work
one step at a time not be having a club of people
who just mess around with the ways they have always
messed around and say that no analysis is possible because
everything is so complicated. This is the sort of thing
that the mush minded said about genetics say, before
it began to be figured out. "Oh we shall never understand
how things are inherited, it is all so complicated and hidden".
To return to the main point, I think it is a basic misunderstanding
to say that how a microphone technique records a pink noise
source at different spots on a stage is irrelevant information.
I think it is very relevant indeed. A journey of ten thousand
miles begins with a single step. That would be a reasonable
first step in understanding microphone techniques(and microphones).
And it is surely a most basic misunderstanding to say that pink
noise response is not a useful indicator of sound. Exactly the opposite
is true. It is the most reliable and accurate one if one must
have a single source--it is a demonstrated fact that it is
for example the signal that gives the best identification of which
loudspeaker is which when comparing blind two similar but different
speaker.
Robert
On Wed, 3 Jul 2013, David Pickett wrote:
At 06:31 3/7/2013, Robert Greene wrote:
Variations from reality ought surely to be based on knowing
how to reproduce the reality first and then introducing the
variations. One does not bend pitches for artistic effect
until one is able to play in tune, so to speak.
Yes, indeed; but such question begging exposes the problem per analogiam.
What does one define as "in tune"? What you are asking for is the ability to
reproduce a complete soundfield with 100% accuracy, and then to introduce
variations. We have not yet progressed to this level.
If people want to treat recording as a pure art form
where one simply judges the results on aesthetic grounds.
it would be hard to say that was wrong. But it surely
takes recording out of the realm of science.
I am not sure that many of its practitioners (even Blumlein) regarded
recording as a science: it is rather an exercise in engineering combined with
aesthetics and as such intrinsically hard to theorize about.
To my mind, offensive or no, it remains startling to me
that there is no recorded demo of how various stereo mike
techniques reproduce the sound of a pink noise source at
various spots around the recording stage, for example.
I cannot imagine that anyone would want to listen to a CD of pink nose or
that anyone can believe that objective determinations can be made by doing so
for longer than a few minutes. The ear adjusts to what it is hearing, as the
eye does to colours under different lighting conditions and there is no
equivalent to "grey cards" for white balance. Even doing A/B comparisons with
the flick of a switch is fraught with self-deception, unless the levels are
controlled and enough time is allowed to accustom oneself to A before
assessing B.
Surely people might want to know whether the mike
technique was changing the perceived frequency response of sources
depending on where the sources were?
How can people NOT want to know this?
There is a book by J?rgen Meyer (Acoustics and the Performance of Music).
The blurb on Amazon says: "This classic reference on musical acoustics and
performance practice begins with a brief introduction to the fundamentals of
acoustics and the generation of musical sounds. It then discusses the
particulars of the sounds made by all the standard instruments in a modern
orchestra as well as the human voice, the way in which the sounds made by
these instruments are dispersed and how the room into which they are
projected affects the sounds."
I have had this book for over 30 years. It contains polar diagrams of most
orchestral instruments plotted for different frequencies. Nobody that I know
has ever found much use for the data in making a recording, beyond those
generalizations that are obvious to the ear.
I agree with EC that a complete analysis of
the relationship between recording and musical sound
would be a tremendous
task, perhaps one that is not even well defined.
I think that is a conceit: there are far too many independent variables and
the exercise would probably become what Glen Gould would describe as
"centipedal".
This is how science works. One works out simple cases
first. The fact that no one knows if there are infinitely
many primes pairs with difference 2(eg 17 and 19) does
not make it irrelevant to know that there are infinitely many
primes. One answers simple questions first.
Again: recording is not a science. If anything it is a craft with elements
of engineering. I have been teaching it for over 30 years at university
level and the number of textbooks that are of any use whatsoever, and those
with caveats, can be counted on one hand. Take, for instance, the excellent
book on Stereo by Streicher: most of the information is either theoretical
(e.g. the combination of unrealizable polar diagrams) or else cannot be used
without extensive empirical experimentation.
Personally, I would just like to know which mike technique
does what to the tonal character of sources at different
locations around the recording stage. If you don't care, you
don't care. But I wish I had a disc where I could listen
and find out. I find it hard to believe that other people
are not interested in this.
As I am sure you know, active listening is a very tiring process that most
people are not trained to participate in. If one cannot identify differences
within seconds it is best to take a long rest and try again much later. Few
have the patience for this and professionals cannot afford the time when
musicians are waiting to perform.
Years ago I decided to learn the piano(I am a violinist!)
just to see how it would go, by learning the Rachmaninoff 3rd
piano concerto --a measure at a time. As you can imagine I
did not get very far! (the first statement of the theme
went ok but soon, no soap). Of course this was a joke!
I knew from experience of learning to play the violin
that one learns the basics step by step and builds
up to the complex pieces over a long time.
It is, of course, possible to learn to play the notes of the whole concerto
if one wants to waste time doing so. There was a young man at my high school
who had learned to play several complicated pieces. He could not read music
and had learned them by rote. Of course, though he had "mastered" the last
movement of the Moonlight Sonata, this did not help him to learn the first
prelude of the 48 at a faster rate!
David
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