Agreed but all the same points could be made of stereo playback as
well. Inevitably if we want your work to be heard by people other
than those you can invite to your studio we are going to have to
accept some variances in the quality of the listening environment.
This should not limit us in what we try to achieve. My goal when
doing recordings is to allow the listener to close his or her eyes and
feel as if they were actually in the place that the recording was
done. In the small amount of multi-channel recordings that I've done
I've found that that sense of immersion is increased immensely,
whether played back in a calibrated studio or somebody's home system.
Sure there are differences but my limited experience thus far is that
people are more entranced by being 'within' the sound than looking at
it through a picture window no matter how clean that window is. In
fact I would say that you need an even more accurate listening
environment to create that effect in stereo than you do in
multi-channel. Sit a few inches to the right of the sweet spot and
the effect is lost. I'm not saying that we should strive for
mediocrity in playback systems but if we can't accept some variation
then we're destined for a life of frustration.
Having said all that a good set of headphones is probably best anyway.
Would you mind checking that URL you suggested for the SurSound
listserve? I wasn't able to acces it.
Good chatting with you. Have a great holiday.
Dave Rose
--- In Rob Danielson <> wrote:
>
> No, definitely not "simple" in any phase from field to presentation.
> For example, in presenting ambient, spatial recordings, a set of full
> range, high quality matched speakers all around is fundamental and
> very, very few surround playback systems are designed with this in
> mind. Room room acoustics play havoc with any recording that has
> important content in the 125 to 700 Hz range (where both "distance"
> and the "local acoustic "space" potentially exist). A mix that has
> pleasing depth and detail on reference monitor speakers in one's
> studio will usually exhibit disproportions-- drones, roars and
> harmonic imbalances when played back even on the same speakers in
> another room. The result is, the pleasing impression of sounds
> falling moving away from the auditor is changed into tones that
> advance towards the listener and the illusion of space is greatly
> diminished. Surround recording/presentation presents a new field of
> study, not just the addition of mics and speakers. Consider it this
> way: aside from ambient nature/location and concert hall recordings,
> depth/space is usually manufactured in commercial audio programming.
> Ambient field recording presses the gear to its limits from
> micing/mics to dealing with the room you listen in. Automated,
> computer-assisted audio mixing is a huge development but the hardware
> involved is pretty traditional. The very last thing I do for a
> surround installation is substitute a DVD player with 5.1 for my
> laptop. I do have a "home" 5.1 system that I flip on for fun a few
> times during the mix, but I aim my mixes for better systems (all 12
> of them on the planet :-)). In reality, most folks who do surround,
> do installations because they can reach larger audiences. Rob D.
>
> At 12:49 PM +0000 12/23/06, davelori777 wrote:
> >I'm not much of a numbers/spec reader so your notes on the self noise
> >are helpful. I find peoples opinions are more useful than a spec
> >sheet anyday.
> >
> >Have you really found multichannel recordings hard to present? I
> >would have thought with the wealth of home theatre receivers and
> >DVD-Audio players etc. that it has actually become quite simple. The
> >capturing being the difficult part.
> >
> >Thanks for the advice.
> >
> >Dave
> >
> >--- In Rob Danielson <type@> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Dave--
> >> The Sursound list is most certainly one of the best resources for
> >> accessing people with experience with the Soundfield mics and
> >> alternatives. https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
> >> You might recognize Eric Benjamin's and Umashankar Mantravadi's
names
> >> from this list and others as well. Depending on the kind of surround
> >> recording you want to pursue, there are some different challenges
> >> that nature recordists face. The most obvious one to me is the
> >> frequent need to use very high gain in order to reach into quieter,
> >> usually more open spaces which tends reveal the self-noise and other
> >> limitations of the gear more readily than recording loud sources in
> >> enclosed spaces. With this in mind, the relatively high
self-noise of
> >> the ST mics has kept me at observation distance. There is a
> >> contingency of folks who are into outdoor surround imaging on the
> >> Sursound; Paul Doornbusch is one name I recall. Good luck with your
> >> 4 channel pursuits; lots of exploring and learning to be done in
this
> >> arena. Not easy to present, I might add. Rob D.
> >>
> >> At 3:25 PM +0000 12/22/06, davelori777 wrote:
> >> >Hi All,
> >> >
> >> >Does anybody have much experience using a Calrec Soundfield
Mic? I'm
> >> >very interested in getting more into multichannel recordings
and their
> >> >new ST350 and the older ST250 seem like pretty good simple
solutions
> >> >for getting a 5.1 output out of my 4 track Sound Devices 744.
Anybody
> >> >played with one much?
> >> >
> >> >Dave
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Rob Danielson
> >> Peck School of the Arts
> >> University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
> >> http://www.uwm.edu/~type/audio-art-tech-gallery/
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >"Microphones are not ears,
> >Loudspeakers are not birds,
> >A listening room is not nature."
> >Klas Strandberg
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Rob Danielson
> Peck School of the Arts
> University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
> http://www.uwm.edu/~type/audio-art-tech-gallery/
>
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