Article: Sound Liaison - One Mic Recordings

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I think an issue with the Carmen Gnomes recording is the vocalist and drummer wearing headphones.  

 

I've done recordings using this technique, and you get that rather lifeless delivery in this recording.  It takes the tiny timing and interaction out of a natural setting.  Remove the phones and usually there is more life, energy and interplay between everyone.  You'll notice the violinist in the Reinier Voet is wearing phones, but one ear is uncovered.  If there is something members need to hear over phones, then a single ear phone or like in this case one ear uncovered usually works out for a better recording. 

 

All very nice recordings nonetheless.  

 

You'll find this technique done in close makes drums or any kind of percussion almost impossible to use.  It will simply be way too loud and prominent vs everything else.  This would be a case where I might record, using the same miking in the same location, just the percussion, listening to a scratch track.  Then have everyone else play separately listening to the percussion in one ear.  And mix those in at an appropriate level.  I've tried having percussion in larger venues move to the far end, and its still too loud.  And in the wrong place. 

 

Things like this are why purist recording techniques, as wonderful as they can sound, aren't right for everything.  OTOH, with modern gear being so wonderful, you can do terrific recordings that are better than old classics done with simple techniques.  And for the people doing the recording these are fantastic.  You don't have to make multiple decisions on EQ, compression, reverb, and delay for each mike used like in multimike recordings.  You just have the stereo track to deal with.  Of course maybe I'm just inexperienced and lacking in creativity.  If the musicians do something beautiful I can record it.  I'm not the person to make something beautiful out of a mish-mash.  There are those that can, and they are more talented than I. 

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1 hour ago, oso said:

 

But to my ear these sounds very different, much better on speakers, compared to the Chesky, that´s for sure.

I agree.  I don't like that Chesky has gone binaural.  His recordings were better prior to that over speakers, and I much prefer speakers.  These recordings are generally good recordings.  The music as always is a matter of taste and preference. 

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46 minutes ago, miguelito said:

I've listened to a sample track from Sound Liaison: Carmen Gomes's "A Fool For You". Comparing this to Amber Rubarth's Chesky release "Songs From The 17th Ward" is a no-brainer: Chesky is much better in my system (and the music itself is great). To be specific, try "A Kiss To Build A Dream On" in this album...

I just listened to both, and it is not much of a contest. 

 

Chesky is better over headphones.  Sound Liaison is better over speakers.  

 

The music is one part, and you'll get various opinions.  The recording quality differences are fairly clear to me. 

 

Over speakers the Chesky sounds relative to the SL a bit veiled, a bit distant, a bit soft.  SL is clear, present and intimate. 

 

Over phones the Chesky has something of an image, and sounds about right.  The SL is strung thru the middle of my head from ear to ear and puddles too much around each ear.  This matches my experience with MS recordings like the One Mic SL.  I've added a little from each channel to the other to make headphone listeners happy.  It inflates the middle some and keeps it from sounding too much just around the ears though it doesn't equal binaural for phone listeners.  

 

Of course compared to Grammy winning recordings of recent times, the recording quality of either is like comparing Picasso to coloring of kindergartners.   So note I'm not dissing on either of these folks here.  

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1 hour ago, miguelito said:

In My System, To My Ears the Chesky recording has a tonality, decay, space around instruments, and presence of the singer's voice that the Sound Liaison does not (to that degree). I am not talking headphones.

Which speakers were you using just out of curiosity? I was using some Revel's of the lower end of their product line. 

 

I can see how depending upon particulars of a system it could go either way.  I hear plenty of space that sounds real enough for the close in style of the recording.  There isn't an abundance of space.  The Chesky seems like a little too much for my taste over speakers.  Which is why I described it as slightly distant.   Back when they used crossed figure 8's I thought you had space, and more 3D depth in a more real way than these recent recordings when they are played back over speakers.  

 

I wouldn't complain about either if I like the music.  And like you I think Chesky has the better music in these particular examples.  

 

I'd like to see Sound Liaisons do some of these recordings using crossed figure 8's instead of Mid_side which best I understand is what they used for these recordings.  The Josephson's can put out either version.  Even after the fact if SL recorded all the outputs.  But they may not have had the position of the microphone optimum for crossed 8's.  Or just prefer Mid_side themselves. 

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20 minutes ago, miguelito said:

See my signature.

 

Or go to http://goo.gl/66fjxw

Okay.  Should have noticed that in the signature. 

 

Was curious as a data point of what you were listening over vs what I was listening over.  I'd think horns might sound a bit more forward, but I've not heard the Avantgarde.  The Revels I use in my video setup aren't forward or recessed that I can tell.  My Soundlabs are maybe a touch recessed vs some items though rather different overall.  So when checking how something was recorded I use the Revels as they are probably more similar to what most people have than the panels I have.  

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1 hour ago, JoeWhip said:

I enjoy Chesky recordings also but they traditionally have more of a distant sound. Also, Chesky tends to record in churchs and larger spaces, much different that the large studio environment used in the SL recordings. Different strokes for different folks. I can and do enjoy both techniques. 

Yes just as you say.  I liked their recordings too.  I've not found the change in recording methodology an improvement to my ears listening over speakers.  You would expect them to sound different just about as they do.  

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Maybe that is another reason older Chesky sounds better to me.  They used a pair of figure 8's or a Soundfield set to figure 8's.  Recorded straight in with no processing.  With binaural they have some process to make it sound alright over speakers.  I don't know what it does, but it certainly isn't mic straight to the recording medium. 

 

I too was disappointed in SL using EQ, reverb and compression.  I'd really like to hear what their $7250 microphone sounds like.  I might could forgive them using EQ, but reverb and compression mean you don't hear where they recorded.  Then again maybe if you could hear both you'd prefer what they did. 

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1 hour ago, mansr said:

Aren't Chesky using tube gear with all the distortion that brings, or am I confusing them with someone else?

 

Maybe if someone asked nicely, they'd provide an unprocessed sample.

Chesky did use tube gear at the beginning.  I think it was stuff Timothy de Paravicini  modified for them.  I think they even recorded to high speed reel initially. Then at one time it was some Moscode FET based gear.  They also originally used an AKC C24 tubed stereo condenser microphone.  Later switching to a Calrec Soundfield microphone when they switched to Moscode electronics.  

 

Yes, maybe SL would provide an unprocessed sample.  That would be rather nice. 

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1 hour ago, STC said:

 

What do you expect them to do with a MS mic?

 

There is nothing wrong with Chesky binaural recordings. It is different so maybe for some they are not used to since IMO we have adopted to perceive stereo sound and decode them to be reality. 

 

But it if you ever get to retrieve the timing and level difference correctly, you will never want to listen to others. The filter is just some attenuation of the HF to eliminate the pinna effect. I wonder why they are NOT making pinnaless dummy head recording which will make the correction unnecessary. 

 

 

Do you know what the Soundfield microphones can do?  They aren't an M-S microphone though that is one of the possibilities.  I don't know if Chesky currently is using those.  At one time he was doing M-S 8's plus an omni via the Soundfield to create multi-channel recordings.  I think they are just doing the B&K 4100 binaural recordings currently with the BAACH process.  

 

You can tell me how great binaural is all you want.  Maybe I've got a way out in the tails HRTF, but they plain don't work well for me.  I believe others who say they do.  I wished they did for me.  They just don't.  I would assume if I used my own in ear mics like Mitchco has done it would work for me.  And probably be awful for most other people.  

 

If you were referring to the Josephson C700S as a single MS microphone, well that is one use of it. It can also do Ambisonic recording if you process it right.  Or do multi-channel the same way the Soundfield does.  They chose to use MS, and that is fine, I like MS.  But the reverb and compression I like less.  It can be done well and tastefully, and I don't find theirs was tasteless, I just would like to hear it without that.  The EQ if not too extreme bothers me much less.  

 

SL may also be doing more that is less easy to explain.  The people who make that C700S suggest a good thing to do is combining the low end of the omni pattern with the high end of the birectional or cardioid pattern by EQ'ing them and blending them together.  And to do compression with separate settings on each.  All of that can get complex in a hurry.  Whether it is worthwhile or not probably depends, but in a close up recording it might well be.  Oh, and if someone is wondering, you can after the fact pick your patterns with that microphone.  Including picking more than one pattern and blending them. Which is like being able to go back and change the microphone you used for the recording after it was done. 

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41 minutes ago, STC said:

 

I was referring to the recording by SL using the mic. 

 

Okay.  That mike will put out 3 signals.  If you record them, you can pick any pattern and direction after you are done recording.  It can do Ambisonics though without the Z or vertical portion.  If you combine that with some Harpex software, you can even to some extent emulate near coincident miking.  Though how accurately this works I'm not sure of, but reports are it does a good job.  

 

http://www.josephson.com/pdf/srs7ug.pdf