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Author Topic: Acoustics of the Shoebox  (Read 6673 times)

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Offline lsd2525

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Re: Acoustics of the Shoebox
« Reply #15 on: December 06, 2017, 02:31:41 PM »
This thread is giving me a tummy ache in my head  :)
Mics: SKM184's; ADK A51s; AT4041; Superlux S502; CK91 active w/homebrew BB; AT853; Naiant X-X; Nak 300's
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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Acoustics of the Shoebox
« Reply #16 on: December 06, 2017, 03:21:00 PM »
^ Go with the suggestion in rocksuitcase's signature line.  Eases the mind most every time-

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Offline aaronji

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Re: Acoustics of the Shoebox
« Reply #17 on: December 09, 2017, 10:10:45 AM »
There's an interesting study how room design affects the audient's experience summarized here (and apparently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2014):

If anyone is interested, I have this paper.  Too big (1.5 MB) to attach.

Another great Amsterdam hall is the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ.  It has adjustable wall/ceiling panels that allow the reverb to be adjusted (from 1.7 to 2.4 s).  Very good acoustics.  I got a nice Scofield recording there, but it is mostly classical.

Offline bombdiggity

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Re: Acoustics of the Shoebox
« Reply #18 on: December 09, 2017, 07:18:07 PM »
I did want to go through all this with time and a clear mind.  How that came to be a Saturday evening is a surprise but the snow, foul weather and distance made the potential event this evening unappealing and I'm still only glancing at the bottle of Riesling in the fridge.  Maybe :drunk: later... 

The David Griesinger information is excellent.  I liked this brief piece: https://www.classical-scene.com/2011/10/11/9243/  I seem to have stumbled into this aspect myself: You cannot use any type of first-order microphone without putting the microphones much closer to the music than would be ideal for concert listening. This increases the direct to reverberant ratio and widens the image enough that the recording begins to have the clarity of natural hearing.  It is highly unlikely I'll be in settings where running multiple mics is feasible and I'm not likely to want to do that anyway, so I tend to focus on how to get the most from a pair within the myriad limitations I have to deal with.  I've learned how to pretty consistently get what I like, which might not be everyone's exact cup of tea, but I feel satisfied that I accomplished my goal. 

[quoting from the article you linked] I gave up using a soundfield microphone or a dummy head as a main microphone because you cannot derive a discrete center channel from them. I rely largely on Schoeps super cardioid microphones to capture as much direct sound from a section as possible with as little leakage from other sections and the fewest early reflections.  I don’t think I can convince anyone about the virtues of this type of technique, but (nearly) every commercially successful engineer of classical (or pop) music does pretty much the same thing. They would gladly do something else if it worked better.

I started out figuring how to record and reproduce a convincing ambient perspective in comparison with the live event, as that was something I found essential and very much lacking.  Over time I've moved to a a center supercardioid pointed directly at the source as an attempt to exclude everything other than the direct sound as much as possible (as much as possible being the key phrase here), in combination with other mics intended to pickup early reflections, and others intended to isolate the late reverberant component from those other things as much as possible. In that way, four to six mics provides a limited but very useful ability to balance things which a single stereo pair can only achieve via perfect placement via careful listening, and can actually exceed that in a sort of super-stereo sense - the auditory equivalent of a zoom lens.  Not for everyone, but doable within the limitations we are saddled with.

Now I think I finally totally get what you've been expounding upon (in context with the comments here).  Too bad you're in FL.  I'd like to hear it demonstrated. 
Gear:
Audio:
Schoeps MK4V
Nak CM-100/CM-300 w/ CP-1's or CP-4's
SP-CMC-25
>
Oade C mod R-44  OR
Tinybox > Sony PCM-M10 (formerly Roland R-05) 
Video: Varied, with various outboard mics depending on the situation

Offline bombdiggity

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Re: Acoustics of the Shoebox
« Reply #19 on: December 09, 2017, 07:41:16 PM »


Part of what makes live music recording different than studio recording is that at it's best it is strongly dependant on conveying location acoustics in a believable way.  I mean the listeners perception of the "performance within a space", rather than simply accommodating for the effects of the local acoustics on any recording.  Although outside the interest of most around here, in that way we are constricted by the playback side of things as much as we are by the recording side of things.  For a few years I had another quote from the same article above which bombdiggity posted a link to in my signature line here at TS- Two channel stereo is limiting. It is very helpful to reproduce the sound with more than two loudspeakers. Three speakers give you twice the localization accuracy as two if you fully utilize the center, and the sweet spot is also greatly broadened. With careful multi-miking and a good surround setup an exceedingly musical mix can be made.


I disagree, though all I'll say for now is: keep in mind, at the end of the day we have two ears. I don't disagree that more tracks and more directional information is a bad thing, but at the end of the day you can accomplish some insane stuff with just a two-channel output. That's part of the magic of working in the studio IMO, and that's formed and molded a lot of my habits in production: mixing down to two channels at the end of it all.

I see both of your points.  The difference of opinion probably comes back primarily to listening environment, though perhaps also to source material (live vs. studio constructed). 

I'll also mention... I'm a big supporter of dichotic and binaural listening. I do ~90% of my listening to auditory stimuli over headphones, it's just vastly preferable for my tastes. With the exception of the aforementioned Logic 7, I've yet to find a playback system better than stereo, and even still given cost and ease of setup I'll still take stereo any day of the week.

I use headphones for any editing/mastering (of course I'm working with two channel sources in that process as well).  If I'm being more perfectionist I may then play the result in a few ambient systems to see if it ended up as I'd hope or needs any further tweaking. 

I prefer headphones to some extent but sadly (age and too many concerts?) I now find that headphones create mild to moderate tinnitus effects for me.  Generally still temporary but it's become enough a factor that I feel inclined to limit headphone use as much as possible.  That means I need to construct an idealized ambient playback system in a dedicated space for editing and learn the coloration of that in that space to apply to my editing/processing tendencies. 
« Last Edit: December 09, 2017, 08:06:00 PM by bombdiggity »
Gear:
Audio:
Schoeps MK4V
Nak CM-100/CM-300 w/ CP-1's or CP-4's
SP-CMC-25
>
Oade C mod R-44  OR
Tinybox > Sony PCM-M10 (formerly Roland R-05) 
Video: Varied, with various outboard mics depending on the situation

Offline bombdiggity

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Re: Acoustics of the Shoebox
« Reply #20 on: December 09, 2017, 07:51:18 PM »
Using room layouts for the arenas and stadiums the GD played in, and drafting methods Pearson and Healy would design the array to fit the venue and customized their rigging to accomodate the varying angles they would use at different venues. Their goal was to anticipate "those factors which interact before our mics enter the picture" and present as clear of a "picture" of the band's stage sound as they could. There is a Healy interview where he talks about the mapping of the rooms, digging....      can't find it. I'll edit it in when I do.     

That's awesome.  A huge difference between optimizing the sound in a dedicated room where one has full control and a fixed system and lots of time and experience vs. trying to optimize sound on a night to night basis on a tour where you have little control or information.  Many wouldn't really bother to do advance work or try that hard to plan and customize for a night or two. 

King Crimson was interesting this year because they had a lot of two night stands.  One could hear the sound dialing in through the first night as a full show gets played in a full room then the second night hear how much better it was after they'd had three hours of functional testing.  A friend who had a good view of the desk for one said the second night they basically never moved a thing... 

One of the local studio guys who also used to do a lot of live sound (and still a little) seems to be of the opinion any room can sound good to great if one knows what they're doing and has reasonable equipment.  My ears often suggest few know what they're doing! 
Gear:
Audio:
Schoeps MK4V
Nak CM-100/CM-300 w/ CP-1's or CP-4's
SP-CMC-25
>
Oade C mod R-44  OR
Tinybox > Sony PCM-M10 (formerly Roland R-05) 
Video: Varied, with various outboard mics depending on the situation

Offline bombdiggity

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Re: Acoustics of the Shoebox
« Reply #21 on: December 09, 2017, 08:00:41 PM »

To my way of thinking, it helps to consider the event, the recording, and the reproduction process as three entirely separate things without much overlap between them.   The venue acoustics and everything which happens with regard to producing and hearing sound in that space is one thing, recording it and manipulating that recording is another, and reproduction yet another. 


Each of those is a major set of variables that can to varying degrees be controlled for within that segment of the chain but they all interact with each other and color our perceptions.

Event - type of music, nature of the reinforcement, nature of the space, volume, etc.
Recording - mics, recorder, pattern, placement, processing and editing
Reproduction - playback systems and variables, nature of the space (if any since headphones eliminate the playback room factors)

If those are apples, oranges and grapes there's often a lot of disagreement where one person is talking apples and another oranges while the third is playing it back in mp3 through grape sized earbuds... 
Gear:
Audio:
Schoeps MK4V
Nak CM-100/CM-300 w/ CP-1's or CP-4's
SP-CMC-25
>
Oade C mod R-44  OR
Tinybox > Sony PCM-M10 (formerly Roland R-05) 
Video: Varied, with various outboard mics depending on the situation

Offline bombdiggity

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Re: Acoustics of the Shoebox
« Reply #22 on: December 09, 2017, 08:14:53 PM »
FWIW here's some modular synth in two channel soundscapey glory (from two speakers across a small room to two mics) from earlier this week that I enjoyed and was pretty happy with the recorded results of:

https://archive.org/details/GeoffWiltRhizomeDC2017120616bit
Gear:
Audio:
Schoeps MK4V
Nak CM-100/CM-300 w/ CP-1's or CP-4's
SP-CMC-25
>
Oade C mod R-44  OR
Tinybox > Sony PCM-M10 (formerly Roland R-05) 
Video: Varied, with various outboard mics depending on the situation

 

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