What is Stereo Music Recording and Reproduction to you?

[Bruce Swedien]

What is Stereo Music Recording and Reproduction to you? Do you really know? Do you really care? My personal feeling is that we MUST know and we MUST care....

To begin with, it’s very difficult to find a really good definition of what stereo music recording and reproduction actually is. If we attempt to precisely define the word “stereophonic”, we find in the dictionary that the first half of the word, “stereo” means, solid, firm or three-dimensional. The second half of the word or, “Phonic” means pertaining to the nature of sound. I think that may be as close as we get to a definition of stereo music reproduction. I think a real definition of stereophonic should say that “Stereophonic sound is a reproduction system consisting of two or more microphones, placed in front of a sound pick-up area, recorded discretely on two or more channels of a multi-track recording device, and then played back on two or more loudspeakers placed in front of a listening area.”

This system creates the illusion of the recorded sound having direction, position and depth in the area between the loudspeakers.

This playback system produces a sound pattern at the listeners ears which our hearing sense interprets as indicating direction and depth of sound field in the limited area between the loudspeakers.

In most cases, accurate localization is the goal of a stereophonic image. In other words, when recording a large orchestra, the instruments in the center of the ensemble are accurately reproduced in the area midway between the two playback loudspeakers. Instruments at the sides of the orchestra are reproduced from either the left or the right speaker.

Instruments half way between are reproduced halfway to one side and so on... This type of a stereo image is what I would call “Basically - An Unaltered Acoustical Event”.

For me, the problem is that this technique totally eliminates “Sonic Fantasy” from the recording process. It is the clinical approach. I find it somewhat interesting, but not very inspiring. Things got really exciting for me when I discovered that I could successfully record sonic images that existed mainly in my imagination.

In other words, Since the middle 1960’s I think my philosphical approach to using the "Stereo Space", has been to take the listener into a “New Reality” that did not, or could not, exist in a real life acoustical environment. This “New Reality”, of course, existed only in my own imagination.

This may, at first, sound to you like very basic stuff, but think about it..... It is really why this subject intrigues us in the first place...

I posted this topic over on Craig Anderton's thiingee and got some rather interesting replies.

What do you think????



Bruce Swedien
__________________
Music First!

[RCM - Ronan]

I am very much in the “Sonic Fantasy” camp. It is fun sometimes to try and do an accurate representation (like when I am doing chamber music) but for most stuff I am interested in crafting the experience.

People often talk about recreating the experience of the band playing live, but we do not really have the opportunity to do that on records. We do not have the advantage of the music being played back through a PA at 125 dBSPL, we do not have the excitement of seeing the band move around on stage, the cute girls dancing two rows ahead, the smell of sweat and beer in the club...

The listener on the record does not have all that additional non audio stimulus so we have to work a little harder to try and make up for that.

[Casey]

I will approach this from the aspect of what inspires us personally.

I feel that there is a ying and yang between what could be called tight and loose sonic enjoyment.

My sense of tight is clinical perfection (clinical as a positive!) with very few tie downs to natural spaces. When done right this can leave me in awe, an aural spectacle that can be enjoyed over and over. A strong groove carrying the sound from one small amazing sonic event to another. Thriller certainly, Gentle Giant's Octopus as well, embody this theme at a high level.

Loose on the other hand, has everything to do with natural spaces. Hard rain falling around you, the sound of a far away train or a live orchestra in a great hall. These sounds are not crafted. They roll out of the environment and can never truly be repeated.

My inspiration is much closer to the latter, however my appreciation differs not between these two ideals.



-Casey

[bcgood]

For me the ultimate stereo image is made from binaural recordings. Put some nice headphones on and just listen, amazing sound. You can hear the soundstage from left to right but you can also hear height and depth cues as well.

I remember having a day dream about recording a band in a big reverberant space like a huge empty cathedral and then using baffles to control the sound. You could have one binaural head closer to the band to pick up a more dry sound carefully balanced with the use of baffles and of course the placement of the musicians. Then use another binaural head back in a sweet spot to record the lush reverb of the space. Then simply mix the separate front and back binarual recordings together to taste.

P.S. Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Sessions is a very nice recording in this vein.

Here is a really cool story about this recording with a lot of interesting details. I think I know what I'm going to listen to on my iPod before I go to sleep tonight!

COWBOY JUNKIES | The Trinity Session

Here's a super short wave file to give you an idea of what it sounds like.

Blue Moon Revisited (Song For Elvis) Sample Cowboy Junkies Trinity Sessions.wav

[The Byre]

1. I (and I suspect you and many others) imagine a room and in that fictitious room, I place the various parts of the music. The room may be moving, the room may have weird and wonderful extensions, but that is the environment that I seek to place the parts and players.

2. I record every part in stereo - i.e. two or more microphones. Not just drums and piano and the like, but fiddles and vocals.

3. I know, Bruce, this will not meet with your approval, but, if the gig (and the customer) allows it, I place that stereo image within a 5.1 environment. OK, most of the time, the music is at the front - in other words in stereo, with maybe a little help from the centre speaker. But now and then, it really helps to spice things up to bring in something from the side and rear!

But I agree, just reproducing what happened in the room can be rather boring and pointless. Let's go crazy and create spaces that didn't and couldn't exist!

We have all this equipment nowadays, why not use it as another musical instrument? There seem to be a growing number of audio-nerds that think it is our job to only reproduce EXACTLY what happened in the room or hall.

[picksail]

I'm stuck somewhere between reality and fantasy.

I've always dreamed of a day when I could "experience" music in a spherical surround system.
Sure surround has come close, but by those standards it's a pretty crude attempt.

On the other hand music is interactive. I enjoy hearing music with others and discussing it-just like a great film.
Music is everywhere there is entertainment and in this regard music is often the entertainment.

I suppose the consumption of music depends upon the situation.
For instance, I don't want to share my headphones with anyone, yet conversely I don't think the sphere would be much fun.

Of course, we can easily find debate in the commercial consumption vs. audiophile consumption. But that's very different.

I don't think I answered the question.

[BDL]

I use keyboards synths only, and my music compositions vary in theme and style. But for each composition and mix is have some kind of rooted mix that carries the music along.

But I like space and spaciousness added in dimension to the compositions too, depending on the instrument and role in the piece.

Balance is what I look for foremost, and then I can build on this.

One thing I have heard from a lot of people is that mono is good, panning used to place mono sources -- not just using stereo effect on everything in a mix.

[NorseHorse]

I record a lot of classical music, and I'm not always looking for an unadultered "acoustical event".

I'm looking for a pleasurable, engaging listening experience.

I recorded a concert in a church this summer and by virtue of the space, the choir was completely on the left. I used M/S to record the concert, so the recording is spatially balanced with the choir surrounding the soloist on BOTH sides. It's not "accurate", but it's definitely better to listen to.

[Killahurts]

With Bruce's dictionary definition, you would have to include surround as "stereophonic" as well.

Stereo reproduction (the 2 channel kind) on speakers in the air can never be real because it's coming from a small slice of the actual sound field "dome".

Surround is closer, but you still have to use tricks while recording and mixing to make it appear real.

Properly done binaural recordings in headphones may be the exception, as someone already mentioned.

So I guess it's fantasy all the way for me, which is just fine- some of the sounds in my imagination and the spaces they occupy can't exist anyway.

[andy_simpson]

Originally Posted by Bruce Swedien

What is Stereo Music Recording and Reproduction to you? Do you really know? Do you really care? My personal feeling is that we MUST know and we MUST care....

To begin with, it’s very difficult to find a really good definition of what stereo music recording and reproduction actually is. If we attempt to precisely define the word “stereophonic”, we find in the dictionary that the first half of the word, “stereo” means, solid, firm or three-dimensional. The second half of the word or, “Phonic” means pertaining to the nature of sound. I think that may be as close as we get to a definition of stereo music reproduction. I think a real definition of stereophonic should say that “Stereophonic sound is a reproduction system consisting of two or more microphones, placed in front of a sound pick-up area, recorded discretely on two or more channels of a multi-track recording device, and then played back on two or more loudspeakers placed in front of a listening area.”

The discovery of what we know as stereo sound, as described above, is interestingly somewhat responsible for many of the problems with the industry at present.

Had research concentrated longer on the monaural (mono) reproduction, for a decade or two longer, we might have had greater multiplicative progress in stereo, surround & other areas before now.

The still vague z-axis is a good example, where 'depth' is yet almost universally unexplored.

One interesting issue of stereo reproduction stems from our horizontal emphasised pattern recognition brains/senses - stereo hearing/seeing.

We know that pattern recognition is critical to our sense of sound & music and this plays a critical role in our appreciation of music/sound.

I would argue that stereo recordings are less easy to recognise because of their more complicated pattern, where mono recordings are easier to recognise in varied playback situations.

A good way to illustrate this is to take a complicated stereo recording, listen for 1 hour and abruptly switch L/R, so that the image is reversed.

In most cases, this results in a serious instantaneous (catastrophic) reduction in the perception of sound quality!

Though the effects wear off as the brain re-adjusts with time, the same result can be repeated on returning the L/R channels to their original position.

In my experience this effect can actually have quite catastrophic results, especially where a recording has been worked on for a long time and makes for an excellent practical joke at the end of a very long mastering session.

Andy

[bcgood]

[RawBeanZen]

Originally Posted by picksail

I'm stuck somewhere between reality and fantasy.

I know the feeling!