The quality of opeth recordings
- Thread starter Audiophile
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You're welcome! My pleasure. I wish I could devote more of my time and energy to recording, but I never really worked that out. Turns out I liked recording ensembles more than I realized. It was a great paying college gig, too.
Mmmm, how Hi is Fi
I'm not so much into Hi End as Classic Audio...
http://www.audiojumble.co.uk/heathrowphotos.htm
Got fed up with all the hype and astronomical prices, my gear ROCKS like few others.
How do you mean 'got fed up'? You were into hifi in the past?
I am so addicted to music and audio that I made my hobby also my parttime job. I work at a high end audio shop in Amsterdam the Netherlands that has several shops across the country. It's quite well known. url: www.hobo.nl
Myself, I own a Marantz cd17 cd player, a TagMclaren pre and power amp and Dynaudio contour S1.4 loudspeakers.
@Sounddave
Thanks a lot for the info! I know a lot of audio as an end user but almost nothing about the production of it.
And I think you're right about that uber realistic can be boring. But that also depends on the artist/band.
About the whole "recreating an album live" topic: I definitely agree with moonlapse and soundave (and soundave's father?) about it not being paramount. But there are two completely different schools of thought about that. Pretty much every jazz musician i've heard from, jam band musician, and some old rock bands would disagree wholeheartedly with us. Although most of these people are relics from when recording an album really was recording a performance. I'm reminded of Tom Dowd speaking about how everyone had to get things right and how he as well had to act moment to moment in mixing. But he always noted how when technology made recording an album easier, it didn't take away from the music being great. He seemed to love the fact that he could take his time with every bar of the music. Technology today makes it easy for people with just about zero musical talent on a real instrument to create great music. I'm not the best guitarist in the world, but if i'm working with a midi sequencer or what have you, i dont have to be. THe limit is whats in my mind, not what i can do with my hands. I feel like that same sort of thing should apply to recording. Take an album or song as far as it can go sonically. People shouldnt limit themselves to a band's live restrictions. Think about trios like rush, tool, and so forth. If they had to go by recreating live, they wouldnt have been able to make such in depth music.
dcat
Member
Oh yeah I got fed up because I was putting together Hi End audio and Loudspeakers from 1971 onwards for Radfords, have you heard of them?
Nowadays the junk they sell as Hi End is f'in laughable and a bit of a ripoff imho...
Gone is the hobby element, years before, Hi-Fi enthusiasts made their own valve amps and speaker enclosures.
I had an Audiolab 8000A for a while, paid 15 ukp for it.
it was ok I suppose, my old vintage amps sound light years better. Keep in mind, I'm only talking about one aspect of the production. Most "popular" music is close-miked.
Some styles of music lend themslves especially well to a simple stereo miking, but 2 things usually need to be true: 1) the performers have to be very good, 2) the performance space needs to sound good.
Also, if you're going for a "live" sound, stereo miking is where it's at. In college, I was in and recorded with an a capella singing group, and as the college's recording engineer, I also recorded two of the other singing groups as well. A fourth group had recorded a CD off campus the year before, and there was no doubt that it sounded really cool: the basses were squashed to smithereens, the lexicon verb unit put on a good show, and there was even some flange and delay. Bu did it actually sound like that singing group? Not really. And for what the CD's were for (imo, mainly as mementos of your years in the group/ or listening to the group) they sort of failed. Why the hell is an a capella group recording stuff that they can't replicate live? Anyhow, people loved it, regardless of my concerns for the purity of the "art form". It was so influential that when it came time for my group to do their CD, we did as that other group did: we multitracked it, used effects, and so on. Except for one track that I recorded in the college chapel (the soloist was going to be abroad when we would be in the studio). Guess which track sounds the best and most like the group I used to sing with? With that as my example, I then managed to convince the 2 groups I recorded to do it at the college and to do it live to two. The result? It was a faithful representation of what they were all about. A document of the group at that moment, and years down the road, I think that's better than all the studio magic in the world.
So, yeah, it really depends on what you're recording, but maybe more importantly, WHY.
Oh yeah I got fed up because I was putting together Hi End audio and Loudspeakers from 1971 onwards for Radfords, have you heard of them?
Nowadays the junk they sell as Hi End is f'in laughable and a bit of a ripoff imho...
Gone is the hobby element, years before, Hi-Fi enthusiasts made their own valve amps and speaker enclosures.
I had an Audiolab 8000A for a while, paid 15 ukp for it.
I don't get it; you worked for Radford? (designing/manerfacturing) Or did you sell radford products?
By the way I never heard or read about Radford before.
I once designed and build a headphone amp for a school project. It was a quite succesfull project. I managed to get the amp working properly. unfortunately it didn't sound that great. My tagmclaren pre amp with integrated headphone amp sounds far better. But it's a nice achievement to produce something yourself.
15 pounds is a real bargain for a old 8000a. Strange that it didn't sound that well beceause audiolab nowadays is quite a high end brand. My tagmclaren's are a sort of spinoffs of audiolab, and they sound really good. I'm really sure because I can compare a lot with my job.
audiolab was once a part of the mclaren group. it's sold to a chinese organisation several months ago and it's called audiolab again.
Ermz
¯\(°_o)/¯
I still need to invest more research time into the technical side of the audio industry. I would love to learn more about speaker/amp construction. At the moment I orient myself mostly around studio and live sound, although live sound to a lesser degree, because those Obnoxious musicians Soundave cited are a trademark of the entire industry.
I haven't actually had the pleasure of recording any ensembles, or more natural music in general. For me it's been strictly metal, rock and even some bossa nova!
I've only ever tried XY, Spaced pair and Mid-side Pair as stereo micing techniques. Spaced pair tends to be my favourite. Creates the largest stereo image.
I don't see the need for MS in modern recordings, as it's a false stereo sound and is only really useful for mono compatibility. I suppose if you're recording orchestras for a mobile phone? I just can't see the need.
I haven't actually had the pleasure of recording any ensembles, or more natural music in general. For me it's been strictly metal, rock and even some bossa nova!
I've only ever tried XY, Spaced pair and Mid-side Pair as stereo micing techniques. Spaced pair tends to be my favourite. Creates the largest stereo image.
I don't see the need for MS in modern recordings, as it's a false stereo sound and is only really useful for mono compatibility. I suppose if you're recording orchestras for a mobile phone? I just can't see the need.
dcat
Member
I worked in manufactuering, for my sins.
There was a retailer here with the same name, just a co-incidence.
You didn't need to sell Radford Audio gear, if people could afford it, they bought it, the best kit by a big margin at the time, better than alot of hi-fi for sale these days, imho.
Here are a couple of nice tales...
http://www.walther-mathieu.de/PROJECTS/RADFORD/luckyfind.html
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hon.lau/RadfordSC2STA15.html
Keep yer eyes peeled guys, you never know your luck, I found a "Nakamichi Dragon" in a dumpster a few years back. hehe
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