Concerto competitions who records these? They suck!

[Thomas W. Bethe]

I had a client bring in some DVDs of a competition he was in and wanted to know if we could make the recording sound better. I looked at the DVD and listened and I was appalled quality of sound on this DVD The DVD sounded like it was recorded with a OMNI microphone in the middle of the hall. The PA system they used to introduce the players had a massive amount of hum in it and the recordings of the piano sounded like something out of the the 1930s. Is this the way all these MAJOR competitions are recorded? The video was fine only you could tell that they only used one camera and it was just panned back and forth during the competition from the lectern to the piano. It looked like it and sounded like it was recorded by a junior high AV crew.

I think this is a good market for anyone to get into and hopefully show the people who put on the competitions what good quality recordings can sound like. Or maybe they really don't care.

The person who brought in the recording was charged $25.00 for the DVD and it took about two months to get it to him. What a joke.

FWIW and YMMV

[NorseHorse]

Well, there's some hope. Maybe they should hire the people doing high schools instead:

http://www.realmusicav.com/rmp/realM...stra-Small.mov

(No, this isn't company I was using as an example in the rates thread.)

[joelpatterson]

The general public, insisting on quality sound recording? You have a dream today.

[loranoyd]

Gentlemen:

I would love to know which competition produced the DVD that "sucked." My informal survey of two internationally recognized and well-respected music competitions reveals more than acceptable sound recording:

Van Cliburn Foundation - Home home of the International Van Cliburn piano competition

Îôèöèàëüíûé ñàéò êîíêóðñà Ï.È.×àéêîâñêîãî | XIII Tchaikovsky competition official website home of the International Tchaikovsky competition.

On the Cliburn site, there is video along with the audio. Multiple camera angles, excellent sound--very professional. The competition is going on right now (although there is no broadcast running presently, at the time of this posting).

The Tchaikovsky site has mp3 audio only. A quick random sampling of a few tracks indicates to me a generally good sound, but I heard evidence of clipping in the violin track I sampled. That track also suffered from the effects of the mic(s) being too close to the violin (for my taste).

However, I heard nothing like what Mr. Bethe evidently suffered through! I hope this brings some perspective to competition recordings.

Regards,

Lloyd