Emanuel Landeholm wrote:
Continuing off topic...
On "correction"; it's an interesting philosophical concept. I listen to
lots of audio books, and the program material comes with all kinds of
problems....
Of course that's an ancient problem. Tube tape recorders with crystal
microphones already had those types of problems, and of course it
depends on how and where you're listening, and how well certain
processing can work on the amps and speakers you happen to be using.
Like it is certainly possible to limit, pretty easy to give a little
straight amplification (if the player you use allows it), and, well
equalizers and "tone controls" have been around for a long time ! So why
not some digital versions of those, that shouldn't be a problem.
Choosing the right filter kinds, controlling phase issues and loudness
(short an long term, for when the materials are played on a potent
stereo system) control, and preserving the intended feel of the
recording are also important, and is where A grade recordings/records
can teach us a lot. I am also a fan of being as neutral as possible, as
in the more High Fidelity, the nicer, and I go pretty far with that,
also spec-wise. Natural amplification with as little as possible
distortion, sampling errors, and built-in limitations (like "tuned"
2-way systems, which often is produced form without people noticing) has
the advantage to be able to listen to a track or mix "as it is".
If neutrality also persists over a large dynamic range (which is the
case with my monitoring), it is possible the check out the Loudness
Curve sensitivities in well made tracks/mixes: at low volume it should
sound normal, and at loud volume the ratios of mid to high and low don't
suddenly sound like, euhm, "new" recordings..
Of course you can say "my monitors are norm" without every checking them
out with accurate test signals or measurement- and studio- microphones,
well fine, but chances are you're not going to get a lot of audio tasks
done if you're not honest with your monitoring. It could be you're going
to produce pathetic pieces of test music which sound divine to you, but
not to others.
And most of all, as soon as you alter mixes, you're responsible for your
listeners or even clients, down the line: are the demands for hearing
damage warnings still properly active in the tracks you process, is the
maker of the artwork on you tracks still satisfied when you have
processed their materials, and they are put on CD or the radio?
I have meant to repair materials, back to the state of the original
masters, with the proper Dolby settings on the tape they were made on.
Sometimes, I play with the A-grade studio ticks I know thus far, which
add two main things: a dimension (a "length") to parts of the sound,
which has as effect that the "shears" along walls and so on are well
behaved (as compared to say a Zoom H3 recording of the news-reader), and
the second thing is a by-product of a FFT-equalization, applied in
dynamic sense which adds Loudness insensitivity to the material, making
a track work better at lower and higher volumes.
If a track or mix is good (again..) I find it fun to play with pro
studio effects (of old) like Lexicon to see how well artificial
reverberation or other methods to create a nice full sound with hold up
when the track or mix is send through it, such as the ABBA example. So
then of course on a system which doesn't choke on the first warmth, and
doesn't kill all spatial information into dog food, it is fun game to
listen to, and a good (and difficult) signal test. By product of the
Lexicon effect unit responding well to a production is that usually it
will as a consequence also work good on a live amplification system (a
decent PA I mean not some piece of plastic on a wobbly pole).
T.
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