# Reverb on recordings, Yay or Nay?



## realdealblues

Just a quick Poll on Reverb.

Lately it seems I've found some really great interpretations of works but the recordings suffer from what I consider "excessive" Reverb.

Whether they are recording in a church or with distance mic'ing techniques I find more and more I enjoy recordings less that seem to be saturated with Reverb. I even occassionally hear a recording with reverb that was added post production and that annoys me as well.

So my question to you all, Do you like Reverb, or not? Or do you honestly not care?


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## bigshot

You have to have space around the instruments. I don't care for digital reverb though. The quality of the miking is vital to making it work. They were a lot better at it in the 50s and 60s than they are now.


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## Prodromides

The music I like typically receives one recording (like a world premiere recording on music written 50 years ago, or the original sound elements from vintage film scores), so I appreciate any recording there is (reverb or not, mono or stereo) especially when no available recording is more likely to be the case.


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## realdealblues

bigshot said:


> You have to have space around the instruments. I don't care for digital reverb though. The quality of the miking is vital to making it work. They were a lot better at it in the 50s and 60s than they are now.


Obviously there is some distance between even closely mic'd orchestras or instruments. But I mainly talking about recordings where you can tell there is some SERIOUS distance.

Like a solo Piano recording.

Here's a couple examples:

Mozart K331 1st Movement

Christoph Eschenbach (Normal Space)





Jeno Jando (Recorded in a Church)





Jando sounds like I'm in the back of a big hall listening to him play where Eschenbach sounds like he's in my living room. For home listening I prefer it to sound like I'm at least in the front row. Not in the last seat in the Balcony.


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## bigshot

I've never cared for Jando. It's professional, but as you say, the recordings is muddled and he doesn't have a heck of a lot of personality. Kind of like Brendel. Smart playing, but bland.

On the other side, you can't have worse recording than Schnabel. But he shines through it all.


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## Vaneyes

It's not cut 'n dry for me. I have to analyse the composer, work, artist, instrument, venue, etc.

Off the top of my head, Exhibit A in favor of, would be Korobeinikov Scriabin (Mirare, 2008).

Here's a tasty YT for his Scriabin Sonata 7, done two years later at Cully Classique. Similar reverb to the studio rec.


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## PetrB

I'm not at all surprised at the poll result so far.... the better 'in hall' recordings tend to Have Been done with a spread of microphones from onstage in front of or above the orchestra, and going back through the hall, which pick up the true hall ambience.

The digital ones, as in pop engineering, to those used to the above, sound like someone has left out all the acoustic reality from the between front row to the gallery, as it were - and it sounds unreal / fake.

In so many pop music recordings, that reverb is very much a part of the intended sound, as well as an in studio compression and bass boost / reverb. To hear those vintage rock records re-engineered dry would probably make them sound awful, or at the most, of academic interest only.

I do have one big bone to pick with past and present classical recording engineering when it comes to concerti -- they often mic the soloist, and have that so out of balance, that it no longer sounds as if it could be a credible live performance at all, as if the piano, violin, voice, etc. were almost recording in a seperate room, different acoustic, and mixed in with the accompaniment later -- the soloist so much front and center it sounds 'freakish.'

I want the recording to be dry. I hate 'cosmetics' -- in the studio engineering, as inherently built-in to amp or speakers (Bose / surround sound / bass boost) or manual controlled tweaking of the audio playback equipment.

Just wanna hear what the music is / on the record, thanks much


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## davinci

bigshot said:


> You have to have space around the instruments. I don't care for digital reverb though. The quality of the miking is vital to making it work. They were a lot better at it in the 50s and 60s than they are now.


Yes, mic the instruments and the venue properly and let the recording sound natural. And yes, the good classical audio engineers are a dying breed.


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## Kopachris

Reverb on music is like salt on food--you need just enough to enhance the flavor of the food, and you shouldn't actually be able to taste the salt.


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## realdealblues

Just to clarify as PetrB brought up. I only mean Reverb added to Classical Recordings, not Pop or Rock. I totally agree. I would not want to hear Dark Side of the Moon as a dry recording. I'm only talking about Reverb that is added to Classic Recordings during post production or Classical Recordings where the orchestra or soloist was mic'd from such a distance or in a large hall as to make you feel you were in the back seat of the balcony.


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## bigshot

There's actually another form of this sort thing that involves timing of the phase, but not echoes. My 5:1 receiver has a variety of DSP settings. Some simulate hall ambiences with digital reverbs, but there's one called 7:1 stereo that creates an ambience to the sound that opens it up and improves the soundstage terrifically without adding the "wet" echo to muddle things up.


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## Manxfeeder

I like a little reverb but not a lot. Toscanini is too dry; John Eliot Gardiner consistently gets it right. 

I especially dislike it when they put a lot of echo in Renaissance recordings; you can't hear the intricate voice leading. 

The only place for reverb is Colossal Baroque pieces, like Biber and Benevoli (who was most likely Biber), who wrote specifically for large echo chambers.


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## SixFootScowl

bigshot said:


> You have to have space around the instruments. I don't care for digital reverb though. The quality of the miking is vital to making it work. They were a lot better at it in the 50s and 60s than they are now.


I think there is a lot of reverb on this recording. I have it queued on You Tube to a place where it is especially bad. Is that reverb? If not, what is it?

Is there a way I can remove some of that effect using Audacity music editor software? I have the whole opera on CD and it is the same as that You Tube. I like it but the reverb is a bit odd and detracting. The CD set says it is recorded live and gives the following description of the sound technology used:


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## RogerExcellent

I like it in a Cave


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## Marsilius

I love the sound of the Toscanini recordings made in Studio 8H where there was no reverberation at all. It didn't seem to bother the maestro too much, either.


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## Merl

I voted 'not bothered' as it doesn't usually put me off recordings. I like a spread of different recordings from dry to reverberant. I find that some recordings which are too closely mic'd put me off more than those with excessive reverb. I like to feel like I'm close to the music but not in the cellist's pants.


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## rumleymusic

Fritz Kobus said:


> I think there is a lot of reverb on this recording. I have it queued on You Tube to a place where it is especially bad. Is that reverb? If not, what is it?
> 
> Is there a way I can remove some of that effect using Audacity music editor software? I have the whole opera on CD and it is the same as that You Tube. I like it but the reverb is a bit odd and detracting. The CD set says it is recorded live and gives the following description of the sound technology used:


Hi, I am a professional classical recording engineer so hopefully I can help with those questions. The linked recording is actually rather dry, I doubt any artificial reverb has been added. It is an amateur live recording that has been, in my opinion, rather poorly mastered. What you are hearing are the effects of heavy dynamic compression, which makes classical recordings sound flat and washy because they destroy transient details and reduce dynamic contrast. There is nothing to be done about it in post. Some high end "de-compressors" might be able to restore some the contrast, but for the most part, once it is printed, you are stuck with it. There ARE to software tools to reduce the effects of reverb, but they are both very expensive, and will not work at all in a full orchestral setting.

As far as the "Sound Advanced Technology" goes. It is complete nonsense in this case. The Bit Depth, whether it be 16, 20, or the more standard 24, refers to the noise floor of a recording system. It is the smallest number (voltage) that can be calculated by an AD or DA converter. For 16bit, the floor is 96 dB below the clipping ceiling. For 24 bit it is 144dB. This just means that the engineer does not need to record as "hot" on location, and can safely raise the volume level in the digital domain and maintain a noise floor lower than a CD. It is simply production headroom and it does not in any way determine the sound quality of a recording.

As you heard, the hiss on this recording is so loud, it could have been recorded in 8 bit and still sounded the same. A low noise floor is pointless when other intruding white noise is much louder.


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## Larkenfield

Again, there's the third choice of natural ambience not included in the poll, rather than too much added ambience or the dry sound only. For me, the Riccardo Chailly recording of the Mahler 3rd has too much artificial ambience added to the sound that ruined what I consider a very fine performance. Listen to the chorus and percussion... It sounds like they're being recorded in a cavern. Through headphones, it can sometimes be easy to notice when the ambience sounds artificial rather than being recorded in a hall with natural acoustics or in the natural acoustics of a church. Too much artificial ambience can blur the ends of phrases and create more of a muddy texture in the orchestra. But some listeners seem not to notice it or they actually prefer that quality. There are also some recordings that can sound too dry (that I don't recall right now), and that's not pleasant either. The most appropriate ambience doesn't linger for too long in the air; it fades at the right time and is not used to cover up the beginning or ending of sloppily played phrases.


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## rumleymusic

As a professional classical recording engineer and wanted to chime in a bit. I can tell you as a certainly, most, if not all, professional label recordings use artificial reverb to some degree. It is standard practice for a variety of reasons. It helps blend spot microphones in the balance, it compensates for live audiences (99% of orchestral recordings in the US are from live performances due to unions and budget restrictions), and it hides certain details musicians would rather you not hear. The biggest reason there is a lot of reverb on modern recordings is, the client asks for it. Lots of it. Heaps of it. Like it or not, the big washy sound is popular with music directors.

The good news is, the tools for artificial reverb are getting much better, much more transparent, and much more realistic in the hands of and engineer with good sense.


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## rumleymusic

One more comment on that "Sound Advanced Technology" pic posted by Fritz, sorry, I don't have enough posts to quote directly apparently, I is a big steaming pile of baloney.  It is a sad fact, that since the advent of digital recording, many engineers no longer understand the technology of their own craft. The biggest myths are rooted in the analog to digital conversion process. When CD's first came out, all digital recording designed for music was 16 bit. Later, after much outcry about the sound quality of digital, the technology was improved to 20bit and the labels flaunted that on all their products as if to say "SEE? It's better now!!!" The technology did improve, but it had little to do with the bit depth of the recording. That was just a marketing ploy. Modern recording are 24bit, and that is officially overkill. The reason? 

All the bit depth does is determine the noise floor of a digital system, aka the quietest sound that can be recorded below the clipping ceiling. For 16bit (CD quality) that is 96dB, for 20 bit it is 120dB, for modern 24 it is 144dB. All this means is that the engineer can record quieter and preserve the loudest peaks in a recording without the risk of hitting the clipping ceiling. In no way does it determine the sound quality of a recording. The funny thing is, even a 16 bit noise floor is quieter than the ambient noise of a concert hall, so the whole system becomes rather pointless.


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## bigshot

I got a batch of recordings of the Royal Philharmonic on multichannel SACD recently that were very interesting. They were recorded in a large studio rather than a concert hall, so there was little natural ambience. But it was recorded with as many as 100 microphones and an artificial ambience was created that sounds quite remarkable. There is rear channel bloom, precise placement across the front soundstage and an unique sense of depth created by adding a little more ambience to instruments that are further away from the microphone. These recordings were recorded in the late 90s and remixed recently for 5.1. It really shows what the technology is capable of.


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