Take this simple test. Find a hi hat. Any hi hat will do, it doesn't need to be a top of the line one with Zildjian cymbals or similar. You do not need to be a drummer. Hit the hi hat, preferably with a drum stick. It will have a sound. You can have someone else hit it while you stand back so you hear the difference between being right at it and away from it a few feet. There's not a big difference, so much for close mic-ing. Now try to record it. Let me warn you, though, that the microphone hasn't been invented yet that can accurately record a hi hat. Now if you can't even get a simple hi hat right, how can you expect the whole band to accurately sound life like? The simple answer is: We're working on it. Be happy, it's all good.
The best reference is live music
For those of you who love classical music and care about imaging in your audio system, I recommend that you check out a San Francisco area group called Voices of Music.
They video record all of their performances and have most all of it on YouTube and free to access. They are extremely well engineered recordings and more than worthy for the very finest audio systems. What makes these recordings especially *useful*, as well as enjoyable, is that being video, you can see where all of the musicians are. The best reference in audio is live performance. Does your system do an honest job of recreating the live performance? Does your system give an image that at all matches what you see on the video?
Beyond this issue, Voices of Music is worthy to experience because they are very different from the large symphonic performances that most classical listeners hear. Instead of the SF Symphony with 100 musicians, Voices of Music will typically have about 8 to 12 players. There are some larger ensembles and some smaller.
They are an "early music" ensemble. Just as rock 'n roll evolved from the early 1950's to what we have today, what we call classical music evolved as well. The instruments evolved too. A 19th century violin (what the musicians call "modern") has a neck pulled back, has steel strings and is engineered to be louder than an 18th or 17th century violin, which has a straighter neck and gut strings. They are in fact, different instruments.
An 18th century instrument will articulate better. The bow is lighter and faster than a 19th century bow. Trumpets of that period had no valves. Neither did French horns. Flutes were typically wooden and had open holes. That period also had instruments completely absent from "modern" orchestras. If you haven't listened to a 1st rate early music ensemble, you're in for a totally new experience.
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@carlos269 I used the Behringer mikes for years. The Oktava mikes were a major upgrade for me. The Behringer C2 mikes are so cheap, they almost give them away ($51.90/pair at Sweetwater). |
@russbutton Thank you for sharing your recordings. They sound very good and helps others understand what simple minimalistic recordings are capable of conveying. Which brings me to one of my favorite discussions with the “audiophiles”. All reasonable audiophiles can look at the picture of the performers that you recorded and happily accept that the audio recordings are representative of the sound in that room the recordings were made in. Now instead of a still picture post a video of the recording session and embed the audio in the video and those same audiophiles will give you all types of reasons and excuses of why the sound on the video is not representative of the sound in the room. Funny how performers can be recorded and accepted but if you substitute a home sound reproduction system in for the performers, then the audio recordings embedded in the videos are not accepted as being representative. I don’t understand the logic. Have you recorded the sound of your home audio system in a similar fashion? |
@carlos269 I do not have a video recorder other than my cell phone, so I donʻt have the ability to do a video recording of a chamber music performance. I would assume that the engineer who records the Voices of Music performances uses the same mikes for both his video and audio recording systems. I have no experience in video recording of live music, so I have no idea how itʻs all engineered. |
@russbutton You stated “Iʻve never thought of recording my home system. Not sure what the point of that is.” One records one’s home audio system for all those very same reasons that you record your wife and all the other ensembles performing. Like a good pool player, I’m laying out a line of thoughts to eventually prove a point. It seems like you are happy sharing your recordings. You don’t appear to have no real desire to showcase and share what you have accomplished with your sound reproduction system at home and that is perfectly fine. Some of us do use audio recordings of our home systems to overcome geographical limitations. If you are not already familiar, I would recommend Gearspace Forum as a good place to discuss and chat with other recording professionals and amateurs with similar interests. |
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