At 11:15 PM +0000 12/28/04, Rich Peet wrote:
snip
> I want to do more of that this
>year and will go in search of a broke movie theater as a possible
>playground as I do need a bigger space than I currently have access
>to.
Some quality, public playback facilities in the area would be great.
Until I heard the model 1038B Tri-amp'd Genelecs at the AES workshop
Bernie organized, I thought the only way to "play what I mixed" was
to drag around speakers and re-equalize for each setting. A 5.1
Genelec system would run around $30K though.
>snip
>
>What we need is something comparable to a gray scale for the photo
>people to quickly set a room by ear. I guess the best material for
>that gray scale is pulled from reference material of spaces that we
>each already know well from having recorded in them a number of times.
Maybe this is a good gear/bad gear thing again. If the D->A, amps
and speakers are high quality and the room is reasonably dead, one
can quickly dial up delicious sounds. Trying to calibrate for/match a
very modest home and theatre systems is much harder though more
common objective.
Regarding "Microphones are not ears, Loudspeakers are not birds," For
those who are listening for foreground calls, tonal inaccuracies are
much less objectionable because a "stack" of about 5-20 frequencies
is portrayed and its easier for the brain to figure out the actual
tones and concentrations. If a recording attempts to reach out and
include several, ongoing broad bands like "air," shimmering leaves,
a gurgling stream, its much harder for the mixer and the brain to
assemble accurate tonalities from the clues. "Space" also requires
considerably louder playback levels that some people just don't like.
Rob D.
>Rich
>
>
>--- In Rob Danielson <>
>wrote:
>> Lang--
>> I've started a new string whether worth lengthening or not.
>>
>> I agree that tonal balance or contour shaping in the low end may be
>> more important than shere low end extension and, sometimes, even
>> "flat response" to 20hz. This takes us quickly into esoteric realms
>> of reproduction and Klas's quote. I've encountered few sub woofers
>> that have fairly "smooth" response down to 20 Hz even if played at
>> calibrated volume.
>>
>> Powerful machines produce low Hz's that persist very far and sound
>> out of proportion if close animal sources (sans grouse!) are of
>> primary interest in the mix. But, these lows also provide some of
>the
>> most useful clues we have about things happening in the distance
>or,
>> "space" in its most articulated form. There are 3 audible octaves
>> below 200Hz and 6.5 above.
>>
>> I find that many quiet natural settings have frequencies in the
>30Hz
>> range that are very useful in creating fundamentals of the harmonic
>> structure to create a sense of "air" or local acoustics in a
>> setting. What I call the "air" range goes up to about 900-1000 Hz
>but
>> the harmonics that take advantage of a well-represented low
>> frequencies are in the first few octaves, 60-240 Hz. Of course, it
>> takes two smooth subs and careful calibration for me to use this
>> phenomenon and its all totally impractical for distribution today.
>I
>> have to use sound "installations," -- a real pain. As I eq, I
>glance
>> at the frequency/amplitude distributions in even my "quietest"
>field
>> recordings (Firium displays this dynamically in real time) and I
>see
>> huge percentages of the total sound energy down at the bottom. Too
>> esoteric? possibly, but I see them as natural and useful in my
>> representations, man-made or not. Rob D.
>>
>> =3D =3D =3D
>>
>> >Rob:
>> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>"Microphones are not ears,
>Loudspeakers are not birds,
>A listening room is not nature."
>Klas Strandberg
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
--
Rob Danielson
Film Department
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
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