Flat Response

[MSaturn]

Re: Flat Response

I can't say I'd appreciate a studio engineer mixing for anything but good speakers.

The last thing we need nowadays is the guys at the beginning of the chain making concessions for the BS people buy.

It really is not hard to produce a good speaker nowadays - it's worthwhile to put pressure on companies to actually make things decent.

[Dennis H]

Re: Flat Response

I can't say I'd appreciate a studio engineer mixing for anything but good speakers.

That's a nice idealistic philosophy but they're in the business of selling music. How many people buying music have good systems? Tough balancing act -- doesn't suck on a good home system and doesn't suck as an MP3 on an iPod's earbuds.

[Deward Hastings]

Re: Flat Response

The "Deward" Curve :D

30 deg off axis

Which axis ? ? ?

You'll love how they show them in use . . . in a heavily treated control room.

http://www.meyersound.com/products/studioseries/hd-1/

Our Mozart Festival conductor has a pair of an early version in his front room . . . keeps 'em behind an overstuffed chair for listening. That helps . . .

[dantheman]

Re: Flat Response

Dennis, sounds like the ugly truth of the matter, but then you'd have to say they are often neglecting their target demographic. I mean if it's pop or some derivative of music the youth is buying, mix it for a car or iPod, but Blues, Jazz, Folk, Classical, adult music etc... a home environment. IOW a high quality mix. I know they do try to do that to some degree, but maybe can't get their fingers off the knobs that sell the most records--or downloads these days.

As far as 3ft and the room is concerned, don't forget the mixing board.

One thing I always wanted to see was a dual layer cd. One layer mixed for car, one layer mixed for home. If they can do it with SACD. why not cd? I mean maybe the old players couldn't do it, but they will break and people will need new ones some day.

Deward, has anyone in the classical music lovers community ever contacted the record companies and explained what they were doing wrong with mixing/mastering the music? Seems like you know enough people upset with record quality that you could get a petition signed by a lot of folks. Then you guys could have systems that worked well for other things also. They should really know the wild lengths you guys go through to enjoy music at home.

Dan

[SpacePatrolman]

Re: Flat Response

From a Mix Magazine article, "Bob Ludwig" (Mr. Ludwig is a highly respected mastering engineer - there's a good chance you'll find his name or his mastering house's name on at least one of your CDs or LPs). FYI: this article was published back in 2001 but I highly doubt things have changed much concerning the following issue.......

What are typical problems in the receiving material, and what are the most common formats?

........We also see a lot of timecode drop-outs, timecode discontinuity, wrong reference tones, wrong sampling rates, etc. These things should not occur, but they do over and over again. Another problem we encounter is projects with distortion. You'd be surprised to find out how many of our projects contain distortion beyond what is considered acceptable — even major productions. My clients often come in and hear distortion they've never heard before when they take their projects to Gateway. The reason for this is that I think people are listening too loud and/or on low-resolution near-field monitors during mixing, such as the NS-10.

We also get projects where the EQ balance is all over the place. From listening to a mix where the bass is almost absent, and to having a mix with ridiculous amount of subsonic information, it's sometimes beyond me how some of this even got through the mix.

[SpacePatrolman]

Re: Flat Response

Though I certainly wouldn't describe that as hifi, it doesn't sound harsh here at all. Of course though the low bitrate just sort of does that...........Clipping becomes a lot harder to distinguish as well.

Most of the MP3 encoders I've encountered seem to apply a filter that progressively cuts off the higher frequencies above a certain point as the encoding bitrate is reduced, AFAIK to reduce or eliminate that ugly "swirling" artifact that a lossy codec can produce (cymbals are one of the most obvious casualties of that effect) but the tradeoff is that the recording begins to take on a veiled or dull sound and the more delicate details - musical or otherwise - are masked or are eliminated altogether.

I read an article somewhere that reported that many people actually prefer the sound of low-bitrate MP3s to their CD counterpart. :eek: My theory on this? Low encoding rates lop off the higher frequncies which can be a blessing, because as has been mentioned here already, so many new albums are recorded with piercing highs (so people listening with lousy $5 earbuds while working out in the gym can hear some detail) and especially, the NASTY effects of overcompression which many times can nearly cause physical discomfort, not to mention that it can literally suck the beat of the music out of the recording...along with boosting the high frequencies even more than they were originally. :(

**********************************************
Speaking of overcompression.......

This organization was created to educate the public and the music community on the pitfalls of overcompressed recordings. It includes a short 2 min video put together by a music professor that clearly demonstrates the effects of overcompression on a Paul McCartney tune (drumming fans take note! ):

http://www.turnmeup.org/

An informative article about this issue written in Austin TX - "The live music capital of the world" - which includes samples of two Los Lonely Boys albums, one recorded with sane levels of compression (some compression is mandatory for pretty much all rock/pop recordings) and another with "trendy" amount of compression, probably there because a clueless label executive told the engineer to do so:

Everything Louder Than Everything Else: Have the loudness wars reached their final battle?
excerpt:

"There's something . . . sinister in audio that is causing our listeners fatigue and even pain while trying to enjoy their favorite music. It has been propagated by A&R departments for the last eight years: The complete abuse of compression in mastering (forced on the mastering engineers against their will and better judgment)."

Unfortunately no speaker system can truly compensate for overcompression, because while the highs can be suppressed (xover, certain tweeters, tone controls), everything else is still overcompressed, so all you end up with is dull-sounding music, which while relatively more tolerable still sounds like it's screaming at you.

[SpacePatrolman]

Re: Flat Response

That said, the good engineers listen to their tracks on all kinds of systems from studio monitors to PA to uber hifi to headphones to bose crap to their car -- and try to do the mix so it doesn't suck on any of them -- not easy!

+1

The first time I heard of this happening was in the 80s, when reading a review of the new (at the time ;)) Cars album, Shake It Up. I was taken aback and had some of my audiophile beliefs roughly shaken when I found out the engineer would create a mix, record it to a cassette & take out to his car and listen to it on his "typical" automotive system. This was done to make sure it had the right vibe for the type of system most likely for it to be listened with.

[Deward Hastings]

Re: Flat Response

has anyone in the classical music lovers community ever contacted the record companies and explained what they were doing wrong with mixing/mastering the music?

Classical recording is nowhere near as messed up as the other genres . . . its biggest problems are lack of market and the cost of mustering a large orchestra. Everyone understands that you cannot compress it enough for listening in cars, and people don't, anyway. It's generally mixed "flat" to headphones (or nearfield in a "dead" control room), and with as much dynamic range as the medium supports (with sufficient resolution).

But there are unavoidable problems asociated with available recording venues, microphone placement (I've already commented how the most common mic position just behind and above the conductor overemphasizes the strings) and getting a satisfactory direct/reverberant balance. Older recordings often suffer from mics with peaky high ends (tolerable with vinyl and "vintage" rolled off speakers, terrible with digital). And we're trying to squeeze as many as 80-90 musicians through two little boxes . . .

Perhaps the biggest problem, though, is something also already mentioned . . . there is an "original", a "live" sound, that we are trying to reproduce (only sometimes at original loudness). We have a "standard" to which classical recordings are compared. That may in part account for some of the "talking past each other" that happens here . . . no one can tell you what a techno or grunge recording is supposed to sound like, or even how "bright" a rock concert should be . . . classical aficiandos know what an orchestra sounds like in live performance, and want their recordings to match that sound in their listening room. Which is why (when in good humor, anyway) we simply laugh when someone promotes "flat on axis" as "the solution" for home loudspeakers. We've long since learned that rarely works . . .

[Zilch]

Re: Flat Response

That all being the case, then is it reasonable to conclude that a typical modern (or modern re-mastered) classical recording delivers what the conductor hears, and NOT the program as experienced in the 15th row?

[Guest]

Re: Flat Response

Which is why (when in good humor, anyway) we simply laugh when someone promotes "flat on axis" as "the solution" for home loudspeakers.

We've long since learned that rarely works . . .

All three of you?

[Pete Schumacher]

Re: Flat Response

All three of you?

That is so funny it should be illegal. :D

[Zilch]

Re: Flat Response

SO, Deward, after the free lunch and Linkwitz lecture, did you stay to hear John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom" on EconoWave Deluxe? :D

[dantheman]

Re: Flat Response

Deward, it seems like that you are saying is that they just need to roll of the highs to create a satisfying experience for the end user classical music aficionado. Is there something else? I mean there's essentially no way to make it perfect, but would that make it listenable?

SpacePatrolman, thanks for the links. I'm going to check them out in a second. I actually do this: If I'm working on a project w/ a friend and I screw some little things up, I'll give him a low bitrate mp3 to use for practice and it will hide small errors of various natures even clipping.:o Shameful I know, but sometimes I figure things out too long after I recorded them to do much about it really other than hide it. Our brains do seem to fill in some of what's missing, but it's no substitute for the real deal.

Dan

[Zilch]

Re: Flat Response

Deward, it seems like that you are saying is that they just need to roll of the highs to create a satisfying experience for the end user classical music aficionado. Is there something else? I mean there's essentially no way to make it perfect, but would that make it listenable?

By my thesis, they also want enhanced spaciousness, which is not on the recording, and a diffuse soundstage, both delivered by wide directivity, which further rolls off the highs....

[dantheman]

Re: Flat Response

That all being the case, then is it reasonable to conclude that a typical modern (or modern re-mastered) classical recording delivers what the conductor hears, and NOT the program as experienced in the 15th row?

Referencing the monitors made locally:

..clip..

Our Mozart Festival conductor has a pair of an early version in his front room . . . keeps 'em behind an overstuffed chair for listening. That helps . . .

I'm guessing no from this. An ORTF pair on the podium might be better and easier.

Dan