Teresa Posted October 2, 2015 Share Posted October 2, 2015 From Jonathan Scull's 1998 Stereophile interview with Jack Renner (Telarc engineer) Scull: Is the mixer tweaked in any way? Renner: We have used hot-rodded consoles. We had one that was internally wired with Monster Cable that we used for a long time. In fact, a number of years ago we were recording the Cincinnati Pops and the Monster Cable console went down—nothing to do with the fact that it was wired with Monster Cable, of course. Scull: Of course... Renner: We actually use a combination of Monster Cables and MIT. We're good friends with both Noel Lee and Bruce Brisson. Scull: Imagine... Renner: So a component failed in the middle of a session. We had a backup console from the same manufacturer, Neotek, and it took us only 10 minutes to set it up. Now understand, we've got a signal that's spent its whole life from the microphone output to the A/D going through Monster Cable. Then we switched to the console with the standard cable in it. And the minute I brought up the fader, everybody in the control room—not just my technical assistants and the producer, but the orchestra manager, the musicians who weren't in that particular number—they all said, "What did you do, what happened to the sound?" Everyone could hear that the soundstage got smaller. Everything just got a little more narrow and not quite as bloomy. If you ever needed a demonstration of the effects of high-performance cable, that was it. So my guess is that the great recording engineers obsess over sound even more than audiophiles. Problem is nowadays most recordings (other than audiophile ones) are not so good but I think that has more to do with the loudness wars rather than lack of talent. I have dementia. I save all my posts in a text file I call Forums. I do a search in that file to find out what I said or did in the past. I still love music. Teresa Link to comment
Teresa Posted December 25, 2015 Share Posted December 25, 2015 So my guess is that the great recording engineers obsess over sound even more than audiophiles. Problem is nowadays most recordings (other than audiophile ones) are not so good but I think that has more to do with the loudness wars rather than lack of talent. Having been on both sides, audiophiles are vastly more obsessive about sound quality than the pros. You did notice I said great recording engineers not recording engineers, I mean the recording engineers working for companies that make great sounding audiophile recordings from the ground up (audiophile from the microphones to the finished product). Such as Reference Recordings, MA, Wilson Audio, Sheffield Lab, Opus 3, Channel Classics, AudioQuest Music, Chesky, just to name a few. As well as the old "pre-Concord" Telarc recordings engineered by Michael Bishop, Robert Friedrich and Jack Renner. Having meet many of my favorite audiophile recording engineers in person I know they obsess over sound more than I do. YashN did you work for an audiophile label and which one? I have dementia. I save all my posts in a text file I call Forums. I do a search in that file to find out what I said or did in the past. I still love music. Teresa Link to comment
Teresa Posted December 25, 2015 Share Posted December 25, 2015 These two sites have many videos with the pros discussing gear (and techniques): - Mix with the Masters - Pensado's place / Into the Lair https://mixwiththemasters.com/videos https://m.youtube.com/user/MixWithTheMASTERS? Pensado's Place And they do trust their own ears... ...watching through the linked videos I've yet to see any audiophile niche solutions... Perhaps because none of them work for audiophile recording companies? I looked through these links and they all seem to be recording engineers who work for major and indie labels. I didn't find any audiophile recording engineers among them. I am glad that these recording engineers trust their ears. However, it is audiophile recording engineers who live or die by how realistic their recordings sound that are the ones who obsess over sound quality. And why I prefer audiophile recordings above all others for both the very talented musicians who don't require audio tricks to be great and the very enjoyable realistic sound audiophile recording engineers bring into my home. I have dementia. I save all my posts in a text file I call Forums. I do a search in that file to find out what I said or did in the past. I still love music. Teresa Link to comment
Teresa Posted December 25, 2015 Share Posted December 25, 2015 My standard for all things in life is that 95% of anything in life is crap. Holds true pretty much for anything. Same applies to pro recording engineers. I know several for local bands and the studios they use for recording and also, of course, I am observing the recording industry in general. About 5% of the recording community understands high-end principles of audio recording. This is all about using good recording equipment which bypasses as many board controls as possible, using good quality ADC, mikes, cables. Placing mikes carefully so as to remove the need for mixing board controls. The more useless gizmos on the board (pots, pans, whatever) to reduce the need for good mike placement the worse the sound. Very few recording engineers are purists avoiding useless gizmos as much as possible. Recording for most current music "stars" are as abysmal as their “music”. I agree, especially the last sentence! I have dementia. I save all my posts in a text file I call Forums. I do a search in that file to find out what I said or did in the past. I still love music. Teresa Link to comment
Teresa Posted December 26, 2015 Share Posted December 26, 2015 That's because anyone can be an audiophile. There's no prerequisite except to say you own some components and several MFSL, Audio Fidelity or Stockfisch albums...and you overpay for certain CD's (DCC) because a group of non to semi-professional knob turners on SH Forums deemed perfect. The same CD's you could re-master on Ozone 6 and make exactly to your own liking. First, you are mixing up terms, three of the four labels you mentioned (MFSL, Audio Fidelity and DCC) do not make audiophile recordings, they remaster major label and indie recordings to try to make them sound decent, they don’t always succeed, GIGO (garbage in garbage out)! Such recordings are called audiophile remasters as they didn’t make the original recording. Stockfisch makes their own recordings and are audiophile from the microphones to the finished product as are the other ones I mentioned in my previous post. …I mean the recording engineers working for companies that make great sounding audiophile recordings from the ground up (audiophile from the microphones to the finished product). Such as Reference Recordings, MA, Wilson Audio, Sheffield Lab, Opus 3, Channel Classics, AudioQuest Music, Chesky, just to name a few. As well as the old "pre-Concord" Telarc recordings engineered by Michael Bishop, Robert Friedrich and Jack Renner… You can’t magically turn a poor sounding major or indie label recording into the real thing. As I stated you must start fresh! Beginning with the selection of microphones and knowing where to place them so they sound the most realistic. Next, finding a good sounding performance area to create a realistic natural sounding recording. Using the best sounding equipment without knob fiddling, without any artificial reverb, without any EQ, and only edit to replace bum notes. One cannot use software to make a poor unnatural sounding recording sound natural. One can perhaps do what the remaster labels do, but that is all. You can’t compare the products of remaster labels to true pure audiophile labels that are audiophile from the beginning of the chain to the end product. What makes one an audiophile is not owning recordings from remaster labels but preferring natural sounding recordings and a desire to come as close to a live acoustic performance as possible within their budget. semente 1 I have dementia. I save all my posts in a text file I call Forums. I do a search in that file to find out what I said or did in the past. I still love music. Teresa Link to comment
Teresa Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 ...well here's the youtube video i went on about: i think it sounds really good through the house speakers. Thanks, I enjoyed that. I'm a fan of binaural and you really need good headphones for the best effect. Chesky has some 24-bit 192kHz binaural+ recordings at HDtracks. My favorite binaural YouTube video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw8HYfb5C04 I have dementia. I save all my posts in a text file I call Forums. I do a search in that file to find out what I said or did in the past. I still love music. Teresa Link to comment
Teresa Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 I have my own recording studio. Thanks, have you ever done any projects for an audiophile label? Engineers I've meet who work for audiophile labels are very obsessive about sound quality, more so than me or any audiophile I know. I mean audiophile recordings made from microphones to the finished product, not remastered major label recordings. Engineers for the major labels must make recordings that sound good on iPods and cell phones. I have dementia. I save all my posts in a text file I call Forums. I do a search in that file to find out what I said or did in the past. I still love music. Teresa Link to comment
Teresa Posted January 18, 2016 Share Posted January 18, 2016 when you say 'good' are you talking about headphones that are somehow tailored specifically to the sounds in the video i posted (or possibly other binaural videos you watch)? No, just good headphones. It's really the other way around, binaural recordings are most real sounding on headphones, as quoted in the "Donkey Zucchini" YouTube video I posted "Headphones, or it didn't happen..." Thus, I was just saying that in my experience good headphones are more revealing for binaural recordings than speakers. With headphones binaural sound comes from all around me. In the YouTube I posted "Donkey Zucchini" when someone knocked on his door, it really did sound like someone knocking on my door. As far as I know speakers cannot do that. I always listen to binaural recordings with headphones instead of speakers. I have dementia. I save all my posts in a text file I call Forums. I do a search in that file to find out what I said or did in the past. I still love music. Teresa Link to comment
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