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#31 | ||
Inner Circle
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Portland, Oregon
Posts: 3,420
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
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That's a big part of what professionalism is. I suspect you know this from your own work. I realize that it's accepted among some musicians that audio engineers are tin-eared know-nothings who need to be watched carefully and micro-managed; that engineers don't care if they mess up an artist's life's work. I stay away from those musicians. Life's too short.
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30 years of pro media production. Vegas user since 1.0. Webcaster since 1997. Freelancer since 2000. College instructor since 2001. |
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#32 |
Inner Circle
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Tucson AZ
Posts: 2,211
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
Hi Michael. It's been a while since we played with the mics at your place. I hope all is well with you. I'm not doing too much recording anymore, just a few orchestral recordings a year now. We haven't been getting to Santa Fe as much as we used to, but just today we got a letter from a friend who moved there from Tucson telling us we need to visit.
This thread has been really interesting. I'm learning a lot from it - but what I'm learning has less to do with recording the guitar than with the way people can form opinions based on a lack of data. As someone sagely commented, without the recording itself being in evidence, all we can do is speculate about why the placement was chosen and whether it was successful - however one would define "successful". |
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#33 | |
Inner Circle
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Lowestoft - UK
Posts: 4,039
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
The engineer is always right? Nope! He is paid at worst, to do the job under instruction - at best he is paid to contribute ideas and suggestions, but the client is always right. When the client is a musician, of any calibre, they have a preset idea of what they wish to sound like, and even if you personally hate it, if they like it - it is their opinion that counts.
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Liking something is nice when it happens, but it's not essential. I quite like Paul Winter's recording of saxophone, Cathedral organ and pipes - done, I think somewhere in New York. It's swampy, huge and really weird. The sax has no definition, the time delays on some ranks of pipes way out and it's a bit of a mess sonically, but it really works. Musicians don't always get it right. Produce a first CD for a trumpet player and they will hate the sound because they've never heard themselves from the front. You can try to convince them, but if you can't, then it's their choice. We provide a service. Our contracts set out our collaboration level. Do we get a producer's credit or just an engineering one? We do our best. It is not our job to do some things. I recorded a series of piano CDs for a specialist area - they will be replayed in dance studios, that are very lively, so the CD is totally dry - a mix of ambient techniques but in a dead room. In context it works really well. On my monitors it sounds simply awful. Context is everything! |
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#34 | |
Major Player
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Santa Fe, NM USA
Posts: 396
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
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Perhaps I was ridiculing those who unequivocally state that recording in a hall or church, is absolutely superior to a studio, and say this is a more "natural" sound. Also, you seem to equate getting paid with knowledge..... I wonder how many classical guitarists most "pro engineers" have experience recording compared to the piano etc. Specialization can be a good thing and from what I'm reading on this thread is seem few are specialized when it comes to recording classical guitar, which from my limited experience is one of the hardest instruments to record well given just how intimate of a sound it is compared to other solo and orchestral settings. I do question anyone ability to definativly walk into a hall and choose the absolute best mic placement..... it's so subjective, with so many subtle variations of sound with different moods and effects. A "paid pro engineer" might eliminate a lot of guess work but personally I've seen a lot of pros stick mics where I wouldn't, and pull the..... step aside I know what I'm doing and you don't kinda thing. A lot of ego is involved in hearing the color of grey...... to one person I may sound like I'm "ridiculing" but on the other hand I feel and am sensitive to the heavy handed "paid pro engineers" absolute statements...... I'm sorry there are no absolutes here. |
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#35 | |
Major Player
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Santa Fe, NM USA
Posts: 396
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
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#36 | |
Major Player
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Santa Fe, NM USA
Posts: 396
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
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Art is very subjective and falls in and out of fashion...... even styles and interpretation of classical performances change, on a daily basis. What was cool then is not cool now and verse vicsa. Bream's playing was amazing on that CD, and I could well imagine him thinking to himself...... this church sounds fantastic to me...... I want to capture this sound and share it with the world...... only it never sounds on the recording like it sounds in your head unfortunately. Perhaps you may or may not know this CD but, it was recorded on a very bright guitar in a very live lively church I believe the church was round. These days the internet has made everyone into a professional, be it Protools, FCPX, etc. We can make a recording today in our living rooms that surpasses anything Segovia did in the 50's, and the bar is raised constantly. The way I see it there is a fine line between the pro engineer, and a recording enthusiast who spends as much time on learning, and acquiring the best tools. A pro engineer is perhaps far more efficient with everyones time..... but it doesn't mean they can produce a better recording. |
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#37 | |
Major Player
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Santa Fe, NM USA
Posts: 396
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
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The Sony you recommended severed me well for years, but I finally succumbed to my gear lust and moved up a little. In the last couple of days the old Schoeps bug has bitten me again.... I hate when that happens! I have a guitarist from Mexico coming on the 27th to record a series of videos and a CD, and I have been thinking of ways to acquire a pair of Schoeps within the next couple of weeks for this recording. The problem is I've bought a 5D3, and a C100 this past year, and my wife will end up wanting an equal amount of money in the form of a shopping spree..... so I end up paying double in the end. However, once I get a new pair of Schoeps in my mind it eventually becomes a reality I'm afraid. |
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#38 |
Trustee
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 1,546
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
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#39 | |
Major Player
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Santa Fe, NM USA
Posts: 396
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
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#40 |
Inner Circle
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Lowestoft - UK
Posts: 4,039
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
I liked the comment about listening back to old recordings. I re-discovered an old live jazz recording made in the 70s, that actually sold rather well and as I was on a percentage sales deal, it was quite lucrative. It's simply horrible when judged by today's standards.
I've had the experience of running an examination here in the UK where candidates needed a close miked recording and an ambient, direct to stereo one. The studio stuff was, on average, quite good (apart from drums - that seemed to defeat all bar the best students), while the bulk of the ambient recordings were truly dire. At the time, we had recruited some extra examiners from studios as the exam was quite new, and the studio guys had a great deal of trouble awarding any marks at all. One of the marking areas was stereo field - and in the after exam discussions it seemed that this was either mono, or mega-wide. Realism was a rare thing. Further investigation revealed the main problem was simply very unsuitable spaces - just not good sounding rooms, then poor mic placement. Very often they had tried to use 'clever' techniques and done them really badly, setting things by look rather than by sound. Decca Trees were often mentioned in the written logs, and it was very common to see them set up vertically rather than the middle mic closer to the players but at the same height. I think they figured it was 'tree' like in Christmas tree! You can see photos on the net that could be viewed this way, from the angle the pics are taken. I suspect we've all 'cheated' at some time. I have a nice double condenser - where you can rotate the top capsule 90 degrees, and with cardioid -fig-8 - omni patterns available, it's a neat mic for all sorts of techniques, but sometimes I've also used close mics and carefully tweaked to make them sound distant and in a nice room. I still have a Yamaha DSP-1 which was a first attempt at room modelling, before their range of popular reverbs came out. It's permanently stuck on Munich Cathedral, but does that very well with 4 channel output from a stereo input - it's remarkably convincing. Maybe we should just agree that achieving the right result is the only important factor - how we actually do it isn't really that important if it sounds good. |
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#41 | |
Major Player
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Santa Fe, NM USA
Posts: 396
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
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A couple of years ago, my wife and I went to Thailand for a couple of months. We needed a house sitter while we were gone. My best friend helped us out. He is the only guitarist to have won both the "National fingerpicking competition" as a well as the most sought after honor in the classical guitar world the "GFA", in addition to that, he was hand picked by Segovia as one of the top 12 guitarists in the world. He produces his own CD's. While we were gone he recorded a number of videos in my living room. Later he told me...... he really liked recording there in my living room. Last year I recorded some videos for another guitarist in a nice church he secured for our project, after that he told me he preferred the sound of my living room over the church..... in fact a few other guitarist have told me the same thing. I guess I lucked out on having a good sounding space. In video we have scopes to tell us when we have correct exposure RGB balance etc. In Audio it's far more subjective and abstract..... what sounds good to one guy won't sound good to another. There will always be the masses who like anything. and then there are those with a more critical ear. Here is a video of one we did in a church "close miked" with a couple other mics further back in the hall. Here he is in my living room recorded on a Sony D50. |
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#42 |
Inner Circle
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Lowestoft - UK
Posts: 4,039
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
For me - the Bach only works because of the environment. If that was ultra close miked or recorded outside it would just not work as a musical piece at all, where as the other doesn't need the acoustic so badly.
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#43 |
Major Player
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Santa Fe, NM USA
Posts: 396
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
I agree! So you see why I prefer a studio or my living room for recording classical guitar. Just my 2cents for what it's worth.
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#44 |
Trustee
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 1,546
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
I'll stick my head above the parapet. :-)
It think it boils down to it being a matter of preference. For me, there's too much mechanical noise in both recordings, particularly the second one. I suppose it is really about how much one considers the sound of fingers moving about to be part of the tone of the guitar. I wouldn't thank anyone for a recording of a bassoon or bass clarinet where the keywork could be heard moving, but those close enough to a performer (beside, behind, in front of) in an ensemble can hear all sorts of sounds from instruments – and their players – that are not normally audible to the audience or considered desirable to record. Breathing sounds from singers in opera/oratorio/lieder are generally not a feature of recordings any more than wind and brass players breathing or brass players putting mutes in or out or emptying water keys. Having said all that, thanks for posting all the guitar pieces – I really enjoyed watching and listening to them, and some other recordings you have posted elsewhere. Your guitars are clearly superb instruments. |
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#45 | ||
Trustee
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Novato, CA
Posts: 1,774
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Re: Recording Classical Guitar.
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As for the recordings of Mr. Chapdelaine, first, truly critiquing the quality of audio recording over a YouTube video is like asking someone to critique the video quality from a YouTube sample. The level of compression is somewhat horrific and makes it nearly impossible to hear what was really captured. Also, most people would be listening over their computer speakers which would not give a good representation of the true recording. But, for me, it ultimately comes down to more than just how much detail is captured. My preference is that I hear what the artist is wanting to present, which includes very subtle subtext that can only be experience when the performance is taken into the context of their surroundings. A studio recording, no matter how much post is introduce, will always sound like a studio recording. Likewise, a recording done on location will always sound like one done on location, even if you close mic. Whether you will hear this is a matter of the listener and the level of equipment that it is being played back on. I do agree with Paul R Johnson that the Back requires the sound of the hall. The Albeniz I generally prefer it to be a little more open than what was captured but not as much as the Back. The sound for the Albeniz, however, is partly because of using the D50 to record it. I have that recorder and have used it for thousands of hours recordings but would never use it to do a serious capture of a musical performance where the music was the main focus. Again, those are my opinions and what I prefer. To me, when capturing music the goal is to capture an experience that the musician wishes for their audience to have. If they feel that the best representation of their performance is to have it close mic'd in a studio and add tons of post processing then that is the right way to do it. If they feel that recording it from the 4th row of a huge hall and have massive amounts of reverb and echo will best represent what they want to present, well, then that is right for them. As the engineer you can elect to work with them or not. If you feel that it would be a detriment if you captured something the way that you didn't like, then don't work with them. You do have a responsibility, if you do choose to work with them, to help them understand that the end results may not be capturing what they want, but ultimately you are working for them. But, consider this, very few engineers get hired because they will only mic one way, the way they think is best. Artists don't want to work with people like that. However, I know many artist who will only work with a handful of engineers because they are easy to work with and capture what the artist wants. That goes for if you are paid or not (hopefully though, you are being paid). |
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