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3. Re: SD 7 series recorders with / without an additional pre-amp

Subject: 3. Re: SD 7 series recorders with / without an additional pre-amp
From: "vickipowys" vpowys
Date: Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:42 pm ((PDT))
Robin wrote:

> I'll address something Vicki wrote .......
>
> "I sometimes try to record 'the air' when nothing is calling much,
> but I can never get that sense of space and airiness that I hear
> with my ears."

Hi Robin,

When I sometimes try to record the air, I am using SASS (quasi-
binaural) and various mics and listening back using headphones.  The
less system noise the better it works.  Once there is system noise
things do go a bit 2-dimensional.

Vicki


On 21/04/2012, at 2:36 AM, robin_parmar_sound wrote:

> This has been an interesting discussion to read, to see the
> dialogue between those who wish to preserve a more "naturalistic"
> listening environment in their recordings and those who have other
> concerns, though the rather tentative nature of the discussion is
> unfortunate, perhaps because the debate is old and tired to some
> participants.
>
> In any case, though I have nothing to say about pre-amplification,
> I will make a couple of points that might be regarded as truisms by
> the very experienced recordists in the thread. But there are always
> new readers and so new reasons to restate points of view. I'll
> address something Vicki wrote, more for convenience than to single
> out one part of the discussion:
>
> "I sometimes try to record 'the air' when nothing is calling much,
> but I can never get that sense of space and airiness that I hear
> with my ears."
>
> This is a fundamental limitation of stereo playback and stereo
> recording (by which I mean here the common definition of two sound
> sources, not the proper use of the term to mean anything more than
> mono). There is only so much that can be done with two speakers.
> Though we listen to an environment with two ears we hear sounds
> from all directions. This cannot possibly be simulated with common
> domestic playback scenarios, which is why I prefer composing for
> eight speakers, and indeed would target larger speaker
> configurations if they were not even more rarely available.
>
> Likewise the Ambisonic folk are working away on more accurate and
> enveloping recording setups with multiple speaker caps in tight
> arrays.
>
> Given the (to me) irrefutable fact of the deficiencies of stereo,
> any collapse of a sound field to two channels is highly artificial
> from the very beginning. Stereo recording and listening is a
> cultural act that is steeped in convention. We learn and use these
> conventions,  (which I did when training as a recording engineer in
> the eighties) whether we later choose to react against them or not.
>
> Dolby 5.1 and other cinema-based standards don't help the situation
> much, since they are all frontally-oriented in a way that our
> natural hearing isn't. By which I don't mean to deny the frontal
> orientation of our bodies, but rather that 5.1 etc., with their
> asymmetrical configurations, don't try to simulate this. Instead
> they overlay other pragmatic and programmatic concerns that have
> more to do with commerce and traditional staging than naturalistic
> listening.
>
> To be pragmatic, most listening is done today on headphones, not
> speakers. So, to be practical, we should abandon stereo mixes for
> binaural, achieving our "perfect" imaging in that way. I continue
> to find it extraordinarily odd that commercially recorded music
> isn't largely binaural. Nature recordists continue to lead the way
> on that front.
>
> Apologies that this diversion has become longer than intended.
>
> -- Robin Parmar
>
>







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