> From: Geoffrey Sample <>
> When I got hooked into nature recording, it was a full take. I went to
> sennheiser to talk about which of their mics would be best for what I
> wanted to do. The technical manager made an interesting comment -
> designed to niggle me a bit: 'engineers make the best recordists'.
>
> That may be true in the context of a film/TV crew. But as to who makes
> the best recordings, I would say both an engineer and a producer can make
> great recordings, if they're good at what they do. The engineer's should
> be technically good, with hopefully an ear for his subject matter; the
> producer aims to capture something special, good performance, something
> that communicates, with hopefully adequate technical ability to make a
> good recording. The point being that there are two aspects to a sound
> recording: the technical quality and the aesthetic and/or bioacoustical
> content. I try to keep a balance.
One should keep in mind that neither of these groups have the technical
training for dealing with an analysis of the effects of compressed
sound. I have a great deal of respect for good sound engineers or
producers, but I also understand their limitations.
For the majority of both groups, their craft was learned in what amounts
to a sort of apprenticeship program. They understand specific models of
equipment very well, and of course both have a ear for sound. Once you
move outside the areas of their experience, then it can get hazy quickly.
I view what I've gotten from several of both types as saying that ATRAC
is a bit of a unknown, and when they try to use it in the way they know,
they sometimes run into problems with no easy solutions. In many cases
these are technical problems that are not a result of anything being
wrong with the sound, it's just not matched to their equipment setup. It
does not fit the way they work.
As far as the "engineers make the best recordists" well, maybe in some
aspects. They are more likely to use the equipment correctly, anyway.
But, if it's outside their experience or knowledge they may not do so
well. Just a little tale about a excellent engineer to illustrate:
My father is a Chemical Engineer, with the whole set of degrees, and
very knowledgeable well outside of those. His last years before
retirement he headed a Engineering department at a small college. To
supplement his income he often would take a summer job at a nearby
research facility run by the Navy. One summer they got in a new
industrial xray machine. Well, what do you do with a new toy but play.
Xrays of shells were really neat. Then someone got the idea to grab up
some shore crabs from the beach beside the lab. Trouble was they would
run around during the exposure, which made some really neat ghost
tracks, but not much in the way of clear xrays. So, this bunch of
engineers decided to kill a few to get them to set still. Well, what did
they have around the lab to kill a crab? They tried boiling water, but
the shore crabs shed all their legs, a built in self destruct in shore
crabs that can save them if the waves toss a rock on them. So, then they
settled on cyanide, got a bucket of seawater, laced it liberally with
cyanide, then tossed in some crabs. My very puzzled father arrived home
that evening and asked me why the crabs were perfectly ok after most of
a day in a pail of cyanide. He was outside his area of expertise and
experience and did not know. Well my degrees say zoology, biology, and
science education. It's simple, crabs don't depend on a iron based
pigment to transport oxygen. I know that at least some use vanadium and
could probably do ok even without that. Now I'm not sure if they could
survive the cyanide indefinitely, but shore crabs are used to dealing
with wildly fluctuating chemistry.
Engineers make the best engineers, beyond that it can sometimes get real
amusing.
Walt
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