Concert Hall sound

[GeneZ]

29 minutes ago, STC said:

There is no perfect concert hall. Ideal concert hall with long reverbs suffers from much delayed first reflection that will kill drum attacks of rock music. That’s why rock music never will sound perfect in a concert hall.

 

 

Back in the late Sixties I went to a concert at the Fillmore East.   Top billing was the Grateful Dead.  What you described about the drums was true.  The sound actually bored me. 

 

Same hall...

 

The act that went on just before the Dead was the newly formed Jeff Beck Group.  Some unknown guy by the name of Rod Stewart was the singer.  

 

Whoever the engineer was who worked the Jeff Beck band?   Made the drums and bass sound amazingly good!  It was a jaw dropping moment in my life.  That engineer knew exactly what needed to be cut, or boosted.  The guitarist I was with, looked at each other and nodded...  we got up and left.  The sound of the Dead was confusing and all over the room.

[STC]

4 minutes ago, GeneZ said:

Some unknown guy by the name of Rod Stewart was the singer.  

 

I thought he was a famous singer?  

[STC]

37 minutes ago, GeneZ said:

If the rear channels play delayed sound of what comes from up front?  Then you can achieve the concert hall effect.  But when you have a plane flying overhead from front to back?  That is not a concert hall.

 

I will read the patent and technical paper about the device before commenting. From the surface of what I have read so far, it can create some sort of out of phase like experience which can sound nice. Actual I have read the explanation why adding a rear stereo speakers of the front channel is not correct but I can’t recall the reasoning now. Give me a couple of days.  

[GeneZ]

9 minutes ago, STC said:

 

I will read the patent and technical paper about the device before commenting. From the surface of what I have read so far, it can create some sort of out of phase like experience which can sound nice. Actual I have read the explanation why adding a rear stereo speakers of the front channel is not correct but I can’t recall the reasoning now. Give me a couple of days.  

 That was then. Some better units followed. You can find these on Ebay....  Have a tech refurbish it, and should be  better designed.  http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-04-17/entertainment/8701290496_1_yamaha-dsp-1-listening-alice

 

I have one stored now....  awaiting for when I get someplace other than an apartment.

 

[GeneZ]

19 minutes ago, STC said:

 

I thought he was a famous singer?  

 

Back in 1968 very few Americans knew who Rod Stewart is. That was to soon change.

 

That night..   Mick Waller on drums.  Nicki Hopkins on piano. And, some dude by the name of Ron Wood on bass.

 

The only reason I knew about Jeff Beck was because of his work I loved with the Yardbirds. 

[audiventory]

2 hours ago, STC said:

I only asked have you listened to Amused to Death?  Whatever explanation you have written can be used with this CD and see if it holds true. 

 

Do you mean spatial sound there?

 

It is not matter, that you hear in a record. There are several ways to emulate concert hall space in studio on recorded stuff: reverberator, chorus, EQ, panoram, delay between channels, digital 3-D positioning.

 

All the tools are work good enough currently, in my opinion.

Each instrument may be recorded separatelly. And placed into the space these ways.

 

Digital 3-D positioning allow to model of sound wave field most precise way now (with limited precision too). Because it use physics of rays. But we have no absolutely exact source to the modeling.

 

CD as medium can be used to record sound hologram for headphones.

But there are precision limitations for record and playback hologram due necessity of full human ear emulation in 3 space directions (x,y,z) and re-bouncing acoustic rays in playback including headphones.

[STC]

6 minutes ago, audiventory said:

 

Do you mean spatial sound there?

 

It is not matter, that you hear in a record. There are several ways to emulate concert hall space in studio on recorded stuff: reverberator, chorus, EQ, panoram, delay between channels, digital 3-D positioning.

 

All the tools are work good enough currently, in my opinion.

Each instrument may be recorded separatelly. And placed into the space these ways.

 

Digital 3-D positioning allow to model of sound wave field most precise way now (with limited precision too). Because it use physics of rays. But we have no absolutely exact source to the modeling.

 

CD as medium can be used to record sound hologram for headphones.

But there are precision limitations for record and playback hologram due necessity of full human ear emulation in 3 space directions (x,y,z) and re-bouncing acoustic rays in playback including headphones.

 

Please. We are talking two different things here. I spent many years of perfecting stereo setup and equipment. I know what you are referring to and I know what you have overlooked. Please listen to the Amused to Death and create the placement and ambience as described in the CD. This is pure stereo setup so no dsp need. Setup and recreate the space then maybe when you explain them we can discuss this further. It is hard for me to explain the taste of durian to a westerner who never tasted one or wanted to even attempt to taste one. 

[fas42]

1 hour ago, STC said:

 You have not heard it so give your opinion but also be open minded. As you know, I don’t overly criticize your method but I know whatever things you say about tweaking the stereo that will produce something magical cannot be true as I have the privilege to listen to hundreds of well designed equipment. I know the limits of the magical tweak.  It doesn’t mean I have closed my mind about your magic; I still trying to figure out what are you really listening and what triggers your sense of realism. One thing I can guess from you many posts your are listening more to the indirect sound rather than what’s coming out from the main speakers. Correct me if I am wrong. 

 

Ummm, the "hundreds of well designed equipment" may be very close, and even slip over the line now and again - this subjective experience is elusive, currently, because the attention is not paid to achieving such, in the engineering of systems. The slightest anomaly, weakness is enough prevent it happening - as I well know! .

 

The definitive behaviour, as I've mentioned many times, is that true mono source being played over stereo speakers creates a rock solid image which is always "in front of you" - no matter how close you are to the plane of the speakers, and how far you are off centre with respect to the middle of the two speakers you are, this illusion is maintained, to a ludicrous degree. Even with your head almost touching the edge of one of the speakers this image doesn't evaporate. So, this is a situation where the direct sound is overwhelming, yet the illusion is not threatened.

 

What triggers it appears to be that all the normal clues that the mind uses to "catch out" what it's hearing as being not being 'real' are so low in level that the mind decides that mirage is real; in my early days of this happening the rig would reliably degrade in quality while listening, and the mirage would fade over a matter of some minutes. I could repeat this sequence of behaviour change at will; but couldn't control it - think of a clean pane of glass, with humidity conditions; the pane steadily mists up; you wipe it vigorously, have perfect vision for a time, but then the glass again starts to cloud up ...

[fas42]

1 hour ago, GeneZ said:

Whoever the engineer was who worked the Jeff Beck band?   Made the drums and bass sound amazingly good!  It was a jaw dropping moment in my life.  That engineer knew exactly what needed to be cut, or boosted.  The guitarist I was with, looked at each other and nodded...  we got up and left.  The sound of the Dead was confusing and all over the room.

 

That's the interesting thing with sound reinforcement sound, in venues. The people who "get it" do remarkably good jobs - I have excellent memories of the good ones - but everyone else is a disaster. I stopped wasting my money going to live shows eons ago, because the SQ was almost guaranteed to be far too offensive.

[TubeLover]

On 7/23/2018 at 8:32 PM, STC said:

 

They are very important. In 5.1 SACD the rear channels reproduce the rear hall ambiance and that make a big difference in the sense of envelopment when compared to stereo recording of the same. In normal stereo recording the rear ambiance is deliberately omitted. 

 

Yes, without 5.1, I don't think there is any chance of remotely capturing that ambience. And I don't know about you, but I couldn't possibly afford three more of my main speakers, much less two more of the same amps. for most people, this is simply a lost cause for that reason alone. 

 

JC

[STC]

9 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Ummm, the "hundreds of well designed equipment" may be very close, and even slip over the line now and again - this subjective experience is elusive,

 This is where I draw the line. You are implying I am deaf and ignorant of not knowing what sound is. 

 

Thousands of posts and not even a single “how to” to achieve what you are saying is happening to your system. How is that useful to us?  Can we reproduce the magic? No! Because you too still searching for it for the last 30 years. It must be so elusive that you don’t even dare to put the video of your actual system playing the sound but superimpose them with the album cover. What is there to hide?

 

On one hand you talk about actual modification and along the line you talk about subjectivity. Nothing you said is useful to me. I am not sure how many of others actually managed to follow and implemented your magic but to me we are not having a discussion but you just want to talk about your magic and only your magic which will remain a mystery to this world. 

 

 

 

[audiventory]

18 minutes ago, STC said:

It is hard for me to explain the taste of durian to a westerner who never tasted one or wanted to even attempt to taste one. 

 

I'm musician and know a bit how to add space emulation in stereo or multichannel practically in a studio during mixing and post production and how the emulation sounds.

[STC]

10 minutes ago, TubeLover said:

Yes, without 5.1, I don't think there is any chance of remotely capturing that ambience

 

This also could be the cause of the confusion. The rear ambience of the actual hall can be substituted with a better hall’s ambience. I am saying recreating the ambience of a concert hall not recreating the ambiance of THE concert hall which is not capture in the recording in the first place unless those with rear channels multichannel recording. Edit: the actual halls ambiance can be reconstructed with the 360 degrees of  impulse response of the concert hall. As far as I know, only one 360 degrees true stereo impulse response available. Most of the other 360 degrees impulse response are either stereo ( not true stereo - 4 channels) or mono. So we are rather limited to only one concert hall’s ambience reconstruction but the IRS can be modified in anyway you like which can give you infinity number of halls IR. 

 

Someone else mentiomed about about cinema and multichannel but that is not what I am referring to. That is a different application and different from ambience rear channels reproduction. 

[STC]

4 minutes ago, audiventory said:

 

I'm musician and know a bit how to add space emulation in stereo or multichannel practically in a studio during mixing and post production and how the emulation sounds.

 

Then it should be a super easy to recreate the Amused to death playback as described in the guide. But you have been avoiding it because that will show your system and room flaws. 

[fas42]

Quote

This is where I draw the line. You are implying I am deaf and ignorant of not knowing what sound is. 

 

No, I'm not implying that at all - what I'm saying is if you assemble even the "very best" system of highly reputable components, the chances are extremely close to zero of the SQ being good enough. Only a very few people have understood what can be achieved, and we all agree that this is a very difficult journey, getting to this level.

 

Ummm, the video doesn't exist - one of my little tweaks for trying to get better sound from the camera was to cover the lens, so that the processing of the video information in the circuitry had less to do. Might have helped,  might not - a black screen was not going to tantalise on YouTube, so I inserted an album cover, when I knew the track.

 

What I want to acquire is full knowledge of what needs to be done, in any situation, to get a rig up to scratch. My natural inclination is to know "what's around the next corner" - something interesting turns up, and I start investigating that. Plus, sometimes the gear fails, from old age, and I move on - the Philips lost a channel because the primary chip on that side went sour, and the volume control chip had an intermittent; it was getting too annoying to play with.

[Jud]

23 minutes ago, STC said:

This is where I draw the line. You are implying I am deaf and ignorant of not knowing what sound is. 

 

16 minutes ago, STC said:

But you have been avoiding it because that will show your system and room flaws. 

 

Why is it OK for you to talk to Yuri in a way that it is not OK for Frank to talk to you?

[fas42]

32 minutes ago, STC said:

On one hand you talk about actual modification and along the line you talk about subjectivity. Nothing you said is useful to me. I am not sure how many of others actually managed to follow and implemented your magic but to me we are not having a discussion but you just want to talk about your magic and only your magic which will remain a mystery to this world.

 

 

The magic is, listen to some piece which doesn't sound too good on your rig, and vary something. Anything. Does the quality of what's not quite working in the sound alter, in the slightest - for better, for worse? Most times it won't; sometimes it will - that's the clue, and the tool you then work with, to track down why the sound varied.

 

That's precisely how I started this doing exercise decades ago - and I still use the same approach.

[STC]

23 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

 

Why is it OK for you to talk to Yuri in a way that it is not OK for Frank to talk to you?

 

Can you be more specific? If you are referring my reply to Frank then it you may have missed our previous interaction including where I spent one day listening to his Youtube. I try to see his point but practically no matter what’s the topic he will start to talk about the magical experience he refused to share but loves to talk about saying how good is the sound. 

 

 

[GeneZ]

ok.... I am trying to figure out how this can happen.  Here is a video where at one point I hear a sound of something making a noise behind my back across the room.  See if you can hear it.  Might be, I can hear it because I listen nearfield. 

 

It happens at 1:02... 

 

 

[audiventory]

1 hour ago, STC said:

Then it should be a super easy to recreate the Amused to death playback as described in the guide. But you have been avoiding it because that will show your system and room flaws.

 

It is far from easy. It is real art, that demands years of learning, practical experience and intuition.

 

There are guides how to do it (books/articles/communicalions by mixing and mastering). But results, like professional albums, demands things, that I mentioned above.

 

As example, with reverberation effect we can add volume simplest way for stereo. But professional sound is right combination of its parameters and mixer settings/bus wiring. And there huge number of posible combinations, where need to find the best.

 

The best, in my opinion, reverberators emulate room, where virtual musical instrument (or other sound object) is placed.

 

Mathematical 3-D positioning is pointing of coordinates. Here art is correct placement of sound objects, accounting sound field distortions in playback.

[STC]

33 minutes ago, GeneZ said:

ok.... I am trying to figure out how this can happen.  Here is a video where at one point I hear a sound of something making a noise behind my back across the room.  See if you can hear it.  Might be, I can hear it because I listen nearfield. 

 

It happens at 1:02... 

 

 

 

I could hear it with my laptop speakers. More to the front centre slightly towards the left of dead centre. Are you using your PC ? Is the sound effect turned on? Interesting at 1 meter away with the laptop inbuilt speakers at ear level they sound like emitting from the left speaker.

 

Btw, it is possible to hear sound coming from behind with stereo but usually a short duration. One that I can think of now is one of Madonna's track. I listen to soundtracks and there you often hear them. This effect is possible with DSP. Amused to Death with QSound is another example. Without DSP processed recordings you will not hear sound coming from the rear unless your room reflects some frequencies more than others. 

 

By the way, this recording is interesting because it sounds very spacious. Unfortunately, I cannot find any info about the band or the recording method.

[GeneZ]

1 hour ago, STC said:

By the way, this recording is interesting because it sounds very spacious. Unfortunately, I cannot find any info about the band or the recording method.

 

 

You will need to Google   ...   the Herd Finnish jazz  ....

 

Here is another favorite of mine.

 

 

 

[fas42]

1 hour ago, STC said:

 

I could hear it with my laptop speakers. More to the front centre slightly towards the left of dead centre. Are you using your PC ? Is the sound effect turned on? Interesting at 1 meter away with the laptop inbuilt speakers at ear level they sound like emitting from the left speaker.

 

Sounds to me like someone momentarily singing along, off camera - also listening on laptop speakers. The person is in "another space" from where the musicians are, and the distinct separation of his contribution from that of the instruments is clear.

[fas42]

2 hours ago, STC said:

 

 I try to see his point but practically no matter what’s the topic he will start to talk about the magical experience he refused to share but loves to talk about saying how good is the sound. 

 

 

I'm trying to encourage people to experiment with their equipment, to discover how good they can make it for themselves - but obviously doing a terrible job of it!

 

The first step is to acknowledge, become aware of where the sound is less than it could be - so one then has an effective "measuring stick" - I ask people to try and listen in this fashion, and meet a stone wall, every time. Only GUTB has listed what could be made better - the tiniest crack of light in an otherwise solid barrier ... .

[semente]

7 hours ago, GeneZ said:

Concert hall walls do not reflect the higher frequencies.

 

 

6 hours ago, GeneZ said:

  A "well designed"  concert hall will not sound like Godzilla just hit a 50 foot triangle.     Hard reflective walls are not desirable for music hall reflections.  Otherwise, it will sound like a concert is being given in a YMCA pool room.   

 

The better concert halls that are well made will make the sound relaxing and serene....

 

This is wrong. The most highly rated shoebox-shaped concert halls all produce lateral and ceiling reflections. Without them the orchestra would sound as if it was playing outdoors from three rows backwards...

 

Unless you are talking about rock gig venues, which are out of the scope of this topic.