# "When recording technology distorts musical meaning"



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

An interesting article from Andrew Quint at The Absolute Sound.

All I can say is, I sure hope the recording technique discussed in the article that is used by Mike Pappas to record the CSO, does not catch on.

The last paragraph pretty much nails my feelings.

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/when-recording-technology-distorts-musical-meaning/


----------



## Saintbert (Mar 12, 2015)

"About five or six years ago, I woke up with the horrible realization that people don’t listen to music that way anymore." We've all had mornings like that. I usually just take a cold shower to clear up my thinking.

Why don't they just plug in each instrument? Sixty-six microphones sounds like trying to bypass acoustics, anyway, that pesky thing that gets in the way between people and music. To make a comparison with movies, you don't shoot a scene with sixty-six cameras unless you're making a movie about cameras.


----------



## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I don't think there's anything wrong with alternate sorts of presentation. I wouldn't want multi-miking and mixing to become the norm, but I don't see anything wrong with it considering all the recordings with traditional techniques out there.


----------



## Proms Fanatic (Nov 23, 2014)

Mike Pappas, the music engineer said "I want [my recording] to be like watching high-definition television. You watch golf on HDTV and you see every blade of grass; I want you to hear every string in the orchestra, hear every flute, every harp, every part of it."

The author of the article objected to Pappas' point, saying "The ideal recording of an orchestra, any orchestra, should sound like that orchestra fulfilling the function for which it exists-to present a unified and coherent musical statement."

I don't understand why these goals are mutually exclusive?


----------



## Guest (Jul 8, 2015)

Sixty-six mics? Lordy. Listen to the excellent results that Mercury and early Telarc got with just three, or Decca's "tree" with five. One doesn't need nearly one mic per person!


----------



## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Proms Fanatic said:


> I don't understand why these goals are mutually exclusive?


If done right, they shouldn't be. What a lot of people don't understand is that recordings and films are not simple "captures" of a single live event, but are *designed* to give the impression of a unified performance. The success or failure of a recording or film depends as much on the director or producer who is spearheading the effort as it is the individual performers and performances that go together to create the single unified recording. Any flat "capture" of a live performance is going to be an inferior copy of the real life event. However, with creative, clear and organized design, a recording can be optimized to be just as valid a performance in its own way.


----------



## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

I'm inclined to poo-poo Pappas' technique. But I have to hear it first. The mixing is obviously challenging. It all depends on what choices are made, and the venue of course. Recording can definitely get in the way. I think of CSO/Barenboim live Mahler 5 (Teldec) when the engineer had a raging hardon for harp.


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Vaneyes said:


> I'm inclined to poo-poo Pappas' technique. But I have to hear it first. The mixing is obviously challenging. It all depends on what choices are made, and the venue of course. Recording can definitely get in the way. I think of CSO/Barenboim live Mahler 5 (Teldec) when the engineer had a raging hardon for harp.


I agree.

I get the idea that the recording will no longer sound like musicians performing in a real space, with a reasonable representation of their position in relation to each other, and the boundaries of the stage.

It sounds as if Pappas is shooting for every instrument to be in your face.

In my opinion, a good classical recording should create the image of an orchestra that stretches beyond the outside edges of the speakers, and stretching behind them, with the musicians inhabiting their own space. Percussion should sound like it is coming from the back of the orchestra and the other instruments should be in their proper places from side to side, and front to back.

When I listen at home, that is what I get. Depending on the recording, of course. But the best put my in row 20. And I can point to where the snare is coming from, or the cellos,or the brass, etc.

The best analogy I can think of is the way drums are recorded on most rock albums. They are also mic'd with many mics. What you get is each drum and cymbal has close to equal power, and a huge, 'bigger than life' image of the drum kit that seems to spread out across the entire soundstage from speaker to speaker.

Contrast that to the way the drums are recorded on jazz albums, where they and the rest of the musicians are mic'd as an ensemble. The drums sound like they are in one area, of natural size in comparison to the other instruments, behind the other players, and centered (or off to one side) of the soundstage.

Of course jazz and rock recordings are shooting for a different result, so the analogy is not perfect. But the end result of using so many mics is what I am pointing to. I just can't avoid thinking that this recording will be the orchestral equivalent of the larger than life image of the drum kit of most rock recordings.

I just can't imagine a spatially accurate recording coming from so many mics, with the engineer specifically stating he wants to avoid the 'big diffuse' sound of 'London Decca' recordings. Which I also disagree with, because on most of those recordings, and other classical recordings with standard orchestral mic placement (as Kontrapunctus mentioned above) I have no problem hearing 'every string, every flute, every harp'. I just hear them in relation to the rest of the orchestra, and not bigger than life.

I may be completely off base with my assessment, so I look forward to hearing this recording and proven wrong.


----------



## Tedski (Jul 8, 2015)

I think Pappas is trying to reinvent the wheel. Multi-micing is not new, and many engineers before him have tried using mics for each instrument section and soloist. Maybe not to the extreme which he is taking it, but my feeling is that, if this was a viable recording technique, it would already be the norm.


----------



## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I think it sounds like an eQ nightmare, but why not try? My biggest concern is if the mics are too close we get to be immersed in 60 performers' virtuoso sniffling accompanied by woodwind keys click-clacking.


----------



## rumleymusic (Aug 14, 2015)

Hello All,

First post here. I had to sign up because I appreciate this conversation, something very close to my heart. I am a classical recording engineer based in San Diego. I, as well as most of my colleagues, agree that minimalist miking techniques are the only "appropriate" way to treat large ensemble music recordings like orchestras, choirs etc. It is the musicians' job to create the balance and the engineer's job to capture in the best possible way. Usually this means 8+ mics but rarely more than 15 or 20 depending on the acoustic of the hall, percussion, soloist needs etc. 

Most of the sound of a recording will come from the main array of mics, whether it is a simple stereo pair, or a complex Decca arrangement with flanks. All of the other microphones combined will only reach about 6-8dB below the mains. I'm sure this is true even with Mr. Pappas's 66 mics. The sum of all the spots is still below the mains, even if such a plethora of hardware is extreme overkill. Their main purpose is to provide transient detail and clarity of presence, this is usually achieved with mics up to 10 feet away from the musicians, plenty of room for sharing, if you will. Too close will add nothing but breath and mechanical noises that are better left out of a recording. The Decca engineers miked the entire woodwind and brass sections with 3 microphones, two for the majority, and one behind (yes, behind) the horns. 

BTW. Deutche Grammaphon frequently uses dozens and dozens of mics for their recordings. High end american recording firms like 5/4 and Soundmirror tend to be more judicious in their selections, but still may record with a few dozen channels.


----------



## haydnfan (Apr 13, 2011)

That article is strange. I think it's the supposition that Pappas makes that the majority of cm listeners are doing their listening on surround sound systems expecting it to sound like they are on stage with the players. Both parts are wrong in my opinion.

First of all, almost nobody fits that demographic! Seriously! Most people listen on their phones and computers through earphones and headphones. Now out of the small fraction that is left like me that enjoys listening at home through speakers... we're talking mostly stereos. 

Neil Young, who was involved in the dvd-a format, explained it's failure (in an interview I saw recently) due to expecting that 5.1 would be the standard in homes AND people would want to listen to music through those systems. No, the most popular approach to home theater audio is to either just use tvs or use a sound bar. And Neil Young's new solution for high fidelity sound is a portable player, again going back to the idea of stereo through earphones and headphones.

Now my experience with modern recordings of symphony orchestras (and not chamber orchestras and PI groups) is that Pappas' recording and mixing is unique to him. I've heard many spacious modern recordings that allow the instruments to blend. I think that his analysis of the situation is deeply flawed, and if he follows his incorrect analysis he will not make recordings that sound as good as his colleagues.


----------



## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Raising hand... I have a 5.1 speaker system. And the difference in quality of soundstage is as great between stereo and 5.1 as it was between mono and stereo. There are lots of studio recordings and live concerts of operas and classical music in DVD, blu-ray and multichannel SACD. As home theater introduces multichannel into more homes, the traditional stereo system is being replaced by media centers capable of multichannel sound. Many of my friends have already made the switch, with the exception of the old folks who just want to stick with what they've got. My friends in their 20s who don't exclusively use headphones all have 5.1. They wouldn't even consider a stereo system.

Until you've heard what 5.1 can do for music, you can't imagine the difference it makes. Imagine trying to explain stereo to someone who only knew hifi mono. That said, you don't need to mike each instrument separately to do 5.1. It can be done with the normal number of channels used for recording for release in stereo.


----------



## Guest (Aug 17, 2015)

I went to the California Audio Show in San Francisco yesterday and attended a lecture by Professor Johnson of Reference Recordings. He said he rarely uses more than 6 mics for an orchestra recording: 4 across the front and a pair of crossed cardioids over the winds.


----------



## Baregrass (Feb 16, 2015)

Simon Moon said:


> In my opinion, a good classical recording should create the image of an orchestra that stretches beyond the outside edges of the speakers, and stretching behind them, with the musicians inhabiting their own space. Percussion should sound like it is coming from the back of the orchestra and the other instruments should be in their proper places from side to side, and front to back.


I agree. The sound should be just as if one were in the same performing hall. It would really depend on the acoustics of hall being used to determine how to mic it and how many to use. I give as an example the tendency of many recordings to have the solo parts come out at such a low volume that they are very difficult to hear without turning the volume way up and then having to turn the volume down again to keep from being blasted out of the room when the full orchestra comes in. I have never had a problem hearing the soloists in a live performance. I am speaking strictly of classical recordings. Then the other problem comes in with the mixing of the final product. They can put hundreds of mics in to record a performance but if the ones responsible for doing the final mix are too lazy or incompetent to do a proper job everything before is all for nought.


----------



## rumleymusic (Aug 14, 2015)

> I give as an example the tendency of many recordings to have the solo parts come out at such a low volume that they are very difficult to hear without turning the volume way up and then having to turn the volume down again to keep from being blasted out of the room when the full orchestra comes in.


In most cases I think this is because of the playback environment. In a concert hall, the audience it usually (hopefully) quiet and focused on the music. In my experience, the balance that is picked up through the main mics is rather accurate to the balance in the hall, if placed correctly that is. Give or take the quirks that make mics more finicky when it comes to sound pickup vs our ears. Some, or many in my experience, incorrectly assume that if a certainly section of the hall sound good to the listener, it is the best place to set up microphones. It usually ends up sounding washy, muddy, diffuse, and awful. Mics are of course not ears, they are an intermediary transducer between the source and our speakers. It is the speaker:listener relationship that concerns the engineer and what drives his or her decisions. It is not always possible to make it sound like it does in the hall. And most attempts to do so fail miserably. The game plan is most often "Make it sound good for the listener in his living room, with headphones, or in the car"

When my customers contact me with a problem hearing quiet sections of music in their recordings, it is usually because they are listening in an extremely noisy environment, such as a car, or on laptop speakers which cannot produce all of the frequency spectrum clearly.

I wish car sound systems would come equipped with a "Radio" button so CD or aux input so playback could be compressed for the road.


----------



## rumleymusic (Aug 14, 2015)

I apologize for my grammatical errors. I am too new to be able to edit my posts it seems.


----------



## Baregrass (Feb 16, 2015)

rumleymusic said:


> In my experience, the balance that is picked up through the main mics is rather accurate to the balance in the hall, if placed correctly that is. Give or take the quirks that make mics more finicky when it comes to sound pickup vs our ears. Some, or many in my experience, incorrectly assume that if a certainly section of the hall sound good to the listener, it is the best place to set up microphones. It usually ends up sounding washy, muddy, diffuse, and awful. Mics are of course not ears, they are an intermediary transducer between the source and our speakers.


Good observations. I guess that my main point is that the engineers should know these things before hand, and probably most do, and then during the mix raise the volume level of the soloist if a separate track has been recorded for the soloist. Such procedures have been standard in the pop world for years but I do acknowledge that recording a live performance of a large symphony orchestra is a different proposition that recording a rock band in a recording studio.


----------

