PlayClassics TRT v3.0 sneak preview

[Mario Martinez]

Thank you rando for taking the time to listen.

 

I just sent you the codes to the new samples.

 

If for whatever reason you do not find the Polish Songs (v2.0) tell me and I will send you a code to download that too

 

I understand all this upgrading and re-listening can get a bit tiresome so I really appreciate it that you all endure with me on this.

 

I am the grateful one. I feel it is a privilege to be able to count on your help. Constructive criticism is the only way to improve

[semente]

On 17/03/2018 at 12:42 PM, Mario Martinez said:

Every time you try to record an acoustic instrument most of the problems you encounter are actually caused by the hall. The standing waves and resonances of the hall cause deformations on the audio spectrum that translate into coloration and altered balance of the recorded sound.

 

Say you have been hired to make a recording, you take your equipment to the hall where the recording is going to be done and you do the best you can. The only thing you are in control of is your equipment and where you place that equipment. Working on the acoustics of the hall is out of the question, that is major work that would take up too much time and too many resources.

 

You are not allowed to fixed the source of the problems but you are expected to get good results anyway. No wonder there are so many different recording techniques (anything is good to try to avoid picking up the problems that are messing up the sound). So you record the material as well as you can and then use your regular mixing and mastering to try to get everything to sound "good".

 

What we are doing is the opposite of that. We are trying to address the problem at the source. We gave ourselves the opportunity to work on our own acoustic setup trying to resolve everything there (in the "real world"). It is not physically possible to resolve every issue but you can solve as much as you can and develop a calibration that takes care of the rest.

 

 

Hi Mario,

 

I don't know if you're comfortable disclosing this but does the "calibration" process involve physical changes to the room (diffusers, absorbers, reflectors, etc.)?

 

Cheers,

Ricardo

[rando]

5 hours ago, Mario Martinez said:

Thank you rando for taking the time to listen.

 

I just sent you the codes to the new samples.

 

If for whatever reason you do not find the Polish Songs (v2.0) tell me and I will send you a code to download that too

 

I understand all this upgrading and re-listening can get a bit tiresome so I really appreciate it that you all endure with me on this.

 

I am the grateful one. I feel it is a privilege to be able to count on your help. Constructive criticism is the only way to improve

 

I only wish I was capable of constructive criticism where music is concerned.  As I'm sure others here could tell you, my issue is not troubles where direct and potentially withering critique is concerned.  A tendency towards avoiding wine, cheese,or art descriptiveness on the other hand displaces sappy subjective superlatives.  I will try a little harder this time.  

 

Your recordings are unlike anything I've heard before now.  In a good way.  Somehow you've attracted very unique vocalists, reproduction of the human voice still being paramount, that challenge my listening.  Sitting here I can recall the exact tone and phrasing of your Polish singer clearly having an effect I've only heard in person.  Ease and diction few people can produce under strain or tension that gives the music meaning.  In the debauched West it is very rare to meet a cultural song holding its own.  So much of what he hear is falsely pleasing use of small pieces from all cultures being associated with commercial interests with no human reference to the place or time it speaks from. 

[Mario Martinez]

11 hours ago, semente said:

I don't know if you're comfortable disclosing this but does the "calibration" process involve physical changes to the room

 

 

No problem. Actually I would be happy to explain more than that.

 

Lets make a comparison between methods so we can see how it all works.

 

Imagine we have been hired to make a series of recordings (4 or 5 recordings of different chamber music ensembles).

 

The person that hired us wants us to make all these recordings in the same venue and always aiming for the most natural sound possible.

 

This is what we would do if we were to try to accomplish this using multi-miking:
- Things we do prior to each recording session: we place one mic for each instrument. We just need to make sure each mic captures the sound of one instrument as independently as possible from the others. The mic arrangement will be completely different for each recording session (different number of mics, different distances from the instruments, different places within the stage...)
- Things we do after each recordings session: we should have been able to record each instrument on a separate track. The recording engineer can now treat the sound of each instrument independently without affecting the others. He will try to use everything that is at his hand (limiter, compressor, expander, gate, eq, etc...) to try to make each one of those instruments sound as "good" as possible. I say "good" because here the engineer has no objective way to check if the resulting sound is more or less "true". All he can do is aim for what he subjectively thinks sounds more natural. Once he has fixed all the tracks he will go ahead and mix them at the mixing table. He will adjust the level and pan (left and right) each instrument separately until he gets a stereo sound that, again, he subjectively thinks sounds "good". Now, we could stop at this point, or we could send this final mix to the mastering engineer for further processing. The mastering engineer will treat the sound of this stereo file using everything that is at his hand to try to achieve what he subjectively thinks sounds even better.

 

This is what we would do if we were using ambient-miking (just two mics):
- Things we do prior to each recording session: we look for a good sounding spot to place our mics. We try several positions that we think are reasonable and listen to figure out which one sounds best. We should do this for every different ensemble because we might end up using different spots for different ensembles.
- Things we do after each recording session: we should have been able to capture all the instruments in one stereo track. We cannot treat instruments separately. Anything we do will have to be applied to all instruments at once. The recording engineer will now do whatever it takes to try to make this stereo track sound as "good" as possible. Again, I say "good" because it is still a subjective matter. Different engineers would probably end up at different places. After this, we could stop here or we could send this files to the mastering engineer so he can again treat the sound just like he did in the previous scenario.

 

Here is what we would do if were using TRT:
- Things we do prior to ANY recording session: we choose a spot to place our mics in but, at this point, the only thing we should be concern with is image (as if we were placing a video camera). This will be the place of the mics for every recording. Once we have our mics in place we run tests to determine what we can do to the acoustics of the room to try to improve the sound at the pick up point. The more resources and time we have the better the results will be but even with endless resources and time we will never completely fix everything. What ever we end up with will be the room configuration we will use for every recording. Then we work on an eq filter that will hopefully be able to fix the things that could not be fixed on the actual room. We will use this exact same eq filter in all our recordings (this eq filter is what we call the "calibration").
- Things we do prior to each recording session: nothing.
- Things we do after each recording session: simply run the calibration file over the stereo file we recorded. No subjective decisions involved.

 

 

[STC]

3 hours ago, Mario Martinez said:

Here is what we would do if were using TRT:
- Things we do prior to ANY recording session: we choose a spot to place our mics in but, at this point, the only thing we should be concern with is image (as if we were placing a video camera). This will be the place of the mics for every recording. Once we have our mics in place we run tests to determine what we can do to the acoustics of the room to try to improve the sound at the pick up point. The more resources and time we have the better the results will be but even with endless resources and time we will never completely fix everything. What ever we end up with will be the room configuration we will use for every recording. Then we work on an eq filter that will hopefully be able to fix the things that could not be fixed on the actual room. We will use this exact same eq filter in all our recordings (this eq filter is what we call the "calibration").
- Things we do prior to each recording session: nothing.
- Things we do after each recording session: simply run the calibration file over the stereo file we recorded. No subjective decisions involved.

 

 

Hi Mario,

 

I am interested in the V3.1 samples. Just the CD version will do. Thank you.

 

Please see my DM.

 

Cheers!

 

 

 

[danadam]

Hi

 

In Stories - The Romantic Spanish Guitar, what is this other sound, beside the guitar? Is this the player (i.e. Dimitri) breathing?

[Mario Martinez]

6 hours ago, danadam said:

In Stories - The Romantic Spanish Guitar, what is this other sound, beside the guitar? Is this the player (i.e. Dimitri) breathing?

 

Dimitri and I talked about this during the recording sessions. He has a severe asthma condition. Even right after treatment you can still hear his breathing...

 

Because of the way we record there was nothing I could do to avoid picking it up. Our mics are not directed towards the instruments. Everything is configured to record the whole room. Any noise produced with in the room will be picked up just the same as the instruments on stage. Had there been a listener in the room he would have heard the same thing.

 

 

[Mario Martinez]

I have been asked about something that I think would be good to post:

 

Say you donate to download an album (for example one of these new albums on calibration v3.1).

 

If we ever came up with a new calibration (no matter how many times we upgrade) we will always contact you to let you know about the upgrade and give you a gift code so can download the new version.

 

I just thought I should clarify this since it does not say it any where on our website but that is just the way we do it. We have done it before and we will keep doing it as long as we keep developing this technology.

[STC]

Hi @Mario Martinez, is it possible for you tell the room’s RT in TRTv3.0. 

 

Thank you. 

[Mario Martinez]

Hello everyone,

 

I would like to update those of you who are following our developments.

 

It has almost been a year since we posted our last calibration (version 3.0). At that time we had two different calibrations: 2.0 on the albums recorded with the old piano and 3.0 on the albums recorded with the new piano.

 

The results obtained with calibration 3.0 were not as good as expected. Some of you contacted us privately to give us you feedback (for which we are very grateful)  and told us about the issues that you had with this new calibration.

 

We tried to work on those issues and developed a couple of fixes but it did not seem to work. It looked like we had overlooked something that was throwing us off. For that reason we decided to drop version 3.0.

 

Since then, we have been working on a new calibration but this time we have followed the same path that took us to calibration 2.0 This time we did not end up with a different calibration for each piano. Instead we have created a calibration that works for both pianos and everything else on the stage. Now we have one calibration for all 12 albums (the old ones and the new ones).

 

I would like to have the opportunity to present you with these  results. It would be my pleasure if you could (once again) take the time to listen and give your feedback. I will open a new thread to offer a giveaway...

 

[qdwieertteyrujpo]

12 minutes ago, Mario Martinez said:

Hello everyone,

 

I would like to update those of you who are following our developments.

 

It has almost been a year since we posted our last calibration (version 3.0). At that time we had two different calibrations: 2.0 on the albums recorded with the old piano and 3.0 on the albums recorded with the new piano.

 

The results obtained with calibration 3.0 were not as good as expected. Some of you contacted us privately to give us you feedback (for which we are very grateful)  and told us about the issues that you had with this new calibration.

 

We tried to work on those issues and developed a couple of fixes but it did not seem to work. It looked like we had overlooked something that was throwing us off. For that reason we decided to drop version 3.0.

 

Since then, we have been working on a new calibration but this time we have followed the same path that took us to calibration 2.0 This time we did not end up with a different calibration for each piano. Instead we have created a calibration that works for both pianos and everything else on the stage. Now we have one calibration for all 12 albums (the old ones and the new ones).

 

I would like to have the opportunity to present you with these  results. It would be my pleasure if you could (once again) take the time to listen and give your feedback. I will open a new thread to offer a giveaway...

 

Very much looking forward to listen in.

Dieter

[Mario Martinez]

Hi Dieter,

 

Here is a link to the new thread:

PlayClassics TRT Sound master file giveaway for CA members

 

Hope to see you there :)