There are many serious problems with that premise. The first is that
because one is
replicating SPL both at the mic rig and consequently in the studio,
one achieves a comparable
result. That's like suggesting that if you measure the sound of a
generator at 80dBA at the input
of your mics, and measure the sound of a different biophony at 80dB
coming out of a pair of monitor speakers,
the acoustic data is the same. This is, of course, a gross
exaggeration but a necessary one to make the point.
When one transforms the data collected at the input of a system
(which is what recordists do), and then
transmits it through whatever system used for playback, one has an
amended program no matter how
it is sliced. This has nothing whatsoever to do with SPL. It has to do
with a judgment about how closely
one has come to creating the illusion of an experience one has had in
the field =96 assuming that is the end-product
goal. Since profound transformation has occurred from the human
experience of the soundscape in the real world
and then reduced to two or more speakers in a more-or-less controlled
interior environment, in the end, it remains an aesthetic
call no matter how many spurious numbers one ascribes to the
methodology.
If the recording is meant to be heard by a larger audience than one's
own personal pleasure, than to a lesser or greater
degree of success, one is dealing in the art of illusion...the realm
of transformation. Some do it better than others, of course.
As the late John Cage once told me at a meeting when asked what he
thought of those who claimed they could closely
replicate wild soundscapes by simply recording them and releasing
them, unchanged, on disk, =93Found art,=94 he sniffed.
=93That=92s because all true Artists know that germane to their respective =
crafts is transformation: the inspired conversion of
sound or image from one medium to another, or ideas from mind to page
=96 ultimate expressions far more resounding than
the sources from which they spring. It is through the process of
insurgency that Art in any medium obliges insight into the
numinous and improbable.=94 Klaus Sch=F6ening, a German colleague of
Cage=92s who headed up the arts program at WDR in K=F6ln,
once said, =93Transformation is the key to life and art, the real
mystery of creative nature. Attempts to replicate or capture aspects
of the natural world without amendment speak clearly to a vision of
paralysis and death.=94
Bernie Krause
On Apr 6, 2009, at 2:28 AM, Greg Simmons wrote:
> --- In Rob Danielson <>
> wrote:
>
> > If I'm following umashankar correctly, the only way one could
> > practice the theory of "flat frequencies response" --that is-- not
> > correcting for volume and monitoring Hz balances difference-- would
> > be to match the sound playback level of the original sounds.
>
> According to his website, Gordon Hempton uses such a process when
> preparing his binaural 'sound portraits'. He measures the SPL at the
> mic position during recording, and matches it at the monitoring
> position in his studio when preparing the recordings for release.
> The idea has always made a lot of sense to me, but I'm too lazy to
> carry an SPL meter...
>
> The SPL Meter widget for iPhones might make it easier, however.
>
>
>
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