Article: Sound Liaison - One Mic Recordings

[ednaz]

3 hours ago, miguelito said:

Given the mic is stereo (actually three capsule device) I would expect this to be close to a binaural recording, and indeed the videos sound just like that.

 

My thought exactly. And the recordings sounded close... but slightly different. But not obviously different. I didn't have time to listen several different times to try and figure out the source of the difference. There are definitely commonalities. Binaural is so sensitive to the recording space, so Chesky's got his list of venues.

 

I'm so in love with the Chesky binaural recordings, to a great extent because they're of artists and music I love. (And full disclosure, a few of the artists are friends or kids of friends.) I didn't hear it on these... but I've got a few binaural albums that were recorded live, and they're freaky... someone sneezes behind, and if you're wearing headphones you head whips around and causes a serious chiropractic problem.  Some binaural recordings aren't impressive on stereo, and Chesky claims to do some kind of voodoo to make them work. Another reason I wanted to listen and A/B.

[ednaz]

I see a lot of people talking about disappointment about added EQ and reverb. I've spent a fair amount of time in quite a few recording studios - inside where the musicians are, and then listening in the control room after takes. Most studio environments are incredibly dry sounding. Unpleasantly dry, and artificial sounding. We really don't hear pure instruments in any real world setting, it's always instruments in a space. Extremely common to "wet up" the recording with reverb.

 

A lot of effort when building out recording studios goes into absorbing sound to minimize bleed and crosstalk problems. They engineer away the space so that it's not part of the recording. Very few studios are designed for that little bit of liveliness that makes things sound alive. Rudy Van Gelder's studio in NJ is an exception - he designed the space so that it would be a little bit alive. I've been inside during sessions and it's so much more pleasant sounding than most studios. 

 

Chesky's albums sound different because he's recording in spaces with their own reverb characteristics. The rooms are as much a part of the recording as the musical instruments.