date:20120402

Re: [Sursound] Transient time differences

2012-04-02 Thread Jörn Nettingsmeier


On 04/02/2012 11:51 PM, Eric Benjamin wrote:

I can't answer the question precisely without either doing an experiment or by
doing many hours of calculations.


a good online tool that does many of the calculations relevant to ITD 
and ILD reproduction is available from helmut wittek at

http://hauptmikrofon.de/ima2-folder/ImageAssistant2.html

i find it an invaluable tool in trying to understand what different 
miking techniques are trying to accomplish.


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Re: [Sursound] Transient time differences

2012-04-02 Thread Jörn Nettingsmeier


On 04/02/2012 08:37 PM, Eric Benjamin wrote:


I believe that the "glockenspiel effect" that you describe arises because the
localization cues experienced by the listener are different for ITDs than for
ILDs.  Because we primarily rely on ITDs at low frequencies and ILDs at high
frequencies, if the reproduction system doesn't handle them in the same way then
the listener experiences a disparity.  This happens in both Blumlein stereo and
in Ambisonics.


at the risk of eternal damnation: if you want to fix this in stereo, you 
can. the solution is called ORTF, NOS, or any other slight variation 
thereof :-D


incidentally, higher-order panned sources are also way more stable with 
respect to timbre.


and now: "duck, and cover :)"
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Re: [Sursound] Can anyone help with my dissertation please?

2012-04-02 Thread Robert Greene



PS Leaving my own evaluation aside, one of the things
I have noticed about this type of recording is that there
is a direct connection between how much people like it
and how familiar they are with the actual sound of the
particular orchestra in the particular hall.

I did not have  contact with the people in St Petersburg
after the fact --except for the musicians. But in Philadelphia I got a lot
of feedback from people who were going regularly  to the Philadelphia 
Orchestra concerts in the Academy of Music(where they were performing at 
the time, Verizon not being in existence at that point).


People would call me up out of the blue and rave on about
how perfectly the sound of the Orchestra and the Academy was
captured on the recording, about how it sounded just like their
concert experience. And the  members of the regular audience bought the
recording like crazy--we sold all 10,000 that we were allowed
to make under the contract we had, many , maybe most, to local people. The 
musicians  also carried

on about how they at last had a recording where they could
recognize their colleagues' playing, that did not make them
sound like a generic orchestra, without the real identity of their
sound preserved.

On the other hand, people who did not know what the orchestra
sounded like and did not care but wanted the recording
to sound the way commercial recordings are usually messed
with to sound were not impressed or interested so much.

There is a deep gulf between people who listen for what they
want (usually a kind of commercial artificial generic  sound) and
what really happens in the actual event.

We were trying in all cases to get the latter. And I think
we did to the extent that that is possible.

I do not particularly like the Academy of Music acoustically.
Too dry for me. But I spent a lot of time there and learned
its sound well. Listen to the recording and there it is.
Love it or not, it is what was there, to a surprising extent.

In short, the recording of reality via Blumlein really works
if you do it well. Whether people want the reality is another
story. It seems that mostly the people that experience the
reality often enough to recognize it really want it.
Others just want something that sounds like everything else they
listen to. Or at least many of them do.

Not all however. Arnie Nudell, founder of Infinity, for example
called the WaterLily Mahler 5 "a benchmark for all future orchestral
recording".  Depend on who you ask, I guess.

Robert

On Mon, 2 Apr 2012, Robert Greene wrote:



Sorry you don't like it. Apparently you do not like
the sound of the St Petersburg orchestra since of
course we did absolutely nothing to alter the balances.

Maybe you have never heard them, or maybe you are used
to hearing recordings that boost the violins up by
miking them separately(which lots of recordings do).
Brass instruments are way loud.
They do tend to drown out the violins in reality.
I should know: I am a violinist in a professional orchestra
and when the brass blasts away, yes, we violinists feel
drowned out and are.
Moreover, the trumpets in St Petersburg
sit out front. So they are close to the audience.


Meanwhile, this is seventh row. The trumpets are in fact
loud there. It is the style of the orchestra. Take it or leave
it--but it is surely not the fault of the recording.

But in the Adagietto , there are no such problems if problems
they seem to you. If you do not like that,,,well, breathes there
a man with soul so dead...


The balance  was not
up to us. We just recorded what Temirkanv  and his musicians produced.
That was the idea--the real sound, something that of course
is seldom found in recordings.

As to not liking the surround, I could hardly disagree more.
I think it sounds dandy and very realistic. One gets a lot of ambience and
cannot hear the rear channels as separate sources--which is a lot
more than one can say for most surround orchestral recordings.
To my ears, modesty aside, on an accurate system, the surround version
sounds more like a real orchestral concert than any other
recording I am aware of. I just love it, even if I do say so
myself.

But leaving the surround aside, the stereo balance is what was there.
How do you imagine we could have changed it since the stereo
is just the unaltered Blumlein feed? If you do not
like the balance, complain to Maestro Temirkanov. Not that
I suppose he will be very interested...

Robert

On Mon, 2 Apr 2012, David Pickett wrote:


At 12:42 02/04/2012, Robert Greene wrote:


Incidentally you do not need to build a concert
hall to record at one point. Try the WaterLily/St Petersburg/
Mahler 5 recording--pure Blumlein, sounds wonderful
(conflict of interest statement: I did the surround
sound part of this myself. But the stereo alone sounds
great--and one can definitely hear the violas).


Much as I am an adherent of pure Blumlein (and dislike the sound of ORTF), 
and have made several CDs using a single figure of eight pair, I cannot

Re: [Sursound] Can anyone help with my dissertation please?

2012-04-02 Thread Robert Greene



Sorry you don't like it. Apparently you do not like
the sound of the St Petersburg orchestra since of
course we did absolutely nothing to alter the balances.

Maybe you have never heard them, or maybe you are used
to hearing recordings that boost the violins up by
miking them separately(which lots of recordings do).
 Brass instruments are way loud.
They do tend to drown out the violins in reality.
I should know: I am a violinist in a professional orchestra
and when the brass blasts away, yes, we violinists feel
drowned out and are.
Moreover, the trumpets in St Petersburg
sit out front. So they are close to the audience.


Meanwhile, this is seventh row. The trumpets are in fact
loud there. It is the style of the orchestra. Take it or leave
it--but it is surely not the fault of the recording.

But in the Adagietto , there are no such problems if problems
they seem to you. If you do not like that,,,well, breathes there
a man with soul so dead...


The balance  was not
up to us. We just recorded what Temirkanv  and his musicians produced.
That was the idea--the real sound, something that of course
is seldom found in recordings.

As to not liking the surround, I could hardly disagree more.
I think it sounds dandy and very realistic. One gets a lot of ambience and
cannot hear the rear channels as separate sources--which is a lot
more than one can say for most surround orchestral recordings.
To my ears, modesty aside, on an accurate system, the surround version
sounds more like a real orchestral concert than any other
recording I am aware of. I just love it, even if I do say so
myself.

But leaving the surround aside, the stereo balance is what was there.
How do you imagine we could have changed it since the stereo
is just the unaltered Blumlein feed? If you do not
like the balance, complain to Maestro Temirkanov. Not that
I suppose he will be very interested...

Robert

On Mon, 2 Apr 2012, David Pickett wrote:


At 12:42 02/04/2012, Robert Greene wrote:


Incidentally you do not need to build a concert
hall to record at one point. Try the WaterLily/St Petersburg/
Mahler 5 recording--pure Blumlein, sounds wonderful
(conflict of interest statement: I did the surround
sound part of this myself. But the stereo alone sounds
great--and one can definitely hear the violas).


Much as I am an adherent of pure Blumlein (and dislike the sound of ORTF), 
and have made several CDs using a single figure of eight pair, I cannot enjoy 
this recording.  One can hear indeed the violas, but I can hear them on most 
recordings: Mahler is a great orchestrator.  But I hear on this recording the 
timpani and brass frequently drowning out the violins.  The accompanying 
booklet ("A note on the recording")  has three pages which shed little light 
on how the recording was made and there is a long list of playback equipment, 
which would seem irrelevant to the listener at home, unless the implication 
is that I need identical gear to hear the recording properly.  If only two 
Pearl ELM 30 microphones were used, how were the rear channels, which seem to 
me to add little to the experience, derived?  Should I in fact be listening 
to the 5.1 output of the SACD or the stereo output?


David

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Re: [Sursound] Can anyone help with my dissertation please?

2012-04-02 Thread Robert Greene



This is to my mind one of the basic problems of home audio--
the floor reflection, to have it or not.
Some speakers do, most do in fact.
But some do not, e.g. large line sources or
large vertical planar radiators.
This means that in effect one has two
quite different kinds of sound generated
by speakers, depending on which type of speaker
you use. (To be more precise, the floor reflection
of the line sources become integral with the
direct sound. It is still there but it
extends the line source "viirtually" through
the floor --and through the ceilling if it
is a true floor to ceilling speaker. And of course
in higher frequencies the vertical directivity is so
large that the floor reflection is almost nonexistent
anyway).

Stereo is really an odd thing--that it works so
well in listening terms is a tribute to the
eaqr/brain's power of interpretation since in
actuality what arrives at the listening position
 is rather strange in literal terms.

Robert


On Tue, 3 Apr 2012, J?rn Nettingsmeier wrote:


On 04/02/2012 06:33 PM, Ronald C.F. Antony wrote:


On 2 Apr 2012, at 17:57, Eero Aro  wrote:


Because Nimbus Records devoted themselves strictly to one point
miking, they didn't record any operas, as the singers, choir and the
orchestra are scattered in a large area and you cannot get a good
balance with one point miking.


Sorry, that's bogus. When I go to the Opera, I sit at ONE SPOT.
IF there's anything as a good seat in the opera house in question, where 
people in the audience can listen to a well balanced live performance, then 
that means there is a spot for single-point recording.


If that's not possible, there's something wrong with the microphone, 
recording methodology, or both.


a) putting a microphone into the audience is pretty much impossible for live 
situations, unless you are more interested in the respiratory functions of 
your seat neighbors than in the music. flying a soundfield high above makes 
for a nice horizontal blend of the music, but gives irritating height 
information.


b) the listening room acoustics need to be factored into the equation. which 
is why the usual approach is to get the microphones way high, and to record 
in really large rooms - you are shifting the early reflections into a range 
where they are not perceived as coloration, but as echoes. a "best seat in 
the audience" kind of recording has its own set of coloring early reflections 
already, and it is very sensitive to listening room influence. (i guess the 
reason is our brain can sort out one set of ERs as "natural" and work around 
the coloration, but not two sets.)



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Re: [Sursound] Can anyone help with my dissertation please?

2012-04-02 Thread Jörn Nettingsmeier


On 04/02/2012 06:33 PM, Ronald C.F. Antony wrote:


On 2 Apr 2012, at 17:57, Eero Aro  wrote:


Because Nimbus Records devoted themselves strictly to one point
miking, they didn't record any operas, as the singers, choir and the
orchestra are scattered in a large area and you cannot get a good
balance with one point miking.


Sorry, that's bogus. When I go to the Opera, I sit at ONE SPOT.
IF there's anything as a good seat in the opera house in question, where people 
in the audience can listen to a well balanced live performance, then that means 
there is a spot for single-point recording.



If that's not possible, there's something wrong with the microphone, recording 
methodology, or both.


a) putting a microphone into the audience is pretty much impossible for 
live situations, unless you are more interested in the respiratory 
functions of your seat neighbors than in the music. flying a soundfield 
high above makes for a nice horizontal blend of the music, but gives 
irritating height information.


b) the listening room acoustics need to be factored into the equation. 
which is why the usual approach is to get the microphones way high, and 
to record in really large rooms - you are shifting the early reflections 
into a range where they are not perceived as coloration, but as echoes. 
a "best seat in the audience" kind of recording has its own set of 
coloring early reflections already, and it is very sensitive to 
listening room influence. (i guess the reason is our brain can sort out 
one set of ERs as "natural" and work around the coloration, but not two 
sets.)



--
Jörn Nettingsmeier
Lortzingstr. 11, 45128 Essen, Tel. +49 177 7937487

Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik (Bühne/Studio)
Tonmeister VDT

http://stackingdwarves.net

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Re: [Sursound] Can anyone help with my dissertation please?

2012-04-02 Thread David Pickett


At 12:42 02/04/2012, Robert Greene wrote:


Incidentally you do not need to build a concert
hall to record at one point. Try the WaterLily/St Petersburg/
Mahler 5 recording--pure Blumlein, sounds wonderful
(conflict of interest statement: I did the surround
sound part of this myself. But the stereo alone sounds
great--and one can definitely hear the violas).


Much as I am an adherent of pure Blumlein (and dislike the sound of 
ORTF), and have made several CDs using a single figure of eight pair, 
I cannot enjoy this recording.  One can hear indeed the violas, but I 
can hear them on most recordings: Mahler is a great 
orchestrator.  But I hear on this recording the timpani and brass 
frequently drowning out the violins.  The accompanying booklet ("A 
note on the recording")  has three pages which shed little light on 
how the recording was made and there is a long list of playback 
equipment, which would seem irrelevant to the listener at home, 
unless the implication is that I need identical gear to hear the 
recording properly.  If only two Pearl ELM 30 microphones were used, 
how were the rear channels, which seem to me to add little to the 
experience, derived?  Should I in fact be listening to the 5.1 output 
of the SACD or the stereo output?


David

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[Sursound] To all, RE: Dissertation

2012-04-02 Thread Cara Gleeson

Wow what an amazing response! Thank you to you all, have been up for hours
reading your links and exploring your comments.
Absolutely agree Geoffrey that my working title needs clarity and focus.
Thank you to all for your help.
More information welcome...fascinating stuff!

Much appreciated,

Cara
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[Sursound] Transient time differences

2012-04-02 Thread JEFF SILBERMAN

--- On Mon, 4/2/12, Eric Benjamin  wrote:

> Don't take this to mean that I don't like ORTF recordings. 
> I do like them.  The 
> best stereo recording that I have ever made was an ORTF
> recording. But then, I'm 
> not a very good recording engineer.  I think that one of
> the reasons that I like 
> ORTF is that it introduces an artificial spaciousness which
> may compensate for 
> the spaciousness that is lost in stereo reproduction.

I think you might find that this lost sense of spaciousness (IACC) is 
attributable to 60-degree stereophony.  Three-speaker stereophony (Trifield 
decoded) with the left/right loudspeakers subtending a 90 degree arc does not 
suffer from a lack of spaciousness thus obviating the need to create artificial 
spaciousness a la spaced-omnis in order to compensate for 60-degree stereophony.
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[Sursound] Transient time differences

2012-04-02 Thread JEFF SILBERMAN

--- On Mon, 4/2/12, Eric Benjamin  wrote:

> In subsequent thinking about his question it occurs to me
> that the plausibility, 
> not of the signals in the recording but of acoustic signals
> that enter the 
> listener's ears, is an important indicator of whether the
> listener finds the 
> reproduction to be realistic or not.  If our ears receive a
> large number of cues 
> that are wrong, or at least implausible, then the
> reproduction is unrealistic.

I would hasten to add visual cues as well. Seeing a small listening room and 
observing loudspeakers interferes with the creation of the illusion.  Listening 
in a pitch black room (no light whatsoever!), as silly as it may seem, is 
imperative to create the suspension of disbelief. Try it!
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Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music

2012-04-02 Thread Marc Lavallée

Two weeks ago, I saw a performance of Répons by Boulez. It was a
canadian première, 30 years after its creation. The audience surrounded
the orchestra, and six percussion instruments surrounded the audience,
along with 6 speakers. It was happening in a very large room (an old
boat factory), so there was an incredible mix of close and distant
sounds. I saw many other concerts with instruments and sounds
surrounding the audience, with music from John Cage, Terry Riley,
Steve Reich, and even Schubert. It may not be common, but it does
exist, so we should expect some more surround recordings in a not so
distant future. One of the most interesting 5.0 recordings I heard is
the Virtual Haydn project, that recreates the acoustic experience of
small concert halls of the 18th century. 

David Pickett  a écrit:

> At 10:34 02/04/2012, Robert Greene wrote:
> >It may be old but it is still all but universal
> >in acoustic concert music.
> >I think it is disingenuous to say that it is not.
> >How many symphony concerts have you been to
> >recently where the orchestra surrounded the audience.
> >The other way around, sure.
> >But I think this is just not true, that music
> >with the musicians around the audience is common.
> >Not in the statistical sense of percentage of
> >concerts where it happens.
> 
> We are not talking about concerts, but about recordings...  Why 
> should one imitate the other?  And as far as most symphony concerts 
> in the USA go, they as close to a 19th century artform as one could
> imagine.
> 
> David
> 
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-- 
"Tous les hommes prennent les limites de leur champ visuel pour les
limites du monde." Arthur Schopenhauer
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Re: [Sursound] Can anyone help with my dissertation please?

2012-04-02 Thread David Pickett


At 11:33 02/04/2012, Ronald C.F. Antony wrote:
>On 2 Apr 2012, at 17:57, Eero Aro  wrote:
>
>> Because Nimbus Records devoted themselves strictly to one point
>> miking, they didn't record any operas, as the singers, choir and the
>> orchestra are scattered in a large area and you cannot get a good
>> balance with one point miking.
>
>Sorry, that's bogus. When I go to the Opera, I sit at ONE SPOT.
>IF there's anything as a good seat in the opera house in question,
>where people in the audience can listen to a well balanced live
>performance, then that means there is a spot for single-point recording.

I made a recording with a Blumlein fig-8 pair of a performance of 
Rheingold in an opera house some years ago and it sounded very well balanced.


David

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Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music

2012-04-02 Thread David Pickett


At 10:34 02/04/2012, Robert Greene wrote:

It may be old but it is still all but universal
in acoustic concert music.
I think it is disingenuous to say that it is not.
How many symphony concerts have you been to
recently where the orchestra surrounded the audience.
The other way around, sure.
But I think this is just not true, that music
with the musicians around the audience is common.
Not in the statistical sense of percentage of
concerts where it happens.


We are not talking about concerts, but about recordings...  Why 
should one imitate the other?  And as far as most symphony concerts 
in the USA go, they as close to a 19th century artform as one could imagine.


David

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Re: [Sursound] Transient time differences

2012-04-02 Thread Robert Greene



Well, don't get the idea that I do not like Blumlein.
My once(actually twice as it happened) in a lifetime
chance to record major orchestras with Kavi Alexander
in charge, we did use Blumlein.
And ORTF sounds a little colored as to timbre to me
(we have some recordings made with identical mike placements
but the two methods, though this is hardly a theoretical
test since the mikes themselves are of necessity different).

But I have always been told as "conventional wisdom" that ORTF
gets the time of arrival right in a way that Blumlein does not.
And I always regarded the choice as a tradeoff--absolutely spot
on timbre with Blumlein versus correct space with ORTF.
But maybe this is wrong!

If things work up to 6k, that would surely alter the viewpoint.

I await this with interest. I would also be interested to see
the calculations that would explain why ORTF comes out
a bit colored, at least to my ears.

Robert

On Mon, 2 Apr 2012, Eric Benjamin wrote:


I can't answer the question precisely without either doing an experiment or by
doing many hours of calculations.  But one thing to consider is that the
Blumlein recording won't fail to produce correct ITDs at frequencies above 700
Hz.  At least, not theoretically.  I can demonstrate by calculations using a
good head model that the ITDs continue to be correct up to some relatively high
frequency, say up to 6 kHz.  I have the calculations already done to demonstrate
that is works for an Ambisonic system. 


But one of the differences between theory and practice is that the listener
won't necessarily be exactly at the sweet spot.  That is to say, if the listener
shifts 10 cm to the left then he has undone the 'correct' time differentials
provided by the ORTF system. 


Don't take this to mean that I don't like ORTF recordings.  I do like them.  The
best stereo recording that I have ever made was an ORTF recording. But then, I'm
not a very good recording engineer.  I think that one of the reasons that I like
ORTF is that it introduces an artificial spaciousness which may compensate for
the spaciousness that is lost in stereo reproduction.

I will do some calculations on ORTF stereo so that I can understand it better.



- Original Message 
From: Robert Greene 
To: Surround Sound discussion group 
Sent: Mon, April 2, 2012 1:44:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Sursound] Transient time differences


Thanks for the information.
But here is my question in more precise form:
Suppose you do a recording with ORTF(which
of course has its own set of problems).
Suppose you record a source that is say 15 degrees
left of center. and that the source is a pistol shot(an impulse).
Now the impulse will arrive at the left mike before
it arrives at the right mike. The time difference
is the same more or less as it would be for
a dummy head recording since the distance between
the mikes is the same (more or less) as the distance
between the listeners ears(or the dummy head ears).
On playback, the impulse will also arrive at the
left ear the same amount of time before the right ear--
as far as the high frequencies are concerned. Namely
they are heavily shadowed  by the head so that the arrival
at the left ear first is blocked from the right ear,
and the right ear hears only the right speaker.
This is in the highs.

Below around 700 Hz, Blumlein would have put the
phase shifts right and that part of time would
be there.

But the head shadowed part , the high frequency
part, is right for ORTF but wrong for Blumlein--
the direct arrival of the high frequency part of
the impulse as recorded in Blumlein is simultaneous
in the two speakers(as is everything) but there
is no reconstruction via head effect because the
head effect is essentially total shadowing.

Of course there is some head shadowing in the real
world, too. But 15 degrees off to one side is not
enough to block the highs so completely as  45 degrees
(or 30 degrees).

So there is some range of angles where the timing
is off because of the greater shadowing(almost complete)
from the wide speaker separation is not representing
the real situation.

Is this wrong? This is not my private theory.
I think Blumlein was aware of this, and I
known other people have mentioned it.

Maybe is does not really matter, but it seems
real enough.
(I believe it is known that time delays in the
high frequencies play a role in location)

Robert

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Re: [Sursound] Transient time differences

2012-04-02 Thread Eric Benjamin

I can't answer the question precisely without either doing an experiment or by 
doing many hours of calculations.  But one thing to consider is that the 
Blumlein recording won't fail to produce correct ITDs at frequencies above 700 
Hz.  At least, not theoretically.  I can demonstrate by calculations using a 
good head model that the ITDs continue to be correct up to some relatively high 
frequency, say up to 6 kHz.  I have the calculations already done to 
demonstrate 
that is works for an Ambisonic system.  


But one of the differences between theory and practice is that the listener 
won't necessarily be exactly at the sweet spot.  That is to say, if the 
listener 
shifts 10 cm to the left then he has undone the 'correct' time differentials 
provided by the ORTF system.  


Don't take this to mean that I don't like ORTF recordings.  I do like them.  
The 
best stereo recording that I have ever made was an ORTF recording. But then, 
I'm 
not a very good recording engineer.  I think that one of the reasons that I 
like 
ORTF is that it introduces an artificial spaciousness which may compensate for 
the spaciousness that is lost in stereo reproduction.

I will do some calculations on ORTF stereo so that I can understand it better.



- Original Message 
From: Robert Greene 
To: Surround Sound discussion group 
Sent: Mon, April 2, 2012 1:44:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Sursound] Transient time differences


Thanks for the information.
But here is my question in more precise form:
Suppose you do a recording with ORTF(which
of course has its own set of problems).
Suppose you record a source that is say 15 degrees
left of center. and that the source is a pistol shot(an impulse).
Now the impulse will arrive at the left mike before
it arrives at the right mike. The time difference
is the same more or less as it would be for
a dummy head recording since the distance between
the mikes is the same (more or less) as the distance
between the listeners ears(or the dummy head ears).
On playback, the impulse will also arrive at the
left ear the same amount of time before the right ear--
as far as the high frequencies are concerned. Namely
they are heavily shadowed  by the head so that the arrival
at the left ear first is blocked from the right ear,
and the right ear hears only the right speaker.
This is in the highs.

Below around 700 Hz, Blumlein would have put the
phase shifts right and that part of time would
be there.

But the head shadowed part , the high frequency
part, is right for ORTF but wrong for Blumlein--
the direct arrival of the high frequency part of
the impulse as recorded in Blumlein is simultaneous
in the two speakers(as is everything) but there
is no reconstruction via head effect because the
head effect is essentially total shadowing.

Of course there is some head shadowing in the real
world, too. But 15 degrees off to one side is not
enough to block the highs so completely as  45 degrees
(or 30 degrees).

So there is some range of angles where the timing
is off because of the greater shadowing(almost complete)
from the wide speaker separation is not representing
the real situation.

Is this wrong? This is not my private theory.
I think Blumlein was aware of this, and I
known other people have mentioned it.

Maybe is does not really matter, but it seems
real enough.
(I believe it is known that time delays in the
high frequencies play a role in location)

Robert

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Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music

2012-04-02 Thread Newmedia

Ronald:

> I tend to disagree, because there is a difference between technology and
content.

Ah but we AGREE! Sorry to be (partly) cliched here but consider the
*full* statement -- "the medium is the message . . . and the USER is the
content"!

That second part is almost always left off -- because it doesn't work as a
"slogan" and can't be so easily "mass-marketed" (literally).

What it means is just that WE are changed by the technologies that we use
*regardless* of the "content."

It is the process of using/participating in-and-with these new technologies
that changes our behaviors and attitudes -- as once happened with books,
and then with radio/television and now with the Internet (and many other
technologies along the way) -- which then changes what is possible in the
"market."

We are all changed by becoming Internet-savvy and computer-literate --
compared to the "average" person of our interests and aptitudes from the
1950s/60s.

It is those changes in US that makes the notion of introducing a *new*
living-room type of audio reproduction with mass-market appeal so completely
implausible today.

No whiz-bang demos will make any difference! Ambisonics is what people
are doing on this list and that's just as it should be -- PLAYING with
*sound* with our friends!

Mark Stahlman
Brooklyn NY

In a message dated 4/2/2012 4:22:15 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
r...@cubiculum.com writes:

On 2 Apr 2012, at 20:53, newme...@aol.com wrote:

> But, in the context of this list and this thread, these "larger forces"
> must also be taken into account -- which, ultimately, lead to the
perfectly
> understandable reasons why Ambisonics could never and should never
become a
> "mass-market" technology.

I tend to disagree, because there is a difference between technology and
content.
I totally agree that content mass-market is ever less dominant, because
the digital age allows for efficient internetworking of sub-cultures, and
therefore their ability of carving out niches that collectively eat away at
once dominant mass-culture.

However, just as much as MP3 and ripping of audio destroyed the
mass-market of LP/CD sales, the massmarket of MP3 players and MP3 files still
was
created. Ambisonics would have the role of MP3, not the role of prerecorded
music sales from record stores.

The key thing would be to get a major player to include Ambisonics in
their line up, and that isn't happening as long as the purists bitch and whine
about how at least 2nd, better 3rd order Ambisonics is a must, because the
complexities and channel count just don't justify the effort given that
there is no proven demand.

Something like UHJ, except for being tied to CDs, and G-Format (with an
ability to extract B-Format for transcoding into different speaker layouts,
but en inherent 5.1 compatibility) are the only meaningful choices when
attempting to popularize Ambisonics, but both of these are sneered at by the
very experts that would have to be cooperating with industry heavyweights to
get things off the ground.

For these reasons, snobbery and academic purity, Ambisonics won't go
anywhere in the next three decades, unless there's a major shift in attitude.

Some people still don't understand that one doesn't feed a baby with a
steak. Get things going, and when there's a certain amount of market
penetration and people start noticing limitations THEN you can tell them about
2nd
and 3rd order, because by then the concept has sunk in and people say: I
want the better version of what I already have.

Did Apple wait until they can ship a universal LTE Retina-Display iPhone
and iPad? No, we're on the fifth generation iPhone, and still not there. But
some people here are not interested in any solution unless it's a perfect
solution, and that unrealistic thinking is the biggest roadblock to
progress.

And then, of course, another problem with Ambisonics is, that it's
British...
...and the entertainment industry is US-American, and consumer electronics
(aside from Apple) is Japanese-Korean, made in China/Vietnam.

Ronald

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Re: [Sursound] Transient time differences

2012-04-02 Thread Robert Greene



Thanks for the information.
But here is my question in more precise form:
Suppose you do a recording with ORTF(which
of course has its own set of problems).
Suppose you record a source that is say 15 degrees
left of center. and that the source is a pistol shot(an impulse).
Now the impulse will arrive at the left mike before
it arrives at the right mike. The time difference
is the same more or less as it would be for
a dummy head recording since the distance between
the mikes is the same (more or less) as the distance
between the listeners ears(or the dummy head ears).
On playback, the impulse will also arrive at the
left ear the same amount of time before the right ear--
as far as the high frequencies are concerned. Namely
they are heavily shadowed  by the head so that the arrival
at the left ear first is blocked from the right ear,
and the right ear hears only the right speaker.
This is in the highs.

Below around 700 Hz, Blumlein would have put the
phase shifts right and that part of time would
be there.

But the head shadowed part , the high frequency
part, is right for ORTF but wrong for Blumlein--
the direct arrival of the high frequency part of
the impulse as recorded in Blumlein is simultaneous
in the two speakers(as is everything) but there
is no reconstruction via head effect because the
head effect is essentially total shadowing.

Of course there is some head shadowing in the real
world, too. But 15 degrees off to one side is not
enough to block the highs so completely as  45 degrees
(or 30 degrees).

So there is some range of angles where the timing
is off because of the greater shadowing(almost complete)
from the wide speaker separation is not representing
the real situation.

Is this wrong? This is not my private theory.
I think Blumlein was aware of this, and I
known other people have mentioned it.

Maybe is does not really matter, but it seems
real enough.
(I believe it is known that time delays in the
high frequencies play a role in location)

Robert

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Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music

2012-04-02 Thread Ronald C.F. Antony

On 2 Apr 2012, at 20:53, newme...@aol.com wrote:

> But, in the context of this list and this thread, these "larger forces"  
> must also be taken into account -- which, ultimately, lead to the perfectly  
> understandable reasons why Ambisonics could never and should never become a  
> "mass-market" technology.

I tend to disagree, because there is a difference between technology and 
content.
I totally agree that content mass-market is ever less dominant, because the 
digital age allows for efficient internetworking of sub-cultures, and therefore 
their ability of carving out niches that collectively eat away at once dominant 
mass-culture.

However, just as much as MP3 and ripping of audio destroyed the mass-market of 
LP/CD sales, the massmarket of MP3 players and MP3 files still was created. 
Ambisonics would have the role of MP3, not the role of prerecorded music sales 
from record stores.

The key thing would be to get a major player to include Ambisonics in their 
line up, and that isn't happening as long as the purists bitch and whine about 
how at least 2nd, better 3rd order Ambisonics is a must, because the 
complexities and channel count just don't justify the effort given that there 
is no proven demand.

Something like UHJ, except for being tied to CDs, and G-Format (with an ability 
to extract B-Format for transcoding into different speaker layouts, but en 
inherent 5.1 compatibility) are the only meaningful choices when attempting to 
popularize Ambisonics, but both of these are sneered at by the very experts 
that would have to be cooperating with industry heavyweights to get things off 
the ground.

For these reasons, snobbery and academic purity, Ambisonics won't go anywhere 
in the next three decades, unless there's a major shift in attitude.

Some people still don't understand that one doesn't feed a baby with a steak. 
Get things going, and when there's a certain amount of market penetration and 
people start noticing limitations THEN you can tell them about 2nd and 3rd 
order, because by then the concept has sunk in and people say: I want the 
better version of what I already have.

Did Apple wait until they can ship a universal LTE Retina-Display iPhone and 
iPad? No, we're on the fifth generation iPhone, and still not there. But some 
people here are not interested in any solution unless it's a perfect solution, 
and that unrealistic thinking is the biggest roadblock to progress.

And then, of course, another problem with Ambisonics is, that it's British...
...and the entertainment industry is US-American, and consumer electronics 
(aside from Apple) is Japanese-Korean, made in China/Vietnam.

Ronald

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Re: [Sursound] Can anyone help with my dissertation please?

2012-04-02 Thread Paul Hodges


--On 02 April 2012 12:01 -0700 Aaron Heller  wrote:


Anyway, I put some files at


As a reminder, all my files from Ambisonia, and all of John Leonard's, can 
be downloaded from:


I've added a couple, and plan to add more soon.

Paul

--
Paul Hodges


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Re: [Sursound] Can anyone help with my dissertation please?

2012-04-02 Thread Aaron Heller

Sorry I got bogged down in technical details.  Thanks for pointing
that out to me.

What I should have said was that every recording on Ambisonia (~250,
iirc) was available as a file that could be downloaded, burnt to CD,
and played on a plain old 5.1 home theater system -- presumably just
the kind that you, Neil, his work mates have, and many others have.
No special playback setup needed.  Same set of skills and computer set
up that were needed to get files with Napster and make CDs from them.
I seem to recall that plenty of people were able to do that.

Anyway, I put some files at

   http://ambisonics.dreamhosters.com/DTS/

There are a few more and some discussion at

   http://www.ambisonic.net/decodes.html

If needed, some instructions for burning and playing are on pages
10-13 of the SurCode manual

   
http://www.minnetonkaaudio.com/info/PDFs/Manuals/SurCode%20DTS%20CD%20Manual.pdf


Let me know what you hear...

Aaron




On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 8:25 AM, Robert Greene  wrote:
>
>  "All you need to do is..," is the end of the line here.
> Commercially, you might as well try to sell  a car
> where all you need to do to start it is to type
> in a ten digit code, sing Mary had a little lamb three times,
> and notify the post office.
> No one is going to go through this sort of thing in
> the statistical sense of no one.
> Most people do not even know what these words mean
> "RIFF/WAV file ,4.0 decode etc"
> Why would they want to find out?
> Robert
>
>
> On Sun, 1 Apr 2012, Aaron Heller wrote:
>
>> Um.  Every single recording on Ambisonia was available as a
>> DTS-CD RIFF/WAV file of a 4.0 decode (that is, Center and LFE were
>> silent).  All one needed to do was burn them to a CD and play in a DVD
>> player connected to a 5.1 home theater set up.   See Richard Elen's
>> article "Getting Ambisonics Around" for the technical details of the
>> process.  http://www.ambisonic.net/pdf/ambisonics_around.pdf
>>
>> I know there were several hundred downloads of my recordings in that
>> format -- Stravinsky, Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, recorded with my
>> Soundfield MkIV for NPR's Performance Today.
>>
>> --
>> Aaron Heller 
>> Menlo Park, CA  US
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 1, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Neil Waterman
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> I agree totally with Robert here.
>>>
>>> Most of my work mates have 5.1 set-ups at home, but would never be
>>> bothered
>>> to have anything that required more thought, so bring on the 5.1 mixes of
>>> ambisonic source material and at least let the masses get a listen.
>>>
>>> Cheers, Neil
>>>
>>>
>>> On 4/1/2012 6:44 PM, Robert Greene wrote:



 I don't think anyone thinks that! What people do think
 is that Ambisonics needs some sort of commercial accesibility--
 which it could get if discs were put out that provided not
 abstract Ambisonics as it were but Ambisonics as decoded
 to the 5.1 set up. The message was that no one (statistically speaking)
 in the "real world" wants anything that requires thought
 and effort.
 Given that Ambisonics can be decoded to any speaker setup
 (even if the result is not idea), why are there no
 5.1 SACDs that show how Ambisonics works on a 5.1 setup?
 One cannot expect people to be interested in something they
 cannot hear in demo form
 Robert

 On Sun, 1 Apr 2012, Augustine Leudar wrote:

> again to anyone who says things like "ambisonics cant compete with 5.1
> please bear in mind this is like saying "amplitude panning can't
> compete with 5.1 - it doesnt make any sense at all. You mix your
> tracks horizontally ,without elevation, using ambisonics plugins and
> burn your ac3/dts file like any other surround mix. Ambisonics is an
> approach to creating a soundfield it does not require any special
> hardware it can be done with software. The new 22.4 (or something)
> sound systems that cinemas are launching soon will allow height
> information as well. You could mix a lot of films using ambisonics
> when this happens.
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Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music

2012-04-02 Thread Newmedia

Robert:
 
> This sounds plausible except that it is clearly completely
>  wrong. Hunger Games has grossed about one quarter billion
> dollars in a  few weeks worldwide. Don't talk about small
> taking over!

But it has -- in the way that the NEW always "takes over" from the OLD by  
*displacing* it in our culture . . . just as the radio-in-the-parlor took 
over  from the player piano in the 1920s.
 
People still read books (some, like me, even "collect" them) even though  
(of because) they were already in sharp decline as the underpinning for 
culture  by the late 1800s.
 
The *massive* declines in "physical music" sales, the peaking-and-decline  
in DVD sales and the overall decline of movie box office, despite (or  
because of) increasing prices and 3D gimmicks all tell the same story -- MASS  
MEDIA no longer dominates the "market" or, more importantly, our thoughts.
 
We are now 20+ years into the cultural impact of NETWORKING and 40 years  
past the initial deployment of the *integrated circuits* which introduced a  
unheard-of scalability into economics.  Three's no turning back.
 
DIGITAL is . . . different!
 
Examples of the sort you mention are well understood as the highlights of  
that *decline* by those inside the movie/music/entertainment industries and 
few  have any interest in resisting these trends -- hoping, in many cases, 
to retire  before it gets too bad.
 
But, in the context of this list and this thread, these "larger forces"  
must also be taken into account -- which, ultimately, lead to the perfectly  
understandable reasons why Ambisonics could never and should never become a  
"mass-market" technology.
 
Mark Stahlman
Brooklyn NY
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Re: [Sursound] Can anyone help with my dissertation please?

2012-04-02 Thread Ronald C.F. Antony

On 2 Apr 2012, at 18:21, Robert Greene  wrote:

> One really gets the strong impression that the Ambisonics
> community has never seriously tried for public attention,
> and perhaps did not even want it.

The ambisonic community was always obsessed with perfection (N-th order stuff 
with zillion channels etc.) rather than realizing that even flawed 1st order 
Ambisonics create a more realistic ambience than all the other surround junk 
out there, and that nobody (in the statistical sense) goes and does A-B 
comparisons of the real event and the recording, and complains that the trumpet 
sounds like 25 degree to the left when it was only 18 degrees to the left.

As far as I'm concerned: I like the clarity of single point recordings, and the 
envelopment of realistic ambience. That covers more then 90% of what I want 
from Ambisonics, and it does that better than just about anything else I've 
heard, even in first order.

The problem is, the people who know enough about Ambisonics are busy doing 3rd 
and higher order stuff in some university labs, and the people who might get 
realistic 1st order stuff productized know nothing about it, and when they are 
curious, they are told by the lab purists "You need at least third order to do 
this properly" at which point they quickly look at the number of recording 
channels and playback speakers required and toss any further consideration of 
Ambisonics over board.

And that's IMO where Ambisonics is stuck for a long time.

Ronald
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[Sursound] Transient time differences

2012-04-02 Thread Eric Benjamin

Since this has moved away from the point of the original query and to a 
technical issue, I'm starting a new thread.  Please forgive me if I get a bit 
pedantic here.  I'm still concerned that you mean something different by 
"transient time of arrival differences" than I do by ITDs.

I'll repeat my assertion that time of arrival differences only exist at the 
point of a listener hearing the sound.  If there is a violin playing on stage, 
slightly to the right of center, the sound generated by the violin arrives at 
the point occupied by the listener all at the same time.  The listener locates 
the violin largely by the fact that his ears are at two different places, and 
those places have different times of arrival.  What we are concerned with is 
the 
sounds (ear signals) that the listener hears when he is listening to the 
reproduced sound.  


Stereo, and now I need to state explicitly that I mean ordinary intensity 
stereo 
as embodied in Blumlein recording, is a sort of coding and decoding system.  
The 
microphone array codes the direction of sound arrival by different intensities 
in the two channels.  Those two channels are mapped to two spaced loudspeakers 
and it is the way in which those sounds are combined in the reproduction venue 
that results in the listener's perception of location.  


I believe that the "glockenspiel effect" that you describe arises because the 
localization cues experienced by the listener are different for ITDs than for 
ILDs.  Because we primarily rely on ITDs at low frequencies and ILDs at high 
frequencies, if the reproduction system doesn't handle them in the same way 
then 
the listener experiences a disparity.  This happens in both Blumlein stereo and 
in Ambisonics.  It's just not possible to get the ILDs exactly correct, at 
least 
not with loudspeakers spaced by 60 degrees or 90 degrees.  There simply aren't 
enough degrees of freedom, not by a couple of orders of magnitude.  So the best 
that we can hope for is that the ILDs will be correct on average.  That they 
won't be worse in some directions than in others.

Think about what happens in Blumlein recording and reproduction.  If the sound 
source is on the axis of of one of the microphones then it appears exclusively 
in that channel.  It then appears exclusively in the associated loudspeaker.  
It 
sounds as though it were coming from that loudspeaker because it IS coming from 
that loudspeaker.  It the sound source is located exactly between two 
microphones then the signal appears in both channels and is reproduced 
equally by both loudspeakers.  The signals that arise at the listener's ears 
have substantial comb filtering due to the acoustic crosstalk.  Crosstalk that 
wouldn't have been there if the listener were present in the recording venue 
but 
is present for the listener in the reproduction venue.  The reproduced sound is 
more diffuse for the center image than for sounds combing from the directions 
of 
the two microphone capsules.

The difference between Blumlein and Ambisonic reproduction of the sound (here I 
am referring primarily to first order) is that both the low- and high-frequency 
cues are much more even with respect to direction.  But clearly there is a lot 
of room for improvement.

I can demonstrate that all of this works the way that I described it by doing 
an 
experiment.  We can go to the concert hall and make a series of recordings.  
Perhaps we might want to do three recordings.  One with a dummy head (we'll use 
my head.  It's available...), one with a Blumlein array, and one with a 
soundfield microphone.  We will then analyze the recorded signals from the 
dummy 
head which will give us both ITDs and ILDs as experienced by the listener 
(me).  
We then reproduce the Blumlein and Soundfield microphone recordings using an 
array of four loudspeakers.  That will gives us a 90 degree stereo pair which 
is, as I understand it, how you like to listen.  We then record the acoustic 
signals going into my ears when I'm in the sweet spot and analyze those.  The 
result that I expect is that the low-frequency ITDs will be correct and the 
high-frequency ILDs will not be correct.  And they will be more confused for 
the 
Blumlein recording than for the Soundfield recording.

Now I've actually done this for the case of Soundfield recording, although not 
as carefully or as thoroughly as I would like.  I intend to do more such 
experiments.  In particular I intend to explore what I call the plausibility of 
the recording.  Several years ago I was asked by Svein Berge how to tell if a 
particular Soundfield recording was good or not.  It took me a bit to realize 
that he was asking, not if it was aesthetically pleasing, but whether or not is 
was correct; that is, could those signals in the recorded file actually 
represent a real sound field.  And as it turned out, in some of those cases 
they 
couldn't.  Or at least they were highly implausible.

In subsequent thinking about his ques

Re: [Sursound] Can anyone help with my dissertation please?

2012-04-02 Thread Rev Tony Newnham

Hi

My now rather old and basic Surround Sound RX actually does have a setting
called "3-stereo", which presumably synthesises a centre channel from the
stereo feed.  I've never tried it - but I might give it a go next time I'm
listening to music in the lounge.  I normally either use Pro-Logic (for
general listening) or switch to Stereo if I'm listening to stereo music
only.

Every Blessing

Tony

> -Original Message-
> From: sursound-boun...@music.vt.edu [mailto:sursound-boun...@music.vt.edu]
On
> Behalf Of Robert Greene
> Sent: 02 April 2012 17:58
> To: richarddob...@blueyonder.co.uk; Surround Sound discussion group
> Subject: Re: [Sursound] Can anyone help with my dissertation please?
> 
> 
> But lots of people already have five channel systems.
> What they do not have is a Trifield processor built in to their
"receivers" to
> make stereo into three channel.
> They have other schemes to do this, but not Trifield.
> This seems to be an oversight--unless people do not feel that Trifield is
> really better?
> Robert
> 
> On Mon, 2 Apr 2012, Richard Dobson wrote:
> 
> > On 02/04/2012 17:21, Robert Greene wrote:
> > ..
> >>
> >> It is really not too late at least for Trifield. If it is really
> >> better
> >
> > how will people know? It is only a minority who bother to go to demos
> > and shows.
> >
> > , people would respond. (Actually at a Meridian demo I heard,
> >> I thought it sounded worse than stereo. For one thing, the speakers
> >> were not far enough apart so that it sounded too mono--this sort of
> >> thing does not help the cause).
> >>
> >
> >
> > Well, hmm, three speakers cost approximately 50% more than the price of
two.
> > Plus whatever extra special kit is needed. You ~might~ manage to sell
> > the idea if you can establish beyond doubt that the improvement is at
> > least that much.  It is very easy to persuade people that two speakers
> > really are more than 100% better than one. Unless the added speaker
> > produces a commensurate hike in quality over the two (and domestic
> > hifi dealers are happy to stock and sell 3.0 speaker sets), I suspect
the
> take-up will (continue to be) low.
> > This is a niche market inside a niche market.
> >
> > Richard Dobson
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Re: [Sursound] Can anyone help with my dissertation please?

2012-04-02 Thread Robert Greene



Right on! There are still people who like music
as it is, apparently. One besides me I mean.
This thing about visual cues is hoary with age.
It is also marlarkey. People do like to look
at musicians, but the sound is what counts and
the sound in the audience in a good spot is
just fine. It is what the composer and musicians
aimed at. Maybe some people do not like it,
but there it is.

Incidentally you do not need to build a concert
hall to record at one point. Try the WaterLily/St Petersburg/
Mahler 5 recording--pure Blumlein, sounds wonderful
(conflict of interest statement: I did the surround
sound part of this myself. But the stereo alone sounds
great--and one can definitely hear the violas).

Robert


On Mon, 2 Apr 2012, Ronald C.F. Antony wrote:



On 2 Apr 2012, at 19:02, Eero Aro  wrote:


Ronald C.F. Antony wrote:

for real performances, single point micing, even though not a
must, should be adequate or superior for all events that are recorded
in a venue in which a live audience is supposed to have a good
listening experience of an equivalent performance.


Ronald, the next time you go to an opera to sit in your one spot, please
keep your eyes closed during the whole opera, from beginning to the final
curtain.


Actually, most of the time I'm doing just that, same with symphonic 
performances.
I just don't give enough about seeing some fat lady acting badly, or some 
people in penguin outfits pretending to perform for the aristocracy a couple of 
hundred years ago. (And several conductors and soloists have such mannerisms 
that it's seriously distracting from their music, e.g. when Brendel was playing 
the piano I had to look away, because his grimaces were just intolerable 
regardless how genius his performance was).

Unlike a musical, when I go to classical performances, I go there for the music 
and not for the show. Needless to say, I spend the extra bucks to have a seat 
where I like it.

Of course, not everyone sits front center, and that's where your comments are 
perfectly valid, but that's also not where one would place a single point 
recording setup, unless one tries to do an undercover bootleg recording and 
can't get better seats...

Any sort of reasonable performance space, and certainly every world class 
stage, has seats where missing parts of the performance aren't an issue, 
provided nobody screws up, and that's where the recording should be made.

It also beats me, why the microphones dangle 10m above ground, when the 
audience is sitting in a chair. I want the microphone where my head would be, 
and not as if I were suspended magically in mid-air. (Well, I know why they do 
it in live setups, they want to sell more tickets... but they stick with the 
same stuff for non-live recordings.)

Ronald
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Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music

2012-04-02 Thread Robert Greene

This sounds plausible except that it is clearly completely
wrong. Hunger Games has grossed about one quarter billion
dollars in a few weeks worldwide. Don't talk about small
taking over!
Small is there, all right. But large is still there, too.
Taylor Swift's Speak Now sold over a million in the first week.
But it did not sell in Ambisonic format.

Robert

On Mon, 2 Apr 2012, newme...@aol.com wrote:

Richard:

So, what ~is~ the point of this list, exactly?

To discuss the opportunity to PLAY with *sound* with our friends in a
DIGITAL world!

Mass-markets (i.e. "programming" large numbers of people who you will
never know) come from a different era -- the "electric" media era *before*
computers came to dominate our environment.

The LIST only exists because of *computers* and so does current Ambisonics
practice. We are *digital* now and no longer *analog/electrical* , , ,

We are not in KANSAS anymore (for those not familiar with Americanisms,
this means that we live in a completely different world now from the 1920s or
1950s)!

We are so poorly equipped to understand these sorts of changes in our
environment and the impact that they have on us, that some people actually
believe that Facebook has an "audience" of 800 million people.

It doesn't. I has many, many thousands of SMALL groups (typically of
dozens to around a hundred people each), which overlap and extend in a myriad
of ways.

There is no MASS audience on Facebook -- which is why it will ultimately
fail as an advertising-driven "investment" for many who make the mistake of
not just "speculating" on its rise-and-fall.

Expecting that Ambisonics would participate in a MASS *media* phenomenon
when the world is aggressively moving *away* from ANY activities of this sort
is to fundamentally misunderstand the times in which we live.

The "failure" isn't in the Ambisonics "people" or in the "technology" --
what is happening is entirely appropriate for our times.

Small *is* BEAUTIFUL . . . so we might as well admit it and enjoy
ourselves!

Mark Stahlman
Brooklyn NY
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Re: [Sursound] Can anyone help with my dissertation please?

2012-04-02 Thread Ronald C.F. Antony

On 2 Apr 2012, at 19:02, Eero Aro  wrote:

> Ronald C.F. Antony wrote:
>> for real performances, single point micing, even though not a
>> must, should be adequate or superior for all events that are recorded
>> in a venue in which a live audience is supposed to have a good
>> listening experience of an equivalent performance.
> 
> Ronald, the next time you go to an opera to sit in your one spot, please
> keep your eyes closed during the whole opera, from beginning to the final
> curtain.

Actually, most of the time I'm doing just that, same with symphonic 
performances.
I just don't give enough about seeing some fat lady acting badly, or some 
people in penguin outfits pretending to perform for the aristocracy a couple of 
hundred years ago. (And several conductors and soloists have such mannerisms 
that it's seriously distracting from their music, e.g. when Brendel was playing 
the piano I had to look away, because his grimaces were just intolerable 
regardless how genius his performance was).

Unlike a musical, when I go to classical performances, I go there for the music 
and not for the show. Needless to say, I spend the extra bucks to have a seat 
where I like it.

Of course, not everyone sits front center, and that's where your comments are 
perfectly valid, but that's also not where one would place a single point 
recording setup, unless one tries to do an undercover bootleg recording and 
can't get better seats...

Any sort of reasonable performance space, and certainly every world class 
stage, has seats where missing parts of the performance aren't an issue, 
provided nobody screws up, and that's where the recording should be made.

It also beats me, why the microphones dangle 10m above ground, when the 
audience is sitting in a chair. I want the microphone where my head would be, 
and not as if I were suspended magically in mid-air. (Well, I know why they do 
it in live setups, they want to sell more tickets... but they stick with the 
same stuff for non-live recordings.)

Ronald
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Re: [Sursound] OT: Spatial music

2012-04-02 Thread Newmedia

Richard:

> So, what ~is~ the point of this list, exactly?