Coloration for Classical Orchestra?

[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.

An M50 pair is still king. That's for sure. The 8020's are great mics. The main difference is that the 8020 is darker and the M50 sound has more presence and is phatter. I like phat.

The M50 has more character and has one essential difference that makes it the king.
That is that the low brass in an orchestra is rendered with such majesty and ooomph by the M50's. No other mic does that. If you want that sound, you have to put up M50's.

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

[Chaellus]

3rd&4thTColoration for Classical Orchestra?
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.

Quote:
An M50 pair is still king. That's for sure. The 8020's are great mics. The main difference is that the 8020 is darker and the M50 sound has more presence and is phatter. I like phat.

The M50 has more character and has one essential difference that makes it the king.
That is that the low brass in an orchestra is rendered with such majesty and ooomph by the M50's. No other mic does that. If you want that sound, you have to put up M50's.
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





Last time i checked a neumann M50 was a LDC mic very usefull if used in a decca tree setup...but im not too knowledgeable about classical im sure someone with more knowledge will chime in and explain

[John Willett]

I use SDCs (or rather MDCs) all the time for classical because I want to capture the real sound in the room.

Has been MKH 20/30/40 series for the alst 20-odd years.

Now getting MKH 8020 and 8040.

These are 16mm medium diaphragm condensers (ie: larger that 1/2" and smaller than 1").

I don't like using LDCs for classical - never have.

[Corran]

I think the M150 was fatter inherently because it was an omni mic. Many people are using the ORTF pair almost exclusively, and while it is great, any cardioid mic, whether it be Neumann or MXL, has bass roll-off at distance. So you don't get that "phat" low-end oomph like you do from an omni.

I have never used nor plan on buying an M150, but I believe fatness and warmth can be achieved with modern equipment. I recorded a Tchaikovsky symphony a few weeks ago that was super-warm and fat, and I used 3 SDCs and a ribbon (which I didn't need). But if you record an orchestra with only cardioid mics, I think the recording will lack bass no matter what, due simply to the physics of mics and sound.

Also, I think some engineers (like I did) shy away from omnis due to room noise and reflections. Used in conjunctino with an ORTF pair one or two omnis can really flesh out the frequency spectrum of a recording.

[Plush]

Good topic here.

When the old masters made recordings in the 50's, it was customary to use the best equipment they could use. This meant U47's, M49's, M50's. In the earliest days of stereo--ie. 1950-1954, there were not really many small diaphragm mics out there to use.

Here in Chicago, the Stephen Temmer three across the front U47 sound was mindblowing. The spaced stereo U47 sound for RCA kicked behind. It was a phat tube sound where engineers exercised taste and emphasized beauty of sound.

One advantage of those days, it seems to me, is that there was more time to place mics and experiment with getting the mics in just the right place. This stereophonic recording was new and exciting and everyone, including symphony management, was caught up in the excitement and the possibilities.

Couple the above with an all tube recording chain and you get the organic thick and phat sound from that era.

M50 is small diameter by the way.

It could still be done that way today. However, you have to be prepared for the inconvenience of using tube gear live and the attendant expense of a top top tube
gear chain.

I have great interest in this pursuit. My goal this year is to front an all tube, transistor free recording chain that will, once again, reign supreme in front of premier super orchestras.

[locosoundman]

One advantage of those days, it seems to me, is that there was more time to place mics and experiment with getting the mics in just the right place. This stereophonic recording was new and exciting and everyone, including symphony management, was caught up in the excitement and the possibilities.

This is so true. I usually have to eyeball where the mic's will go based on how the chairs are arranged. Often times, my "soundcheck" is the orchestra tuning.

I also think that farther, wider mic placements were more common. When I listen to old Decca recordings, such as the Wagner Ring, it feels to me as though the mic's are placed further away than is common in many contemporary recordings. In some of the old Columbia recordings, it sounds as though the mic's are pretty widely spaced - beyond the point of a truly coherent image - and then spot mic's seem to glue it together. These are just my perceptions and they could be wrong.

I wonder if part of the reason for this "darker, more blended sound" that you perceive live (and you are not alone in this perception) is a result of the listening condition - in a concert hall, you are further away - the sound has time to bloom and blend and you are immersed in diffuse and reflected sound.

I think some engineers (like I did) shy away from omnis due to room noise and reflections.

I use omni's whenever I can, however, it is true that there are some rooms where they will simply not work well; you are also correct in that omni's will give you a much "phatter" sound than cardioids - especially in the low end.

I am always a little nervous about using tube gear in a live situation, not to mention carting it around all over the place. Tube stuff tends to be bulky, heavy, and delicate - not a good combination for me.

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.

I have always liked the color that API preamps impart on my Schoeps mic's.

[3rd&4thT]

Thanks, I'd put so many questions together that in the cold light of morning I see I'd misidentified the M50. There is a hazard in midnight posting. My bad.

I hadn't thought about the difference between cardioid and omni being crucial, but once 8-track and above invaded orchestral recording, the temptation to isolate everything with cardioids for easier mixing and occasional solo replacement was overwhelming, to keep things both note-perfect and cheaper. And there was a corresponding drop in what I perceived to be realism.

I don't know if I buy the claim that today's SDC's produce perfect renditions of what's going on in the room. Simply because of differences in cubic space, any recording will be an artificial construction.

I know singers prefer LDC's because they reproduce better what they hear in their head through bone conduction. Is it really heresy to use fat pasty LDC's to reproduce fat pasty orchestras in fat pasty halls? Listening to the Chicago, Amsterdam, Berlin or Vienna orchestras in Carnegie Hall has coloration to spare.

You will not get perfect detail in this context, and you have to think that the composers anticipated in their orchestrations a certain amount of what we are prone to call "mud." It is the reverberant halls like Boston, Amsterdam and Vienna that are prized, not the drier analytical ones

Certainly the history of recording shows an oscillation among conventions. There have been swings in fashion in tonal spectrum tilt up or down, in size and liveness of recording venue, in perceived front-to-back contrast, in the optimum amount of "presence," the amount of detail highlighted and how you get it.

I wonder how much of today's sound ideal is not eternal truth but also a matter of convention. Before WWI, Victor was running ads in which Caruso exclaimed at the "realism" of his voice reproduction.

I remember going to an audio show in the late 60's, where one booth featured two pianos being played, keyboards upstage away from the audience. The audience ooh'd and aah'd when the two pianists in midphrase suddently raised their hands from the keyboard, reached out and shook each other/s hands with no interruption in the music, revealing that we were listening not to the pianos a few feet away from us but to a recording played over the sponsor's speakers. This was forty years ago. There was no hiss, overloading or congestion to give the game away - the demo worked and everybody in the room was taken in.

So is it possible that our reliance on one particular kind of mic is also just convention, since we know good results can be achieved through other means?

Thanks again for your thoughts,
3rd&4thT

[Chaellus]

3rd&4thT
I don't know if I buy the claim that today's SDC's produce perfect renditions of what's going on in the room. Simply because of differences in cubic space, any recording will be an artificial construction.

I know singers prefer LDC's because they reproduce better what they hear in their head through bone conduction. Is it really heresy to use fat pasty LDC's to reproduce fat pasty orchestras in fat pasty halls? Listening to the Chicago, Amsterdam, Berlin or Vienna orchestras in Carnegie Hall has coloration to spare.


So is it possible that our reliance on one particular kind of mic is also just convention, since we know good results can be achieved through other means?

Thanks again for your thoughts,
3rd&4thT







Well SDC are more accaute at giving the perception of space and sound compared to an LDC... people love LDC's more becuase they have a sort of a harmonic context to them being wider they are less accurate but more pleasnt because the diagram is bigger and able to catch or produce a fuller sounding image that is not true.... not to say that SDC's are accurate just a bit more so then LDC's i think acousitcians im not sure if thats what they call them use schope mics for there accuarcy to conduct acoustic test....

[fifthcircle]

Bingo.... I think that 3rd &4htT has brought up exactly what I've been ranting about classical recording for a long time. The classical world has gone to a paradigm of working with the most transparent stuff available, but yet many still put the stuff that was recorded with tubes and transformers on a pedestal.

For me, I find that only using the really transparent stuff makes recordings sound lifeless and boring. Using gear with a bit of color adds to the palpable feeling and impact that I look to create in my recordings. A live performance has impact. So should the recording. I do own a lot of "transparent" gear and it serves its purpose. However, I also love a number of the pieces that I own that are decidedly colored.

I do use some LDC mics, I certainly use tube and ribbon mics. My preamp collection spans the spectrum from Grace to API and A-Designs as well as Vac Rac.

I think the LDC vs SDC argument is a bunch of bunk personally. It is about mics- not whether or not they are big or small. I have some small mics with big sounds (Sennheiser MKH8040) and I have big mics with big sounds (AKG C426B). I use them all- but just in a given situation for their strengths. In the end, that is the important part of recording. Have a sound in your head and use the gear to arrive at that sound using positioning of your mics.

--Ben

[3rd&4thT]

Originally Posted by locosoundman

I also think that farther, wider mic placements were more common. When I listen to old Decca recordings, such as the Wagner Ring, it feels to me as though the mic's are placed further away than is common in many contemporary recordings.

Check out that DVD documentary "The Golden Ring." You see the tree and a few spots, and two engineers riding gain, one for the voice mics, the other for the orchestra, and the producer sitting in between giving cues. An orchestra of 120, a chorus of 80, the clock ticking, recording direct to 3 or 4 tracks and minimal opportunities for "fixing in the mix."

Originally Posted by locosoundman

In some of the old Columbia recordings, it sounds as though the mic's are pretty widely spaced - beyond the point of a truly coherent image - and then spot mic's seem to glue it together. These are just my perceptions and they could be wrong.

No, you're right. Separation was new, and sold records and equipment. Conductor Dmitri Mitropoulos complained "I'm trying to get them to play together, and you're trying to pull them apart."

Originally Posted by locosoundman

I wonder if part of the reason for this "darker, more blended sound" that you perceive live (and you are not alone in this perception) is a result of the listening condition - in a concert hall, you are further away - the sound has time to bloom and blend and you are immersed in diffuse and reflected sound.

Absolutely. But reproduced accurately, we criticize it as murky, lacking in detail with uncontrolled bass.

3rd&4thT

[ISedlacek]

Originally Posted by fifthcircle

I have some small mics with big sounds (Sennheiser MKH8040)

So you consider 8040s to be rather non-transparent mics (in a good sense) ?

[Corran]

Originally Posted by 3rd&4thT

I hadn't thought about the difference between cardioid and omni being crucial, but once 8-track and above invaded orchestral recording, the temptation to isolate everything with cardioids for easier mixing and occasional solo replacement was overwhelming, to keep things both note-perfect and cheaper. And there was a corresponding drop in what I perceived to be realism.

I think this is absolutely correct. I fell into this trap early on and have recently pulled back to more conservative mic techniques. But many engineers simply put up too many mics.

I personally don't buy the whole argument that the sound of the early recordings comes only from the tubes. I think it's crazy to say all these great solid-state mics aren't "good enough" or don't have some mystical quality that tube mics do. So that is to say, I still think we can make great, fat, and warm recordings with modern equipment without tubes. But that's just me...and yes I own a couple of tube mics.

[matthewd]

Orchestral warmth? Some of it I believe comes down to better playing back in those days before some (not all) musicians got complacent about there being a safety net. These days I see the light go on virtually straight away on sessions which are more often than not rehearse record. The object of the exercise is often to let the orchestra finish as early as possible and the expectation is that by tracking it, balance can wait until the mix. I think in years gone by, recordings tended more often to culminate out of multiple performances whereby conductors and players developed a shared sense of purpose with the conductor balancing it properly in the room. These days many conductors come up to the control room seemingly unaware of what has happened in a take, almost as if they don't hear what is in the room but only what is in their head (usually someone else's CD). This is not to say there are not still pros out there but the financial constraints of the industry seem to me to be directly related to the drop in musicality. I suppose audio wise, as engineers we do tend to put more mics out for contingency more than anything because we know we might have to match up the first take of the day with the last. Most of the best orchestral recordings I have heard recently have been live recordings and I think this speaks volumes that only then do we recapture that sense of performance that was ever present in the earlier days of recordings when tape was in short supply rather than limitless hard disc storage we have now. Having said this, I probably use less vintage gear than most on my own recordings but whilst a decca tree of M50s might sound a bit more nostalgic, the playing is unlikely to be as remarkable.

Sorry to hijack the thread with these rather esoteric ramblings but perhaps some of you will agree.

Matt Dilley

[Plush]

Matt Dilley must be in Hell-A from the attitude he describes. Your description of the conductor and lackadaisical musicians is overdone I think. (unless I'm right and you're talking about a dumb film score orchestra.) The guys you describe would get fired where I'm from.

I definitely do not believe that players of old played better than the players now. In fact it is pretty clear that today's playas are the best ever. I do believe that there was more passion and expression in the playing of olde.

In the olde days, record companies took more time to book the session at outstanding halls with outstanding acoustics. Since the room is paramount, the records sounded better.

I think you would lose the description in your post above if you had a better orchestra.

[3rd&4thT]

My own take is that most of the standard classical repetoire dates from before WWI. Musicians two generations back had an easier time plugging in to those emotions. Now the feelings may be genuine, but most musicians have to learn the attitude and how to convey it from earlier recordings. It's like an analog copy, something has been lost along the way.

I've mentioned this before in another thread, but read "Mozart in the Jungle" by Blair Tindall for a horrifying look at the life of a free-lance classical musician. Real scary.

For anyone who'd like to hear Neumann's and tubes in orchestral recording and judge for yourself, listen to Fritz Reiner and the Chicago in Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" on RCA and Antal Dorati and the London Symphony in Stravinsky's "Firebird" on Mercury Living Presence (not the one on Decca). You can pick up the Hybrid SACD's for cheap on Amazon.com. They will surprise you.

3rd&4thT

[locosoundman]

Another thought which is not gear related but speaks to the topic of performance affecting the recording:

There are so many recordings available of nearly every work, some of which should have never seen the light of day, and many musicians are immersed in this. I wonder if part of the vitality of the older records comes from the fact that the musicians and conductors were not bombarded by other peoples' performances of the work ad nauseum.

In the early part of the last century, the only way to really hear a piece was to go see it performed live or perform it yourself. When the memory of the music is encased in the emotion of the moment of listening or performance, and there is no way to rewind and listen back, I think that it carries a much greater vitality. The ability to indulge in repeated listening at will can somewhat diminish the impact of the live performance.

Of course, the flip side of that coin is that repeated listening allows much greater insight into the composition itself as well as comparisons of different interpretations that would not otherwise be possible.

Or maybe I am just rambling because I haven't slept in three days...

[bove]

One thing to keep in mind is that you cannot simply compare the recording techniques and gear used in all these recordings. The sound concept of orchestral musicians has changed a lot in the past 50 years... especially the brass and woodwinds. Their "gear" is also very different. This has had a huge effect on the evolution of the sound of orchestral recordings. The orchestras of then and now really sound different.

[3rd&4thT]

Originally Posted by bove

One thing to keep in mind is that you cannot simply compare the recording techniques and gear used in all these recordings. The sound concept of orchestral musicians has changed a lot in the past 50 years... especially the brass and woodwinds. Their "gear" is also very different. This has had a huge effect on the evolution of the sound of orchestral recordings. The orchestras of then and now really sound different.

Um, I'm curious about this observation. I've been going to classical concerts and listening to recordings for much of those 50 years, not all of them, but enough. Are you saying that wind and brass instruments are different now than they were, say, in the 1960's? (For discussion purposes we can set aside French orchestras, which have largely abandoned their traditional unique wind sound. Quel fromage!)

1920's, oh yes. There have been radical changes in wind instrument design and orchestral balance since then. The orchestras had smaller, sweeter, rounder brass playing for a start, which required less projection from the strings. You can hear it in Holst's and Elgar's recordings of their own music, Monteux's earliest recordings in Paris, etc.

But I don't hear more recent differences that are related to anything but conductors' personalities. Chicago changed when Reiner, Martinon, Solti and Barenboim held sway in turn, New York's sound changed from Bernstein to Boulez to Mehta to Masur to Maazel, Boston, Philadelphia and Berlin similarly. Vienna much less so, but they're never quite sure what century they're in anyway.

As for recording techniques, there have been slow oscillations from minimal mic'ing to overly exuberant spot-mic'ing and back again, but nothing that would prevent comparison between then and now. A Blumlein pair or a Decca Tree or three or four omni's arrayed across the front still are basic concepts that have been refined, supplemented or played with but not abandoned.

I mentioned above Reiner's RCA "Pictures" and Dorati's Mercury "Firebird." Reiner was a great conductor in a generation of great conductors. Dorati was mediocre in live concert but made many wonderful studio recordings (a supreme master of the two-bar patch). Both were bastards to deal with, and very lucky in their recording contracts.

I think those recordings are incredibly stimulating sonically, and offer no technical challenges that couldn't be met today. The major problem would be in abandoning some of the recording conventions that are now standard operating procedure.

I'm intrigued by your idea of the difference in orchestral sound and players' concepts and gear between the 50's and 60's and now. Please tell us more.

3rd&4thT

[Hornblower64]

Speaking as a symphonic trumpet player, there have always been, and will continue to be, changes in instruments and performance practice. In the middle of the last century most everyone, save the French, who used small bore C trumpets, was using Bb trumpets almost exclusively, but of many different bores, mouthpiece designs and ratios of cylindrical to conical bore. Sometimes a D trumpet would be employed on parts with a high tessitura (the "piccolo" trumpet part in Stravinsky's Rite is written in D.) When I performed the Stravinsky Mass I did something few of my contemporaries would have done. The part starts in Bb, then in the middle switches to C. Most current players would play the whole piece on the C trumpet, but I believe that Stravinsky, who spent much time as an expat living in France, would have been very familiar with the tonal and articulation differences between a Bb and a C trumpet, so I used both, as indicated, and I think the part made more sense that way. When the SF Symphony performed the 1911 Firebird they used two trumpets and two cornets, as indicated, and in passages where the two instruments alternated one could hear the distinct tonal shift. Up until recenty, this would never have been done. Now natural trumpets, cornets, flugelhorns, rotary-valve german trumpets (a completely different sound; I had a pair as they do not blend with the piston-valve instruments,) four-valve piccolo trumpets in Bb, A and even high C are all considered part of the arsenal. There is even talk of using F trumpets, the most common instrument in Mahler's time, again. To go with this range of instruments is an equally varied performance practice. And this is just one instrument! Some string players are returning to gut strings, even on "modern" repertoire, etc. Every instrument in the orchestra is continually changing, as are playing styles.

The recordings done 50 years ago are mostly brilliant, but also are documents of the past. The musicians of today are better and more varied, but different, than their predecessors. It is a shame the recordings made today do them no justice.

There are problems with "classical" music today, of course; maestro and virtuoso mythology, marketing, popular misconceptions; misconceptions then perpetuated and exacerbated by record company product, as it's easier to cater to the masses than to educate them. Many books have been written on these issues, with much finger pointing. I still don't know. Perhaps this needs its own thread, sorry.

[pkautzsch]

I bet any instrument sounds warmer and "rounder" tuned to 438 Hz than the same instrument tuned to 445 Hz.
No recording gear involved here.

[ISedlacek]

I thought 440Hz is the present standard ?

[Corran]

Older orchestras tuned to different frequency A's. In American these days it is standard to be in 440 or sometimes 442 but a lot of times I notice orchestras are very sharp due to the tendency of string instruments to tighten over time.

Also, to put a word into the changes in instruments over time theory, thoughts on how those instruments are actually played have also changed. My instrument, the flute and piccolo, used to be played with a much "sweeter" tone. With the advent of a lot of new music taking advantage of the possibilities of a harsher tone, many flute players (me included) don't have that some "sound." Also, concepts such as vibrato and other stylistic procedures have changed over the years. My professor's teacher had this ridiculous vibrato that was almost a whole-tone wide. We just don't do that anymore (she doesn't either). So players over the years have changed a lot as well.

[Hornblower64]

Temperment is a huge topic. In the baroque era pitch was so varied that travelling musicians would carry multiple sets of strings of different guages. Pitch was usually lower than now, but could be a half-step higher in some places. My Blasius & Sons piano, which was made in a factory that closed in 1925, cannot be tuned to A=440. A=438 is as high as it goes. Today, baroque music is generally played at A=415, some modern orchestras do initially tune to A=440 (singers tend to go flat, and string players, sharp, though not because their instruments tighten; makes life as a wind player interesting,) A=443 is common, but not A=445. Certain instruments would have to be modified (notably clarinets) to play any higher than A=443. My wife plays baroque cello and must work at A=415 for some ensembles, and A=440 for others. There is much more, if anyone cares.

My previous post mainly addressed instruments, which have changed a lot; not a theory. But yes, playing concepts and techniques also evolve. It is even noticable in one generation, as noted by the previous poster.

[JEGG]

Originally Posted by Corran

Older orchestras tuned to different frequency A's. In American these days it is standard to be in 440 or sometimes 442 but a lot of times I notice orchestras are very sharp due to the tendency of string instruments to tighten over time.

'Been in lots of orchestral situations as a player. And tuned lots of keyboard instruments as well.

In my experience, classical instrumentalists playing modern instruments in all sorts of ensembles, but orchestra especially, have collectively decided to tune to a higher pitch than A440. With orchestras that get their A from the oboes, there is always a conversation about where the pitch will be. An oboist then plays a A with a tuning meter on the music stand. And it's almost never 440-in the context of a modern orchestra. This is a sort of societal move, nothing really calculated. And I speak of orchestras in the US.

Secondly, as an orchestra tunes, the pitch just keeps going up and up. Tuning is most often just a concert formality.

It has nothing to do with (modern) strings "tightening."

It's a rare orchestra that tunes each section individually, and a rare concert master who will not tolerate pitch inflation across the orchestra. Very rare. By the time the brass tune, the tuning pitch has already been raised, and the brass tune on top of that.

And with brass, my experience as a player is that brass, even by themselves, almost tune far above the reference pitch.

440 as a standard is a late convention, occurring decades after the turn of the 20th century.

The text time you hear an orchestra tune to an given by an oboe, just listen to what happens.

[Corran]

I play in several orchestras. I am aware of the pitch gradually sharpening throughout the performance. I can't remember who told me about string tightening? I believe it was a string player but I'm not sure. I also do note the brass tendency to play very sharp, quite annoying at times.

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.

[hughesmr]

Temperament and pitch level are two different things... temperament is a system of tuning all intervals, whereas pitch merely sets the "diapason". When you play older instruments, a change in temerament makes ALL the difference!

Harpsichord Tuning, Repair, and Temperaments

My wife is an organist/harpsichordist, and the pitch relationship changes between old systems like 1/4-comma meantone or Werkmeister III (vs equal temperament) make old music sound completely different. In fact, I (we) think it loses much of its character when shoehorned into equal temperament.

Sorry, off-topic....

[Hornblower64]

Sorry, yes, pitch and temperment are different; wrong word. Don't get me started on temperment. Pianos always sound out of tune to me, with little justification (joke, sorry I couldn't resist.)

[3rd&4thT]

OK, fifty years ago the standard was A=440. Boston tuned to 444, Vienna to 453. Are we saying that every place has started tuning higher?

In a session or concert, pitch always drifts higher as the instruments and room heat up. It can be a problem with recordings splicing together takes from the beginning and end of sessions, especially studio opera recordings. Some famous and well-loved complete operas from the 50s onwards become unlistenable if you bring a pitch pipe.

But if we posit that overall pitch is drifting higher, that would point to a greater benefit to using tubes and transformers in recording an orchestra, to warm up a more brilliant sound.

As far as "better, then and now" is concerned, I'm inclined to agree with the late Stephen Jay Gould, who proposed a theory of "regression to the mean."

In an early stage of a field's development, you get people who are really, really good, and people who are really, really bad. Over time, as the technical requirements are better understood across a society, participants tend to cluster in the center, where you get a lot of competent people but fewer outright stinkers and fewer superlative masters.

While Gould demonstrated his theory in the context of baseball, I think it also applies to musicians, especially to singers, and instrumentalists as well. Fewer exceptional interpreters these days, but also fewer total incompetents. You could easily apply the theory to pianists and violinists and probably others, too.

Meanwhile, returning to the topic, I haven't heard anything yet that would argue against moving away from our current obsession with expunging coloration from the orchestral recording process.

3rd&4thT

[JEGG]

Originally Posted by Hornblower64

Temperment is a huge topic. In the baroque era pitch was so varied that travelling musicians would carry multiple sets of strings of different guages. Pitch was usually lower than now, but could be a half-step higher in some places. My Blasius & Sons piano, which was made in a factory that closed in 1925, cannot be tuned to A=440. A=438 is as high as it goes. Today, baroque music is generally played at A=415, some modern orchestras do initially tune to A=440 (singers tend to go flat, and string players, sharp, though not because their instruments tighten; makes life as a wind player interesting,) A=443 is common, but not A=445. Certain instruments would have to be modified (notably clarinets) to play any higher than A=443. My wife plays baroque cello and must work at A=415 for some ensembles, and A=440 for others. There is much more, if anyone cares.

My previous post mainly addressed instruments, which have changed a lot; not a theory. But yes, playing concepts and techniques also evolve. It is even noticable in one generation, as noted by the previous poster.

This is a rather detailed topic and these subjects require book length writing to address.

Going backward, it is true that pianos and other instruments built not that long ago cannot accommodate 440 without some rather extensive compromises. The same with violins-think of how many extremely exteemed and valuable string instruments have been utterly destroyed so modern players can use them. The reed instruments and winds are generally the least flexible in accomodating pitch changes. Many European modern orchestras still use flutes made of wood, not so in many other parts of the world. In addition to the reality of that, it's also an important marker of consciousness in sonics and tuning.

Temperament: That's huge too. Not room for detail here. The realities of modern instruments built (mostly successfully) for the realm of equal temperament still innately handle things differently. That is why, for example, when an equally tuned modern piano makes an entrance in a Mozart concerto, it will often sound flat to the modern orchestra orchestra, even though the pitch standard is the same. And then there is the modern piano "stretch tuning."

And this goes to what is most important: in tune 5ths and 4ths, or in tune thirds?

In the more distant past, instrumentalists did not carry around and install different strings. Stringed instruments, even using gut, can accomodate an exceptionally wide variety of pitches, relative to other instrumentalists. Today, period string players can tune up and down a half step, though understandably often reluctant to do so. But many do regularly. Many have two instruments. Brass players carried different crooks, and flute players carried different head joints-but different head joints still do not accommodate a really wide variety of pitches.

With regard to pitches in the baroque and earlier: There were two pitches, one for the church and one for the chamber. Generally the church pitch was about a half step, or in some cases much more, higher than our 440. Of course, this is inseparably linked to organ building. Often one finds transposed continuo parts, and often the larger organs were not used-there were and are dedicated continuo organs, and of course the entire rest of continuo instruments-keyboard and not. In the Renaissance, pitch is thought to be generally higher. That, of course, poses problems for performers and editors of that repertoire-what exactly was meant for vocal pitch, especially?

The chamber pitch was about a half step under A440. But that's also a huge generalization. Generally, musicians didn't travel around that much, certainly by today's standards. And pitch was a rather local and regional standard.

Generally, the French favored even lower pitch standards.

There are some mysteries that have never been explained. For some time in Flanders, two manual harpsichords were built for the manuals to be used separately-and they were very far apart in pitch-on the order of an interval of a 4th. Most of these instruments were later remade in to French instruments, where the manuals were set up for the same pitches. (With the Revolution, most of these instruments ended up in fires.)

Then there are issues with basic timbre. Brighter and more overtone complex instuments are favored by different tuning schemes than others.

Keyboard instruments meant for playing a wide variety of repertoire are frequently build with mechanically transposing keyboards. Small organs, too, and larger organs sometimes (rarely) have a division or a few ranks tuned to be used for some specific tasks.

Historical keyboards, and modern reproductions, often used split accidentals to accomodate a thirds in a variety of keys.

Today, thankfully, pitch is becoming a bit less standardized once again. Partly because of change in consciousness in the performance of earlier music, and partly because of increasing interaction from musicians from different cultures and geographic location. That same interraction results is in some interesting temperament-not to mention basic scales-as well. And pitch was always an expressive device in blues and jazz. A lot of music would be ruined by modern notions of an in tune guitar or piano.

Somewhere in the 20th century-and continuing today-was the idea that an extremely wide vibrato was the norm-as opposed to being an expressive device-for the performance of all manner of "classical" music. At last, musicians and singers didn't have to be concerned with pitch. It was and is "bad autotune."

To comment on a way earlier statement: Yes, it is true, lot of instruments sound better at or slightly below 440, and many become (more) annoying as the pitch climbs.

And for westerners, pitch was indeed under 440 for a long, long time in the 20th century.

[Hornblower64]

Returning to the OP's topic, while much newer gear measures better, I find the recordings made by my friends with their Schoeps CMC, and DPA mics and squeaky clean solid state gear to sound less like what I hear with live musicians than older recordings. "If it measures bad, but sounds good, it is good. If it measures good, but sounds bad, then you have measured the wrong thing." H.H. Scott Chief Engineer, sometime in the '50's or '60's.