Thoughts on ideal speakers for quadraphonic

[himey]

Wow. Are you sure you aren't looking for the Steve Hoffman forum?

Reddit?

 

[multi_est]

I never trust someone who a) uses a put down to make a point and b) over inflates his resume to elevate an OPINION. So now you know where you stand with me.

No problem I don't care.
Come and show me how to do my job, then we can talk.

I actually have to vet other people's crap recordings, as well as sorting out the equally crap problems with certain "hi end" microphones, which don't work anything like as well as they claim.

If the Vienna philharmonic can totally screw up their new year's day concert broadcast live to millions, then it's open shooting season on the mass media these days.

Btw, I have been "underwhelmed" with most German/Austrian productions recently.

I dunno what's wrong with those people, probably paid too much, sitting on their laurels, and churning out mediocrity, even Abbey Road last night on Radio 3 was no good at all...all sound and fury with no space.

By contrast France musique production the other night with orchestra C-E was gorgeous , as is a lot of BBC stuff.

Like I said, what point surround when BIG BUDGET multi microphone stereo stuff is complete sh..t (just like Michael Gerzon said btw..)

 

[himey]

I have many recordings of performances in which there is real program content in the surround and which are consistent with the composer's intent. Of course, there is the obvious example of Berlioz' Requiem which specifies multiple brass ensembles surrounding the audience but there's no need for a list. Let's just say that there is no disadvantage to having all the speakers equally good and there are many instances in which it is eminently desirable.

Wait...but have you ever recorded an event in surround? Haha.

I bet your friends have if you haven't personally so you can have an opinion here.

 

[himey]

No problem I don't care.
Come and show me how to do my job, then we can talk.

I actually have to vet other people's crap recordings, as well as sorting out the equally crap problems with certain "hi end" microphones, which don't work anything like as well as they claim.

If the Vienna philharmonic can totally screw up their new year's day concert broadcast live to millions, then it's open shooting season on the mass media these days.

Btw, I have been "underwhelmed" with most German/Austrian productions recently.

I dunno what's wrong with those people, probably paid too much, sitting on their laurels, and churning out mediocrity, even Abbey Road last night on Radio 3 was no good at all...all sound and fury with no space.

By contrast France musique production the other night with orchestra C-E was gorgeous , as is a lot of BBC stuff.

Like I said, what point surround when BIG BUDGET multi microphone stereo stuff is complete sh..t (just like Michael Gerzon said btw..)

Your narrow mind and tiny rear speakers are a perfect match!

Attempts to ignore studio recordings and mixing makes your posts even more comical so please keep that narrow mind in tact for me and the comedy effect.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Wait...but have you ever recorded an event in surround? Haha.

I bet your friends have if you haven't personally so you can have an opinion here.

Let's say that I have been present at more than a few.

 

[himey]

Let's say that I have participated in a few and observed a few more.

I was only 99% sure that was the case...

 

[multi_est]

Attempts to ignore studio recordings and mixing makes your posts even more comical

Carry on talking bollocks.
LIVE is the most challenging environment ever, as is live video.
Ask me how I know?
We have an audiovisual team for that very reason,- we do the sound for it, often going out live on fibre optic HD.

I have no interest whatsoever in the stupid sterile arguments about studios and post mix.
I have a right to ignore studio recordings, precisely because it involves very little real skill.

As I say, come and show me how to do my job.
BE MY GUEST.
I will pay for you to get on the next return flight if you can do better.

 

[Soundfield]

Oh dear, I think this will all end in tears.

 

[jimfisheye]

Record in surround?
Audience recordings?

I wonder how many events are presented in surround? Either natural from musician (or other sound source) placement or produced live with the aid of a sound system. And then getting to set up a quad mic array in the sweet spot.

Something like a theater making a more permanent install of said mics - perhaps over the audience. This could give an authentic soundscape. The discrete surround lovers are restless here I suppose. You know what's better than stereo though? This kind of surround!

Recently I recorded solo saxophone/flute in a church and mic'd for surround. I more mic'd the room for control after the fact. So, not a quad array in a sweet spot. Mono sweet spot in front of him. Close mic in case I needed it. 2 pairs of mics on each side a good 10' each direction. Aimed at the front and rear wall/ceiling and x/y viewed from the side. Going for a sort of 3:1 on the room itself and in quad. The quad is in phase and I can adjust the main source vs that as I wish. Worked. But that's more produced and I digress.

I've played with Pink Floyd audience recordings. The band mixed live in quad surround. Sometimes you get lucky and find multiple audience recorders that were strategically placed well enough vs each other and the quad sound system that you can sync them up and reveal the sound in motion as captured between them. Especially in the last 10 years, software tools let you deal with the constant back and forth of one tape vs another from the analog speed imperfections. Even subtle changes you'd never hear - when you line up a different tape with different variations, the fact that they don't fall into sync together stands out. There's non damaging software to play with this on a serious level now.

That's the closest thing to an actual live surround field recording I've really messed with.

Yeah, mention of live field recordings in surround and audience recordings will get me talking about all that!

I just haven't had the opportunity to record something like an orchestra in a perfect hall with the main array being quad in a sweet spot. That sounds like a great gig to retire into with the right venue! I'd still cheat with some spot mics. (Would leave the spot mics out of the mix if they weren't needed though! I really do have respect for true live excellence captured naturally.)

So, I guess I like hyper-realism is what I'm saying. Heh, I'm about to be shown the door right?

 

[multi_est]

Record in surround?
Audience recordings?

And then getting to set up a quad mic array in the sweet spot.

Something like a theater making a more permanent install of said mics - perhaps over the audience. This could give an authentic soundscape.

Recently I recorded solo saxophone/flute in a church and mic'd for surround. I more mic'd the room for control after the fact. So, not a quad array in a sweet spot.

Yeah, mention of live field recordings in surround and audience recordings will get me talking about all that!

I just haven't had the opportunity to record something like an orchestra in a perfect hall with the main array being quad in a sweet spot.

So, I guess I like hyper-realism is what I'm saying. Heh, I'm about to be shown the door right?

Can sympathise a lot with that.

One thing that came out of the conversations with Neil (W), was "FORGET ALL THE RULES".....but like me he is 100% believer in coincident mic techniques... so "main arrays and sweet spots" are out.

Sadly in a theatre we have to deal with one BIG problem, then of course a secondary one that goes with it and multi channel stereo..

1/ Acoustics or lack of it, and even comb filtering...(ultra dry acoustic), entails use of, at least some convolution.
Put convolution in there, and good luck it will be for surround channels.

2/ As a result of EBU norms reinforced when dealing with live mpeg video HD formats, - compression with their attendant artefacts/latency,- especially as we are using IP networks.

Doesn't digital make life horribly complicated?

In the end doing live opera has to rate as one of the most impossibly difficult things to do well, and I have to say we are fighting all the time to get that "magic recipe".

I have to go see (ROH) Covent Garden one of these days and ask them how they manage.
Their live streams simulcast in cinemas in Switzerland from London are world leading, so I'm equally curious to see how they manage at the professional "broadcast end".

3D TV is out, it can be that live surround has gone the same way.

 

[jaybird100]

FWIW, I'd stick with direct-radiating speakers all the way around. Bipolar speakers could be used as rears, but they might be too diffuse. Try them if you want, but be sure of the dealer's return policy. It also pays to make sure the speakers are timbre-matched.

 

[jimfisheye]

Doesn't digital make life horribly complicated?

No, it's a crutch for me and happiness and light all the way.
The 24/96 format with Apogee or better AD is the best recording format I've used. Topping this with pure analog is a mighty leap and begs for nothing but the best listening room to hear what someone might be going on about. Mic technique, mic choice, and mic preamp choice still carry more weight in either scenario.

The low def digital world... meh. Those mp3's sound better than the weirdo Monkey Wards turntable all in one thingies from back in the day. The "mastering" touch on the CDs out there with the 30db treble slams and all that are actually more of a root cause to a lot of critique IMHO.

I think 24/96 is a great consumer format for stereo and surround too. For this consumer anyway.
The computer as music server takes all obstacles out of the way. Access to all formats in their fullest quality.
The big con is any and all music out there that has never properly been digitized of course.

But back to work...
Being able to re-align a pair/group of spot mics on the computer screen after the fact for one thing!
That leads to an extra mic here and there that you'd never be able to use in the past. All the little "If only I'd be able to"... You pretty much can now.

It's a fine line for some people. I like the scenario where the digital world takes the pressure off and lets an artist soar rather than play it safe and stiff. Those odd moments - that might be real show stoppers for an album release - are easily fixed. The scenario where people call the albums "Protools album"? Not so much.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Oh dear, I think this will all end in tears.

There's no crying in audio!

 

[himey]

There's no crying in audio!

Friday around 4 PM I shed a few tears when I listened to YYZ.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Friday around 4 PM I shed a few tears when I listened to YYZ.

Wuzzat?

 

[DennisMabry]

Wuzzat?

In reference to Neil Peart's passing, I believe.

 

[multi_est]

.. happiness and light all the way.
The 24/96 format with Apogee or better AD is the best recording format I've used.

Topping this with pure analog is a mighty leap and begs for nothing but the best listening room to hear what someone might be going on about.

I think 24/96 is a great consumer format for stereo and surround too.

Being able to re-align a pair/group of spot mics on the computer screen after the fact for one thing!

That leads to an extra mic here and there that you'd never be able to use in the past. All the little "If only I'd be able to"... You pretty much can now.

It's a fine line for some people. I like the scenario where the digital world takes the pressure off and lets an artist soar rather than play it safe and stiff.

Obviously from reading your post, you don't use coincident miking.

Our professor used to say "digital is not all it's cracked out to be...MUCH OVER-RATED", which leads us to some of the best work we ever did was with our wonderful STUDER mixer, and in my case the superb SONOSAX mobile mixer I used.

Swiss made, precision, no such thing as "pure analogue" but all the same unbeatable.

Come to think of it, I can't think of any American made hi end audio hardware or software, apart from wavewarp, (now gone) which was so powerful coupled with matlab ,it could be used as a forensic tool.

Pyramix is Swiss, DPA and Bruel are Danish, Calrec and Neve are/were British and most of the other decent speakers or microphones are either made in Germany or Norway/Denmark.

(We are currently working with some interesting Russian ones)

I have a lot of respect for French & British sound engineers, particularly the French with their IRCAM and CNRS.

I don't think anyone here seems to know about the pioneering work of IRCAM in "spat" and the other tools they developed under Linux.
I attended a demo of one of their bright talents who had a multi channel demo including height information.

It was set up in a lecture theatre in Strasburg university, a department that was at the time world leading - like Bologna uni in Italy. (They have some of the most advanced surround and convolution software in the world).

 

[gazmono]

Have you ever tried to record in surround?
Ever tried to play back what you just recorded?

I thought not..
Once you have done some of that, you can have an opinion.

I can think of 2 productions we did this way, one of which was with the choir singing in the theatre foyer.. (rear channels)... was completely ruined by the stupid audience starting to talk amongst themselves at that critical moment...

The other was Tchaikovski nutcracker where a child's chorus sings on the balcony (mixed rear and front channels to give a centre side)...with audience applause all around..

As a direct result of a patently obvious total inability to find a proper system to reproduce at least the test sequences I opted to stop all surround recording for the foreseeable future, despite the astonishing result.

I wish it were not so.
...again, why I opted to make my own system from scratch, which BTW can actually reproduce the surround stuff from Nimbus if and when I feel like it.....never mind the rock concerts I recorded in multi channel, despite the mic poisoning smoke.

Somehow this reminds me of the debates with the brilliant genius who did grateful dead's stuff... but that will truly GO OT then.

I can have an opinion without having recorded and played back surround myself ( I actually do bi-naural field recordings but that's another topic) because I am not interested in doing that and that is not what I want a quad set-up to achieve. I want fun sensory experience listening to all kinds of music, mostly rock. You are coming across as a bit of a zealot. There may, possibly, be right and wrong when it comes to playing back live recordings but not all of us are interested in that.

 

[multi_est]

I can have an opinion without having recorded and played back surround myself ....

You are coming across as a bit of a zealot. There may, possibly, be right and wrong when it comes to playing back live recordings but not all of us are interested in that.

It's called VALIDATION.
Usually people who don't like a rigorous more science based approach get offended real quick.

Ie. I would say if it's impossible to arrive at a valid approach to recording and playing back recordings inside the industry, what chance "Mr Lambda"?

I have seen what Neil (W) had in his listening room, and observed that women inevitably have much much better hearing acuity..
As far as I know he is one of the industry leaders.

So far I haven't seen any women posting on this forum, but maybe I'm not looking for it.

I did suggest it was very largely pointless having high power amps and high rear SPL mix values, because it patently does not work.

It's even the case that rearward angular accuracy is extremely poor on the human ear, but I'm sure IRCAM have loads of studies proving that aspect.

A correct validation strategy often involves blind testing audiences, deliberately obscuring source materials and asking them to guess right.

(I proved this way, "audiophiles" invariably chose high rate mp3 over 16 bit or 24bit audio HD, much to their embarrassment...and which proved to me they were wholly incapable of validating their own wildest claims...)

I heard that's what Avery Fisher of the famous FISHER hifi audio, used to do, in his day with LIVE v RECORDED music and a screen to hide the musicians.
He was an industry leader in his day, and a major contributor to the understanding of stereo music & audio.
Let's try it shall we?

I have to guess mic makes blind, so far, I scored OK, but I can always be wrong.

 

[jimfisheye]

I put up a pair of 193's in near-coincidend (ortf) in the middle of a string quartet last week. Seemed like the thing to do for the gig. Coincident (x/y) didn't seem quite right. But I like x/y just fine when that comes up. But you're more or less right in that I like bringing home something I have control over and/or just don't have the opportunity to capture fully dialed in spaces where I'd be going purist all the time.

As for the digital non-believers... They need to graduate to 24 bit audio and put their volume war CDs away! (I know this isn't always the case. But it often is!) Again, if someone is truly being genuine and has a problem with high end high def digital... enjoy the 7 recordings you found in the world that actually make your standard in that fancy listening room you built! If you're operating at that level, do you even have words for the crude volume war trebly stuff?

Smaller steps I think. There's a whole arena of excellent sound and surround available now because of the digital revolution. Lots of worthy music too. Those finely tuned spaces and those 7 best effort anyone ever made analog recordings should be held up as a standard all right! Dismissing everything else isn't right though. Shaming the volume war crowd is a better starting place. Like in a mix. You work on the biggest problem first. (There I go again describing a recording that has a... <gasp> problem!) Let's get folks up to speed to where you get laughed out of the building with a chirpy volume war CD. Get a few more 5.1, 4.0, etc well done mixes out there.