About last night!

[John Murphy]

Our latest live streaming show.

MASTERWORKS CONCERT V: Clarinetist Ricardo Morales Plays Copland - YouTube

Went pretty well. Copland and Mendelssohn.

j

[Paul R Johnson]

A very nice sounding recording - Covid precautions really mess these things up though - it's so hard stopping them intruding. I love the Double Bass player at 23 mins or so - how not to breath in a mask. The snags will be the justification in the mask wearing - the strings wearing masks is sensible, and the brass/woods not doing understandable, but how does the conductor justify his non-wearing of a mask? This, from this year's output will always remain a focus annoyingly. Then he puts his mask on to walk off - his animated conducting with sweat flying makes you think?

For me, I have to say the audio was impressive, based on what we could see. Nice blending. Loved it. Thanks.

[John Murphy]

Yes the covid mess makes me happy I have my own little private room to work in. Montana's been pretty lucky. My county has 40 or so active cases. And a very high vaccination rate. I'm half way through mine!

Glad you enjoyed the audio. I thought the Copland was exceptional. j

[Allan Black]

Another winner John thanks. Yes Copland sounds great I like your soundstage, but maybe a tad more clarinet presence in with the strings? Is that the hall or did you add some reverb? Ricardo Morales is world famous with his new German Uebel clarinet.

Listening on a brand new iPad Air 4th gen with my ATR M50X cans, the newer better stereo spread is noticeable.

Cheers.

[John Murphy]

Thanks Allan. I tightened up the the soundstage so it wasn't as wide as I usually use. I liked the result. Only thing I can say about clarinet being to quiet is this. If you look at the video you'll see his mic at the front of the stage. Original location was about two foot closer up on the stage. It was requested that it be moved by powers higher up the food chain than me. So that was the compromised location... j

[Paul R Johnson]

Many years ago I was involved in some BBC recordings in churches and their prestige and to a degree, power meant that the sound supervisor and his vision counterpart got together and decided placement. The church officials and even the performers sometimes disagreed. The plan between sound and vision was set in stone. They would say this camera is going here, these microphones are being hung there and only technical people joined the discussion. Our commercial broadcasters never had this power. Now, at my level, and it seems worldwide, we get interference as a matter of course. The people who consume the product could have had it improved simply, but power was poorly shared. I never get cross when it happens to me now, and totally understand when others suffer. The BBC system always seemed over burdened with managers but these were technical people promoted and fought their corners in advance so the end product was agreed in advance. I suspect now these decisions are made by 22yr old graduates. I bet it’s not the same system now.

On a purely sound note, one thing a noticed was the slightly unusual placement. Strings being spread let you hear them more as individual players instead of ensemble. The woods and brass instruments at the back worked ok I thought as this piece is always a bit brass heavy for me and this seemed to tame that. We lost the clarinet sound from the fella at the back, but as he seemed to play to the floor in a most unusual way, that’s a performer issue. Covid performances seem to have created new problems for us to deal with, and opened up orchestras to scrutiny in a new way. I’ve never, for example, had to record the basses spread out so much physically. A flown array I’m quite comfy with when it comes to blending spot mics, but I think the spread of basses creates a bass ‘wash’ something I’ve never had to cope with. I played it again with in-ears and with eyes closed you can hear so much in isolation, instrument wise. There is a lot of detail in the recording. Little musical slips that would perhaps have remained hidden can be heard. On the solids front, I wonder if the closer mic might have made it less real. From what I know of that instrument, it’s high on detail and clarity and low on volume so it might have sounded wrong if captured closer maybe?

With the orchestra spread like this, are we starting to get the ‘big band effect’ where we start to be able to pick out the individual lines and instruments and lose the overall ensemble effect of the sections?

[Allan Black]

John, I think your latest stereo soundstage here, will collapse to monaural better on your older viewers mono TV sets, and they’re probably the larger section of your audience. Have you ever tested it, be interesting to try that yourself to make sure nothings out of phase.

Yeah being asked to move a mic by higher powers can be a real pain, be interesting to hear what the clarinetist has to say about his presence with the strings. But I’m sure you know not to get anyone off side :)

Cheers.

[John Murphy]

Thank you both for taking time to listen and comment. One of the aspects I enjoy about audio is the complexity and detail involved in such projects. I doubt many people would have any idea of what happens behind the scene.

Paul, the big band effect is a great way to describe how my symphony recording has changed. ORTF was, for the most part, a solid recording choice. Now with people behind plexi-glass sneeze guards, close mic's are the saving grace. But it certainly does sound more individual than ensemble.

Allan, just tested the mono and it did indeed sound fine. Yes I did add reverb. I call this hall "the room where sound goes to die." Its unbelievably dry. Even worse when its full of people. The Zoom L-20 has a very usable selection of reverbs. Works very well.

J

[Paul R Johnson]

I always listen to these things and then ask myself if I really could have done better? The answer from recordings of this calibre is simply no. I've recorded in some excellent places and some truly dire ones. When I made my first recordings in the 70s, I knew little - and pinched other engineers techniques I saw them use - so spaced mic were how I did it. I think I discovered M/S and X/Y in the 80s, and favoured M/S out of the two.

In the late 90s I was an examiner for Music Technology and ended up as Principal Examiner. I heard thousands of example of stereo recordings, the majority being done in schools and colleges, in awful acoustics, and a smaller number in churches of all shapes and sizes. What it showed was how hard natural acoustic recordings are, and the number of repeated errors stuck in my brain when I hear them. The problems were very basic.

Mics in wrong place
Spot mics blended in really badly
Mono sound from multiple mics
Totally dry acoustic
Totally wet acoustic
Balance and blend of instruments
Errors that could have been fixed, ignored.

The common technique was X/Y and this produced the best results when used properly. The trouble was that the mics were frequently in the wrong place, and the musicians were also in the wrong place too! Many had been told 'rules' which they followed blindly (or deafly!) You always place them at 90 degrees - unless this means they won't cover all the sound sources, as in when the musicians are too close to the mics and spread around maybe 180 degrees of a circle with the mics in the middle. Some back then would be recording to two tracks of a tape based portastudio and used compressors to "keep the levels up", with no thought that This might wreck Ravel's Bolero!

Now we have Covid, some people are really struggling with the new and unusual orchestral layouts - others, like this one, can cope and adapt.

[Allan Black]

I remember when this forum started, the idea was to stay with the subject of the thread, so people could do a search for a particular subject, but Covid has changed everything, so here goes with an Easter story.

Many years ago we got a job recording the Western Sydney Symphony orchestra with a big choir for a CD. The venue was the huge Paramatta Cathedral. I’d never even driven past it, but I received a floor plan which is useless when it comes to the acoustics of the place. So I took every mic. we had in the truck and got there very early with someone there to let me in. My assistant drove himself but had car trouble, so I started setting up alone.

After a while I thought, someone is watching me. On one side wall of the Cathedral there was a large painting of Jesus, it was one of those paintings where the eyes follow you everywhere. So with no one else around I started talking to him, “What about these mics positioned here?” I thought he said “No no over there!” So I moved them all accordingly until I was set up. Eventually everyone and my assistant arrived and we recorded everything. The results were first class so after everyone left, we’d all packed up and before we departed, I went back into the silent Cathedral to thank him and it looked to me ... like he smiled.

Happy Easter everyone.
🆎

[Andrew Smith]

You should have a bumper sticker like "Jesus is my sound assistant" or maybe just add it to your business card.

In the spirit of taking things off topic on this thread, a couple of years ago not all my RAM was showing up as being available on my edit box and I felt God impress upon me to take the RAM modules and clean the copper contacts with isopropyl alcohol. Months later I finally caved in and did that ... and it worked.

Clock it up as another one for God, who again is most helpful with techy stuff.

Happy Easter everyone.

Andrew