Conductor not happy with choir performance listening back in CR(psychoacoustics?)

[Zeppelin]

I was working with a mixed choir last year and I am going to do another session with them this year too.

There's one question from the conductor that I couldn't answer properly.
She was very happy with the performance of the choir while conducting. But when she listened back in the CR she always thought the timing and pitch issues was worse than she experienced when in front of the choir conducting.
Make sense?

She said there had to be some frequencies that the microphones picked up that made she wouldn't naturally hear, or something like that.

I said I believed this could be some kind of psychoacoustic phenomenon.
Something like that her brain, while watching the choir and thinking about conducting, didn't process the same as when just listening. But suffice to say this wasn't a good enough answer for her.

The choir was recorded in a pretty live sounding 70 sqm recording room with 6 meters to the ceiling.

Equipment used was:
Spaced pair of DPA 4006 - Chandler tg channels - 2db boost around 10k and 2db dip around 200hz with a Curve Bender - Aurora AD - PT

This year she was talking about recording the choir while practising to be better prepared for the studio because of what happened last time.

So I want you to help give her a better answer

[payne104]

psychoacoustic effects can be very powerful indeed.

I had a client recently who was convinced that pro tools in general makes the left channel sound better than the right channel. He had done months of testing to "prove" his theory. After listening to his explanation, I seemed to hear it also.

I then had him use headphones and then flip them around, and sure enough, no matter which way the headphones were on, he always preferred the left, and so did I.

I decided it might be a left brain / right brain thing and maybe right handed people enjoy music more out of their left ear.

Anyway, it's clearly not your equipment. I record my own vocals all the time and think I did a good take a listen back to realize it was terrible. That's why musicians need producers

[daniel c]

Just out of interest, where did you have the mics positioned? Right above her or further away from where she was standing?

[daniel c]

Originally Posted by Zeppelin

I said I believed this could be some kind of psychoacoustic phenomenon.
Something like that her brain, while watching the choir and thinking about conducting, didn't process the same as when just listening. But suffice to say this wasn't a good enough answer for her.

I'd agree with you there.

[ssaudio]

How experienced is she?

[andrebrito]

Room acoustics ?

Not being able to differentiate between live and recording environment listening ?

Or she might be correct ? and you have a comb filtering problem ?!?

[Zeppelin]

Originally Posted by daniel c

Just out of interest, where did you have the mics positioned? Right above her or further away from where she was standing?

She was standing right next to the mic stand.
I don't remember if they were behind her or in front of her.
I think they were maybe 2,5 meters from the floor.

[Zeppelin]

Originally Posted by ssaudio

How experienced is she?

I would say she's an experienced singer and conductor.
I think she has conducted this choir for about ten years.
She's also a vocal coach.
But I don't think she has a lot of studio experience.

Btw, I really like working with her. So this is not to diss her

[Zeppelin]

Originally Posted by andrebrito

Room acoustics ?

Not being able to differentiate between live and recording environment listening ?

I am not sure what you mean. Please elaborate.

Originally Posted by andrebrito

Or she might be correct ? and you have a comb filtering problem ?!?

I am pretty confident that this is more of brain thing. She didn't complain about the sound itself more the performance.
There's no peaky frequencies or mode problems.

[edva]

I am pretty confident that this is more of brain thing. She didn't complain about the sound itself more the performance.
There's no peaky frequencies or mode problems.[/QUOTE]

Old saying; "the tape doesn't lie."

[R4Dt]

I would try to tell her;
"please trust me - I WILL do my utter best for the final result".

I have learned, as a professional orchestral-musician, NEVER to trust what's in the booth! it's never the "same" what gets out in the end, anyway...
- for two reasons.

1.The engineer is mostly SUPPOSED to "edit" the material in some ways.
...to say anything of the recording before the edits is someways waste of time...
(please don't get me wrong here;
of course it can be GOLD worth - if a conductor, that has knowledge in studio works, would be involved in editing the recording... it's just - they mostly DON'T! - they just "understand" "REAL-TIME", and that's it.
- therefore; it would be a nightmare to edit a recording with them!)
(And with editing, I mean the whole process; from the -maybe cutting- to the most probable "sound-field" correction/adjustment) - which leads to the next point;

2. Even the best-of-the best hardware, monitors and god knows what you wanna use, can by far not compare with the "real-thing" - being inside an orchestra/choir, or even "worse" - to stand at the best sweet spot - in front of it!!


... so hopefully - she has hired YOU, because she likes what YOU are doing, and needs to trust you that the end-result will become pleasant for all.

I would suggest that you make a descent rough mix, and THEN discuss further with her...
Saves a lot of stress - for both parts.
(of course - if there are questions DURING the recording, this HAS to be cleared at once! ...no need to say this, I think)
( I hope she trusts you enough; that you wouldn't "fiddle" with the recordings so that they sound worse - silly thought!)


...in the end, also;
sometimes performances are not as good as one "feels them"... that's just something we have to accept.
Both performer, and engineers...
Sometimes it's the other way around.

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

90% of the time, the client is hearing with their eyes... like you said, many things taking her attention. She may not like it, but it is true. She either needs another conductor or someone else to listen to the choir while she conducts.

[NOS61]

Originally Posted by Zeppelin

The choir was recorded in a pretty live sounding 70 sqm recording room with 6 meters to the ceiling.
Equipment used was:
Spaced pair of DPA 4006 - Chandler tg channels - 2db boost around 10k and 2db dip around 200hz with a Curve Bender - Aurora AD - PT

It is just an opinion, but 10K can be nasty with voices sometimes...Since the room is very live, and adding at 10K ,she may indeed hear something in the playback that was not there "live"...My suggestion would be to cut in the lows like you did, but mayby leave the top neutral....Or if you want to enhance the top, cut a bit around 8K and boost a bit at 16K...That could work...

Good luck !

[Zeppelin]

Thanks for your insights guys!

The eq-ing was mostly an attempt to make the lyrics come through clearer.

Maybe I also should try a pair of some high quality cardioid mics, trying to get less ambience to help the lyrics come through. And instead use more predelayed reverb to get more of a church like sound.

[ssaudio]

Originally Posted by Bill@WelcomeHome

90% of the time, the client is hearing with their eyes... like you said, many things taking her attention. She may not like it, but it is true. She either needs another conductor or someone else to listen to the choir while she conducts.

Agreed 100%

Whilst the actual recording can always be improved, it's sometimes a bigger challenge to get the client to understand the difference between the live experience and the recording - situations like that are never easy and as a recordist they can often knock your confidence; very hard work indeed.

In situations like this I'd always recommend that the client sits in the control room and works with me on getting it right there. Once that's done I'll then let them go on the floor and let them hear the difference - easier said than done, of course.

[cinealta]

There should always be a separate producer in the CR, following the score and keeping a SMPTE log of any issues (noises, pitch, timing etc). The conductor should concentrate on the performance and the producer on the recording.

Are the mics picking up the room accurately? That's the first thing to make sure even before critiquing the performance.

[u b k]

I'm definitely in the camp that favors the psychological explanation. It strikes me as the same thing as the singer (or drummer, or lead guitarist) who comes into the CR and, on hearing their performance played back, is shocked and horrified. "I sounded like *that*?"

Reminds me of a scene from Lost Highway, when Fred is asked to explain why he hates video cameras.

Fred: "I like to remember things my own way."

Cop: "What do you mean by that ?"

Fred: "How I remembered them... not necessarily the way they happened."

It seems the conductor is getting a bit lost in the moment, reveling in an idealized version of the performance that only exists in her mind as she's swinging her baton. My guess is she may start to pendulum swing the other way now, second guess and over-analyze the performance as it's happening, possibly lose her groove getting mired in the technical. Or not, my predictions are often as erroneous as they are fanciful.

Let us know how it goes!


Gregory Scott - ubk

[SynthLine09]

When I'm conducting, time is usually where I'm focused. By the time the concert rolls around its not like you can do much to fix pitch anyway! Could be that she simply wasn't listening for it during the performance, or was focused on some other aspect of the ensemble.

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

Originally Posted by Zeppelin

Thanks for your insights guys!

The eq-ing was mostly an attempt to make the lyrics come through clearer.

Maybe I also should try a pair of some high quality cardioid mics, trying to get less ambience to help the lyrics come through. And instead use more predelayed reverb to get more of a church like sound.

Capture it first, piss on it later.

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

Originally Posted by cinealta

There should always be a separate producer in the CR, following the score and keeping a SMPTE log of any issues (noises, pitch, timing etc).....

Should be. Not my experience with choirs save one, only orchestras, and they notate the score, not a SMPTE log. It has never been a 'Producer', often an assistant conductor. But the same idea applies, and the dicey bits are redone and dropped in.

[NeoVXR]

Very interesting thread.
I think a quite trivial matter is adding to that issue.
To the conductor, every conducted performance is a one-shot and unique event.
When they repeat, anything can happen, it can be quite different. Every little flaw may be different.

Recording the performance will set a higher standard on everything, because repeated listening will emphasize the imperfections of that particular performance. We will start to feel the imperfection more strongly.

Further, my own psychoacoustics tell me, when I listen to a recording in the headphones, I am less sensitive to pitch issues than when I listen the same on the speakers. Headphones make me more focused on sound than music. Somehow the electronic source of that acoustic perception is then closer to my brains..
Speakers will yield a more "natural" situation.
Any physical difference in the way of listening to some content will have influence on our perception on its details. "Feeling" is part of judging a musical performance. The conductor eventually has to feel different when after the fact, no more she is part of that performance, but it seems to happen again, by technical means.
The act of Conducting might put the focus of the perception on the live impact as a one-shot event, i.e. on bringing the deeper content to the listeners, and giving it exciting dynamics, so to make audience understand as deeply as possible what this is all about. This is what in the end sells tickets and pays the bills.

Third, emphasizing anything, with turning a knob, can also increase the perception of some detail that is imperfect.

(Perhaps, discussing some philosophy might help the conductor to overcome the difficult challenge of recording her work.)

[vinnieRice]

Conducting: Left brain - maths essentially; parts and timing.
Listening: Right brain - sound and performance.

Gross over-simplification obviously but the mental state is undoubtedly different.

[kafka]

There's a lot of good stuff in this thread. One simple explanation might be that the person who is most off-key is right on-axis, or is projecting differently into the room so the mic pics it up more. The fact that they're out-of-tune means they will be more audible than the other individuals in the group.

I often compare the word "microphone" to "microscope". Everything sounds so much more exaggerated when you're recording. Timing, pitch, phrasing, pronunciation, the cricket in the wall. Everything. And the fact that you can play it again-and-again means you get to dwell on every little flaw until you just hate it.

If the group doesn't really need big improvement (in your opinion), and the conductor is just focusing on unimportant details, try to get her to listen with a little more distance. Sometimes, that means literally more distance. i.e. get her to sit farther away from the monitors. Also, for her playback, put a little reverb in, maybe a little EQ. Finish the product a bit, so she can start to hear the performance in context, the way a normal listener would.

But also consider that the group may need work in all of these areas, and that the recording process will help someone with an experienced ear like hers to sort out those details. If that's the case, then as she suggested, it may be advantageous for her to be able to record her rehearsals, so she can learn to hear the performance as it's going to sound.

[Rick Sutton]

I definitely wouldn't be using EQ at the capture. Especially boosting the top and dropping the low mid. Uber-clarity isn't always what choir directors prefer.
Also, in a great hall an omni can work nicely but I find that (in my little world) cardiods and post application of Lex 224 (blasphemy, I know) make for happier choir directors.
As far as eq, if anything I am bringing the mid-lows up a hair, never down.

[andersmv]

I would say it's just a psycho-acoustic thing and the mind playing tricks... I remember the first few times I recorded an orchestra I went through the same thing you are right now. That first recording I was going to do on my own on location, I did a pretty elaborate mic set up and got things sounding AMAZING (In my opinion).

I brought it back to the studio that night and my boss/teacher started listening to it and said "Well, it sounds really good and detailed, but so-in-so conductor is not going to like it. It's not natural enough". Sure enough, a few days later the conductor came in to listen to it and he was not at all thrilled with the sound. People like that have such a finely tuned ear and get so used to hearing what an orchestra (or choir) sound like in their room from their perspective, that when you try to do anything other than what's natural and balanced, it throws them off and for the most part perceive it as a "bad" sound.

From then on, it was a decca tree right behind the conductor. He loved it every time too, you live and learn!

[RKrizman]

Bottom line is a choir will NEVER sound as good coming out of speakers as it will in the room. If you don't have a great room, and have a lot of room sound, then when you listen on speakers in an other room that coloration becomes more apparent because your eyes aren't cuing you into the different acoustics. If you try to use less room then you're getting too up close and detailed, where the individual flaws jump out which would otherwise be averaged over in the room itself.

Couple this with the fact that for some reason most classical recordists like to use flat and detailed SDC's and bright, unforgiving preamps and you have a recipe for dissatisfaction, especially if the choir director is not used to the recording process.

I'd say forget about eqing on the way in. If there's a diction problem that's the choir director's responsibility to deal with, or a mic placement issue.

I've been down this same road a few times, and I swear next time I'm gonna get a bunch of Flea 49's and some Neves.

-R

[12ax7]

Originally Posted by u b k

I'm definitely in the camp that favors the psychological explanation. It strikes me as the same thing as the singer (or drummer, or lead guitarist) who comes into the CR and, on hearing their performance played back, is shocked and horrified. "I sounded like *that*?"

[...]

It seems the conductor is getting a bit lost in the moment, reveling in an idealized version of the performance that only exists in her mind as she's swinging her baton. My guess is she may start to pendulum swing the other way now, second guess and over-analyze the performance as it's happening, possibly lose her groove getting mired in the technical. Or not, my predictions are often as erroneous as they are fanciful.

Well, yeah. I think you're on to something there.

But even with "qualified" people, I think the "ear" is also more forgiving to something annoying on the first pass, too.

People who haven't done much recording always hear different mistakes at every performance (or different versions of the same mistakes, at least ). ...But when they keep hearing the SAME performance a few times in a row, all those little things really start chafing on 'em with repetition.


...And of course we've ALL had the experience where we leave a project one evening, only to return the next day and wonder "What the HELL was I thinking?!"
.

.

[Plush]

It is sometimes a surprise for people not used to recording to hear the playbacks. You need to decide if her comments make sense to you or if you feel she is off base.

I can tell you that it is not anything psychoacoustic or imagined, however.
Neither is it anything to do with the playback sound. It has to do with how the group was recorded.

What it may be is that she is listening to the group as a whole while on the podium. Then she hears the recorded sound which may or may not include picking up more individual voices in the choir than she hears out in the room.

These individual voices may not match her conception of the "group as a whole" sound.

You will have a different reaction if you record the group from a farther out position presenting their sound as it would be in a good seat. Putting the mics right behind the conductor is sometimes too close for blended choral sound.

If the conductor is neurotic or insecure then all of her comments may be wrong. Only you--knowing her---can decide.

[andrebrito]

Meaning that she is not used to listen to an ensemble in a dry environment like a tracking room ...

[A4722]

Originally Posted by kafka

There's a lot of good stuff in this thread. One simple explanation might be that the person who is most off-key is right on-axis, or is projecting differently into the room so the mic pics it up more. The fact that they're out-of-tune means they will be more audible than the other individuals in the group.

Yep.

The conductor could be slightly blocked and not hearing the "out of tune" singers (maybe they placed those singers in that spot for that very reason !). The out of tune voices might dissolve into the room and not be a big deal from certain angles, yet the accurate mics can pick it all up equally.

Get her into the booth during rehearsals to sort it out (good luck with that) if she really cares about it...