Coloration for Classical Orchestra?

[3rd&4thT]

Originally Posted by audibell

I had not the money in the 70's, for the sort of stereo gear that was as revealing as today's monitors - but I have since encountered some truly edgy LPs from the 60's & 70's, particularly Richter and Karajan. The performances were delightful but the micing was strident and screechy, irrespective of the need to limit the bass for cutter tracking. I recall wondering what all the clatter was in Handel's Resurezzioni CD in '82. Woodwind mics too close, not digititis.

I got the impression that Miss 3rd4thT would get fired if she showed her cntact info, so I'm not offended at her reticence and the whole discussion was v interesting, thks.
Happy working all.
WT

It is true that some LP-era DG's were a bit rough at the top, but they pressed their discs on softer vinyl than anyone else, so the highs were erased with repeated playback very quickly.

BTW, it's Mr. 3rd&4thT. If you thought it was Miss, I really need to sit down with "The Elements of Style" again.

Hrmph,
3rd&4thT

[vonrichter]

Originally Posted by Rib Bizqit

I´ve seen conductor´s increasing influence in brightening things up.
We know that their podium is really strange place to listen music.
When listening back the take, they often want to hear more and in-your-face strings.

Anybody else with that kind of experience?

Overly strident, unrealistically loudly mixed violins are a pet peeve of mine with countless recordings. Do you think the experience you posted is the culprit?

The super-loud violin section thing is especially problematic when listening back on less than ideal setups. It can become ear-shredding at times. It's even worse if they are mixed extremely far left, to the point where they are basically coming solely from the left speaker.

Call me nuts, but I've never once heard the violins obliterating an fff trumpet section in real life, so it's a bit weird hearing just that on so many recordings.

[audio ergo sum]

Listening to many DG Karajan recordings, this Violins+remote orchestra aesthetics was really trademarked by Herbert himself. Mozart symphonies, with Karajan, simply painful to listen to IMO. The saga goes, Maestro himself listended to the multitrack replay of the first take and adjusted the Violin spot mic at the desk according to his age related hearing loss of higher frequencies and glued it there with tape. Engineer would not touch it again by the threat of ending in the next lake with concrete shoes, but turned the preamp a couple of notches back after Maestro had left the control room.

The other culprit to blame for these misguided aesthetics are illiterate recording producers, that barely manage to follow the violin line and constantly ask the engineer for more of this essential "guide track".

[Frisbieinstein]

Originally Posted by 3rd&4thT

Perhaps you wise people can help me here.

I've been a classical fan all my life and spent a lot of time listening in Carnegie Hall, along with other venues in New York, Chicago, London, Amsterdam, etc. My home speakers are Dahlquists.

I hear live orchestral sound as thicker, darker and more blended than most contemporary digital recordings - more API than Neve and more either than Grace/Millenia.

The all-time famous classical orchestral recordings, Fine/Mercury, Layton/RCA, Wilkinson/Decca, were made with highly colored Neumann mics. Going into analog chains that are presumably more congested and opaque than today's digital, they nonetheless managed to get impact and clarity. They may have lacked peak headroom and low noise floors 50 years ago, but they seemed to have everything else that matters, and their work is still prized today by music lovers.

Except here on this forum. Recently, in a quick check, I did find Plush plugging in on this.

Are you using SDCs because you are recording live concerts instead of sessions and need to fly smaller mics? Is it because you can't get LDC's with quiet noise specs? Is it because you need to emphasize detail because of the lack of visual cues? Is it because listeners demand detail at the expense of warmth or "phatness?" Are you relying on preamps for coloration instead of mics?

How would your orchestral recordings be different if you couldn't use Schoeps/Sennheisers etc. and had to stick with big, clunky Neumanns and Gefells and their vintage LDC imitators?

What am I missing here? I'd be grateful for any explanations.

Thanks,
3rd&4thT

I happened to meet a man who collected antique radios. He had a radio from 1930 or so, and I thought it sounded great. It was of course completely inaccurate, but so what?

If you want accuracy that's fine, but it isn't necessarily what sounds the best. Why not go by your own ear?

[sonare]

Originally Posted by Corran

In one orchestra I play in, 440 is rigorously kept and adhered to, one other 440 is a start and it goes everywhere from there.

Here's a thought: modern orchestras don't listen as much as our predecessors...maybe that accounts for some differences.

This may happen in college and metropolitan orchestras, but does not correlate to regional or major orchestras. The reality is that once you are at regional (and certainly major) level you cannot find a BAD orchestra. Listening and tuning to each other in an ensemble is most of the job-- if you don't you won't be there longer than one season.

Back to the thread-- one factor (for better or worse) is that thanks to recordings more orchestras sound the same. Certainly more orchestras play in tune, albeit at higher pitch. In the 60s or 70s it was easy to identify the country, and in the US it was easy to identify particular orchestras. Not anymore.

Personally I am not convinced that this is progress.

Rich

[Corran]

Yeah the one that does not quite stay in tune is a metropolitan orchestra. I don't remember what I was talking about back then though.

Regardless it drives me nuts!

[3rd&4thT]

Since you fine folks have seen fit to re-animate this monster, here are some recent thoughts.

We hate antiseptic halls, and revere warm ones, yet we insist on the opposite in our recording chains. This paradox is, for me, indefensible.

The reason we have overbalanced strings goes back way pre-Karajan. We have it because the paying public likes it.

Popular string sounds like Andre Kostelanetz, Mantovani, the 101 Strings, etc. sold madly. Eugene Ormandy and his string-heavy Philly Orch with the inner-voice doublings and the world's most expensive collection of fiddles made more money for Columbia Records than Bernstein, Szell, and Walter put together.

In the early-mid 70's, Decca experimented with putting strings in their place. The Solti Symphonie fantastique, the Maazel Manfred, Bonynge conducting various high-calorie fluff all enjoyed a more realistic balance. The public hated it, terming it distant and anemic, and Decca went back to in-your-face strings.

Finally, I have found the remedy for clinical, digititis-deformed classical recordings.

I play them through the Waves V-Series VEQ 4, usually with everything set flat. I've not heard the UAD Neve plugins, but the Waves EQ beats the pants off of the URS Neve modelling, and all the other similar plugins I've heard.

The VEQ 4 brings back the specific analog fatness I miss, and I'm grateful for it.

Cheers,
3rd&4thT

[klaukholm]

I don't think the chain is the reason why strings sound harsh.
A pretty typical hollywood scoring session main rig is pretty clean, yet they consistantly get a super blended distant sounding string sound that can at times sound like it is sitting behind the strings.

It is about the ideals and tastes of those who engineer and also how orchestras play. When you get to a point strings only get harsher when asked to play louder. a lot of conductors fall into this trap as if using more force will get you more dB.
I believe one of the secrets of the cleveland string sound is in the way their brass play. It allows the strings to avoid forcing while staying in balance. Ironically their strings have fostered some of the loudest string players around such as Lynn H.

String playing has changed dramatically, as has brass playing.

Often we as producers can do a lot for creating the warmth that we blame our gear for not providing.

[Audiop]

Originally Posted by 3rd&4thT

We hate antiseptic halls, and revere warm ones, yet we insist on the opposite in our recording chains. This paradox is, for me, indefensible.

Hi!

Some of my thoughts:

Hall sound should be pleasant, instruments and performance should be nice and with suitable character depending on what the whole thing is meant to communicate.

If the listening/monitor part of the chain is good (neutral and highly resolving), then the recording chain needs to be clean and transparent as well if you want to get close to the live experience.

IMO colorations is a band aid when there are errors, colorations and imbalances somewhere in the chain.

When cooking, start with fresh ingredients instead of foul which you have to cover up with excessive amounts of spices.


/Peter

[Audiop]

Originally Posted by klaukholm

Often we as producers can do a lot for creating the warmth that we blame our gear for not providing.

Exactly!


/Peter

[3rd&4thT]

[QUOTE=Audiop;4181220] If the listening/monitor part of the chain is good (neutral and highly resolving), then the recording chain needs to be clean and transparent as well if you want to get close to the live experience. /QUOTE]


Absolutely not. The live experience is not clean and transparent. Other recordings are clean and transparent. You must decide if you are comparing your sound to

a) what's actually going on, in an environment where 80-90% of the sound is reflected and orchestras are blended, or

b) with other recordings, in which case you have much more direct sound and much less out-of-phase bass. This is the kind of bass which we persist in calling "mud," even though the Concertgebouw, the Vienna Musikverein and New York's Carnegie Hall pump out great quantities of it.

Clean-as-a-hound's-tooth classical recordings are not real or faithful. That's what this whole thread is about.

A clean recording chain may make you feel more moral, but it is probably not going to get you even close to a live sound. You will, however, have the satisfaction of producing a recording that sounds like a CD.

Cheers,
3rd&4thT

[NorseHorse]

Strings sound harsh because we're using high-tension metal strings. Tune down to 420 or 415. It'll sound better and be easier to play.* Next, change to gut strings and you're golden. So what if you have to retune after each movement...


*Speaking from 2nd hand experience.

[Audiop]

Hi!

Originally Posted by 3rd&4thT

Absolutely not. The live experience is not clean and transparent. Other recordings are clean and transparent.

The live acoustic performance just "is". Transparency is not a term that can be used in that regard.

You must decide if you are comparing your sound to
a) what's actually going on, in an environment where 80-90% of the sound is reflected and orchestras are blended, or

Yes, that is what I compare the recording to. Mostly I feel that live performances are totally wonderful and that is what I want to achieve in the reproduction of the event.

b) with other recordings, in which case you have much more direct sound and much less out-of-phase bass. This is the kind of bass which we persist in calling "mud," even though the Concertgebouw, the Vienna Musikverein and New York's Carnegie Hall pump out great quantities of it.

I'd say that the amount of direct vs. diffuse sound on records have a lot of variation but even though listening with your analytical brain once in a while on "other" recordings can be informative and educating it is the original performance that I compare the recording to.

Clean-as-a-hound's-tooth classical recordings are not real or faithful. That's what this whole thread is about.

Of course it is, it can't be anything else than that.

A clean recording chain may make you feel more moral, but it is probably not going to get you even close to a live sound. You will, however, have the satisfaction of producing a recording that sounds like a CD.

Please excuse me for not agreeing! :-)


/Peter

[klaukholm]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

Strings sound harsh because we're using high-tension metal strings. Tune down to 420 or 415. It'll sound better and be easier to play.* Next, change to gut strings and you're golden. So what if you have to retune after each movement...

*Speaking from 2nd hand experience.

Come on, for one do you propose the winds all transpose down a halfstep?

I used to play violone and period bass with some of the top groups and I can tell you that you will be even more screwed once you need to compete with modern brass. The way gut acts when pushed is not nice.

Gut, covered gut or synthetic substitutes for e strings in the violins is one thing, but I can tell you that the top three harshest sounding players I have worked with all play covered gut.

That being said, gut bass sound well played can be heard on the Reiner CSO discs and it sounds great.

[NorseHorse]

Originally Posted by klaukholm

Come on, for one do you propose the winds all transpose down a halfstep?

If we rose up throughout history, I don't see why we can't come back down!

...especially if we get rid of the brass players.

[3rd&4thT]

Clean-as-a-hound's-tooth classical recordings are not real or faithful. That's what this whole thread is about.

Originally Posted by Audiop

Of course it is, it can't be anything else than that.

Oh, yes it can. Stretch yourself. What we call a clean recording is just a convention. It is something that we all do, and everybody does it, and that's what we expect.

It's just a convention, though, like shaking hands or chewing with our mouths closed.

I don't know how much of the preceding thread you've read, but I'm certainly not going to repeat everything that's gone before.

In brief, if you listen to Reiner/Chicago recordings on BMG, or Dorati/LSO recordings on Mercury, you will hear something quite different from what we expect today. They may be 50 years old, but I find them much more musical.

One term for the difference is coloration. And that coloration I find far more accurate and pleasing than the conventional recordings of today. Part of it is LD mics, instead of those cold, dead instrumentation mics so often used now. Part of it is tubes, part of it is tape.

Together they get me closer to the musical experience than the "clean" recordings that everybody and his brother makes these days. The current product is often boring, sterile and bearing no relation at all to what I've heard in some of the world's great concert halls.

Cheers,
3rd&4thT

[Roland]

You might prefer them musically, that doesn't surprise me, many of those recordings were top flight performances with little in the way of editing, however that is a different subject.

For me the problem with a lot of those recordings (and I personally believe that they were remarkable in their day) was that many of the LDC mics that they used had fairly pronounced presence peaks. Sure this give the recording a certain immediacy, however, compared with the best microphones available today, they were far from a really accurate recreation of the sound in the room. Describing small diaphragm mic's used in classical recording today as "instrument" mic's is also misleading, because a mic has an accurate phase and frequency response, that doesn't make it an "instrument" mic.

I'm sure I've posted this here before, but I can easily put up several examples of modern recordings that will easily demonstrate better sound than the examples you have stated.

Regards


Roland

[Roland]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

Strings sound harsh because we're using high-tension metal strings. Tune down to 420 or 415. It'll sound better and be easier to play.* Next, change to gut strings and you're golden. So what if you have to retune after each movement...


*Speaking from 2nd hand experience.

There is a very famous treatise, written around the 1920's, on violin playing by Carl Flesch, who says that the improvement that steel strings made over the older gut ones was significant.

I've heard many of the great period instrument ensembles and whereas some of the performances may be wonderful, I wouldn't think anyone with a good set of ears would ever suggest that the string sound was a match for the best modern orchestral sound.

Regards


Roland

[matyas]

Originally Posted by Roland

There is a very famous treatise, written around the 1920's, on violin playing by Carl Flesch, who says that the improvement that steel strings made over the older gut ones was significant.

I've heard many of the great period instrument ensembles and whereas some of the performances may be wonderful, I wouldn't think anyone with a good set of ears would ever suggest that the string sound was a match for the best modern orchestral sound.

Well, that's a different issue entirely than the main point of this thread, which was about using less-than-measurably flat gear to record classical music. Certainly steel strings give the best effect for music written since 1850 or so, and for performances with modern instruments. I still vastly prefer the sound of gut strings for baroque music - given an identical performance, of course. (My favorite recent violin recording is Julia Fischer's solo Bach disc, and she plays a modern violin.) Of course, Flesch's comments have to be taken in their own historical context - he was writing at a time when orchestras were getting larger and louder, and playing in larger halls - basically taking on the form that we know them today - and most of their repertoire consisted of what would have been "new music" at the time. When they played Bach, it was in transcriptions. A gut string violin/viola/cello/double bass is just a different instrument. It's like classical guitar vs. steel-string guitar, or piano vs. harpsichord. It has its things that it does well, and its things that it doesn't do as well.

[brle]

Originally Posted by matyas

Well, that's a different issue entirely than the main point of this thread, which was about using less-than-measurably flat gear to record classical music. Certainly steel strings give the best effect for music written since 1850 or so, and for performances with modern instruments. I still vastly prefer the sound of gut strings for baroque music - given an identical performance, of course. (My favorite recent violin recording is Julia Fischer's solo Bach disc, and she plays a modern violin.) Of course, Flesch's comments have to be taken in their own historical context - he was writing at a time when orchestras were getting larger and louder, and playing in larger halls - basically taking on the form that we know them today - and most of their repertoire consisted of what would have been "new music" at the time. When they played Bach, it was in transcriptions. A gut string violin/viola/cello/double bass is just a different instrument. It's like classical guitar vs. steel-string guitar, or piano vs. harpsichord. It has its things that it does well, and its things that it doesn't do as well.

thumbsup Very well put!

Sascha

[Roland]

Originally Posted by matyas

Well, that's a different issue entirely than the main point of this thread, which was about using less-than-measurably flat gear to record classical music. Certainly steel strings give the best effect for music written since 1850 or so, and for performances with modern instruments. I still vastly prefer the sound of gut strings for baroque music - given an identical performance, of course. (My favorite recent violin recording is Julia Fischer's solo Bach disc, and she plays a modern violin.) Of course, Flesch's comments have to be taken in their own historical context - he was writing at a time when orchestras were getting larger and louder, and playing in larger halls - basically taking on the form that we know them today - and most of their repertoire consisted of what would have been "new music" at the time. When they played Bach, it was in transcriptions. A gut string violin/viola/cello/double bass is just a different instrument. It's like classical guitar vs. steel-string guitar, or piano vs. harpsichord. It has its things that it does well, and its things that it doesn't do as well.

Whilst I don't want to drift this thread off topic, my original post you replied too was as to another posters comments and you can see from above I did address the original topic too.

I would not dispute what you are saying, but even you own comments (when you talk about the Bach performance that you love) you mention that it is played on a modern instrument and the Bach is a good deal earlier than 1850!

I personally do own a few period instrument performances (not many, but a few), and I bought these purely for the performance value, not that they were played on authentic instruments. Even amongst so called "authentic" instrument performances there are a good number of variables, not least the fact that modern violins all have shorter necks than their original counterparts do. Stick gut strings on these and they still will not be giving you the "authentic sound". Whilst with certain Baroque performances replica viols have been made which will give another sort of sound, possibly better suited to the repetoire, this I fully understand and I am probably in agreement with you.

Back on topic, there are still a lot of half truths being spoken about vintage recordings. Many of them are not that good and citing examples like the RCA and Mercury recordings (which are almost universally accepted as the best examples of their time), isn't enough to suggest that modern recordings are generally worse, even if you believe that these are better than the best of today, this I would dispute.

Regards


Roland

[3rd&4thT]

I'm not going to fight this all over again. Life is too short, and I actually have to make a living.

I would simply encourage anyone who is curious or skeptical to download the demo of the Waves V-series and play their favorite digital recordings through the VEQ 4. You don't have to touch the dials, though you can certainly add a touch at 10 or 15 K if you like.

Just listen.

Signing off this thread,
3rd&4thT

[Plush]

I can't say that clean and transparent is pleasant. That is why after so long I now am adding more tubesound, more tubes, more transformers in every stage, more ribbons, more analog, more soul to each recording.

I simply feel that those who argue for super clean are being sold a bill of goods by the audiophile lunatic fringe. Those who espouse only clean are also the leaders and creators of a pseudo-caste system whereby they say I'm working at an elite level with my cleaner than thou recording set-up and you're not working that way. Oh really? I'll come in and offer up a soulful sound with drama aplenty and mindboggling dynamic range while you're whiling away with your clean as a whistle ultra moderne clean set-up.

Equipment suppliers and manufacturers and their misguided marketing departments are also to blame for feeding the ultra clean movement. ( at least in classical music recording)

[Corran]

Plush, can you define "clean" versus "neutral?"

I sometimes feel conflicted when you mention that something is "neutral" and that is good but then bash "clean" gear. Just wondering, because in my head I'm defining those pretty similarly.

[Plush]

To me "neutral" is about frequency response and not being a bright sound. The neutral pick-up offered by high quality mics is similar on axis and off axis and avoids peaky trebley sound.

Clean is about not adding any character. Some sonic character traits that may be desirable are phatness, thickness, girth, warmth, plummy-ness, etc.
Clean is flat, and as Teddy says, it has a "hospital lights" quality or "laboratory clean" quality to it. It is not exciting in any way. It bares all flaws. Who wants that?

Various halls and performing rooms need help and clean presents them sonically without any of the assistance a producer might bring.

The clean brigade argues that what is clean now can be dirtied later by choice. That's true but I want a sonic stamp on the sound as it is recorded.

[joelpatterson]

Originally Posted by Plush

... I want a sonic stamp on the sound as it is recorded.

Is there any creedence to the idea that the final twizzly little bits of processing you do, soft compession, slight EQ bumps and dips, levels even, overwhelms everything that has come before it? When it comes to the "impression" you're going to hit the listener with?

Is there the ability to counteract or reshape any sonic stamp the audio comes into the operating theater with? Minimize it, enhance it, or simply leave it be, but always, of necessity, deciding about it?

[Plush]

Hello Joel,

If anything I think the various stages of finishing that I do with the recordings end up piling on even more "character" and sonic stamp. Of course I am making a conscious decision to do these things. That's where my philosophy differs with some clean advocates. I am willing to decide how I want to shape the sound right at the moment of recording the sound.

Sometimes I'm sure I go too far. Then months later I listen to it and I like it in spite of the "sound decisions."

No one dies if I go overboard, right?

p.s. one of my current projects is a transistor free recording.
all tube mics, all tube mic amps, all tube tape recorder, all tube mastering,analog LP release.

[joelpatterson]

Originally Posted by Plush

...No one dies if....

Are you kiddin' me? Da producers could get KILLED!

[matyas]

Originally Posted by Plush

p.s. one of my current projects is a transistor free recording.
all tube mics, all tube mic amps, all tube tape recorder, all tube mastering,analog LP release.

Hello Pluschmeister,
Please do tell more about this all-tube recording chain. I think you've mentioned it in passing once or twice before, but I'd really love to hear more about it (may end up warranting a separate thread?)

[vonrichter]

Originally Posted by Roland

There is a very famous treatise, written around the 1920's, on violin playing by Carl Flesch, who says that the improvement that steel strings made over the older gut ones was significant.

Steel strings still do not give anywhere near the volume/resonance boost needed to overpower fff brass in real life.

In some recordings, the violins are so obscenely loud, that an unimportant sustained harmony note or two is considerably louder than a wind solo etc that's supposed to be playing over it. It's unmusical and nonsensical. It's an insult to the composer/arranger.

Let's talk about harps and celestas now... so effective in real life, so tinkly and wimpy on many recordings. Are they victims of the whole "purist" micing approach?

Sometimes in recording you have to recreate reality to achieve an "authentic" result. For example with rock drums, how we really hear them acoustically in real life does not usually come across once recorded, so even with really minimalist rock drum recording, some processing (careful selection of recording chain is part of this too) to "recapture" how we perceive the real thing is almost invariably used.

Is an SM57 a super-accurate ultra-mega-frequency-range mic? Not really. Does it sound good on snare drum with a hint of compression to emulate how our brains compress audio in an acoustic space? Yes.