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I ask this question in all sincerity. Why is it when I listen to live, unamplified music I never hear any simbilance, but when I hear a recoding of that same acoustic event there will be sometimes be excessive simbilance? Perhaps I'm looking at this incorrectly, but it leads me to believe either microphones are adding something to the original event that wasn't there i.e., simbilance or the microphones are hearing something that exists, but the human ear/brain doesn't hear it.
Either way I see this as a problem. If the microphones are adding simbilance which wasn't actually present at the original acoustic event then that's a coloration or distortion and if the microphone is hearing something that exists, but the human ear/brain doesn't hear then the mics are not a device that I want being used to tell me how accurate an amp, speaker etc is when it doesn't hear or listen in the same manner the human ear/brain does and hence it isn't capable of providing an accurate portrayal of what I heard in the first place...
Tom Scata (thetubeguy1954)
===============================================================
SETriodes Group --- Central Florida Audio Society --- Space
Coast Audio Society --- Fullrange Drivers --- Front & Back Loaded Horns
Follow Ups:
and the mics sound so different from one another -- it convinced me that a musical reproduction system is like a musical instrument.
Very true that all microphones sound different, picking the right one for the source is a major part of the of the art of recording but that does in no way mean that musical reproduction is like a musical instrument. Once the mic is chosen, the instrument recorded and the album mixed that is it, all the HiFi can do is to reproduce the result of that as faithfully as possible.
Edits: 05/23/11
I just don't think that 'the way a recording really sounds' means anything or refers to anything real.
since I read a post and knew the writer was enlightened.
Instruments all have a characteristic waveforms - harmonic structures and other attributes which make them have a uniquely identifiable sound.
In that sense, every unique stereo system is indeed an instrument, which takes the sounds of OTHER instruments, and changes them.
Cheers,
Presto
nt
the acoustics, combinations of voices and instruments in space, reflective surfaces and the mikes used. It's partly an intermodulation effect, although some singers have it built in.
Even in purist / simple miking methods mikes don't hear the way we do, because they don't have an active affective filter operating between them, their polar diagrams are fixed and unlike ours, ours aren't fixed.
Knowledge of how we identify position and FR over the audible range can be used. Combining spaced omnis with a stereo pair of Fig.8's or cardioids and re-timing both pairs - to match sources from the stage centre gives the best results.
Close mono miking is much more likely to cause sibilance, justas it emphasises plosives, breathing, formants, and glottals. Hence the mesh-cloth shields and foam covers often used. Notch filters are sometimes used.
Warmest
Timothy Bailey
The Skyptical Mensurer and Audio Scrounger
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach - Chaucer. ;-)!
'Still not saluting.'
http://www.theanalogdept.com/tim_bailey.htm
that said, sibilance on a recording may very well be due to the recording process. the electronics and recording medium may not be able to handle the intense energy there.
it would be interesting to hear a comparison of sibilants recorded via analog tape at differing speeds and digital media at differing sampling and bit rates.
sibilants are real enough in life and ACCURATE reproduction thereof would maintain reality. some styli cannot do the job physically and poorly aligned/setup phono systems will exaggerate this phenomenon.
...regards...tr
In my experience it is the voices and to some extent their interaction with other instruments (cymbals for example) which are responsible for sibilance.
The recording equipment except microphones and their placement has very little to do with it.
With male voices it is easy to eq sibilance out but female voices are a LOT harder to eq due to their very limited bandwidth without changing the character of the voice.
If sibilance disappears when using different components on replay one or more of them alter the frequency response of the material replayed.
yes, it happens with cymbals but when a singer hits a hard S the systems have a hard time coping with it. hence, they have a device called a de-esser which someone else mentioned. the s may be overloading the electronics at the moment of recording and if it gets onto the recording, youre stuck with it.well recorded sibilants can cause a stylus to misbehave. many times its just not enough vtf but mis-alignment can also be the culprit.
it would be great to hear doug sax' comments on this subject.
...regards...tr
Edits: 04/18/11
Overloading has not got a lot to do with sibilance.
If a voice is prone to sibilance it is there regardless of recording levels. Careful microphone placement can help. A de-esser would/should be the last line of defence.
It is essentially a compressor which only compresses a very narrow frequency band.
You can use it during recording or later during mixing down to stereo.
Oddly Cymbals can make a voice sound more sibilant, it happened to my friends band and it was very annoying.
Truth number one: The signal reaching you ears(acoustic pressure variations) when reproducing a recording "performance" bares little resemblance to that of a live performance. Truth number two: The signals reaching the microphones in the recording of a performance (live or studio) also have little resemblance to what is heard in a live performance.
Truth number three: (And this is the toughest one to grasp) When you listen to your stereo system, these two somewhat correlated left and right signals (the voltages reaching the loudspeakers) that have little resemblance to anything you might hear in real life, are further convolved as converted back to pressure by a loudspeaker and room responses then reach the marvelously created ear that eventually triggers digital impulses into that multithreaded processor we call the brain that because of our intrigue with the experience and anticipation of music IMAGINES a somewhat real performance.
That we don't recoil at all the possible distortions is amazing. That the expectations we have are easily swayed (some more some less) by the appearance, cables and configuration of a system - even though there is little evidence of the signal changing audibly between software and loudspeaker is NOT surprising
Three most important things in Audio reproduction: Keep the noise levels low, the power high and the room diffuse.
PZM or Pressure Zone Microphones or boundary microphone do.
DanL
I have heard sibilance live many times. We used to have an announcer who had so much sibilance in his speaking voice we had to use a device called a deesser to cut it down. Microphones can enhance sibilance but there is always some to begin with. Also microphones do not hear anything like the human ear because they do not have a human mind processing the signal
Alan
Both change the physical phenomenon of "sound" into an unrelated form of signal for further transmission.
You could make other analogies, but the only actually act they have in common is responding to changes in "air pressure" and creating downwind data transmission.
miracle of the cochlear/brain interface be considered a signal.
Three most important things in Audio reproduction: Keep the noise levels low, the power high and the room diffuse.
There are so many differences.
Even some cheap dynamic mics can clearly pick up conversations from a block away. They all react to transients/sibilants/plosives differently. They all have a pickup pattern (cardioid, figure-8, etc.) and their frequency response can vary greatly at different points in the pattern. (Or think of it the other way: for any given frequency, their pattern may look very different from the pattern at another frequency.) Most mics exhibit a proximity effect, where they over-emphasize the lower end of the voice as the speaker/singer gets closer. Some mics can handle huge dynamics; others, no.
WW
There is NO substitute for the live performance.
Different points in space will sound different especially with distance. Anything recorded up close will sound quite different than from across the room. Just because you didn't hear it from 20ft away doesn't mean it wasn't there.
Edits: 03/29/11
Robert,
You asked if ever had someone sing into your ear from an inch away?? While I cannot say it was precisely an inch, but having played guitar and sung in an all acoustic/semi-electric band similar to America or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, there were times when 2 or 3 of us sang into one mic while the lead singer sang into another mic.
So yes I've had people sing darn close to my ears and the truth is I've NEVER heard the simbilance I'd sometimes later hear in the recordings we've made of those gigs. I fully realize anything recorded up close will sound quite different than if it was recorded from across the room. I also fully realize because you didn't hear it from 20ft away also doesn't mean it was there either!
Now I'd like to know how much singing, playing and recordings of your own band(s) music have you done, in which you'd have some practical experience in talking about your hearing or not hearing simbilance while playing/recording you'd sometimes later hear in the recordings you've made of your gigs?
Tom Scata (thetubeguy1954)
===============================================================
SETriodes Group --- Central Florida Audio Society --- Space
Coast Audio Society --- Fullrange Drivers --- Front & Back Loaded Horns
Stick your fingers in your ears and taik. It's amazing how much of our own voices are heard from transmission through our flesh and bones.
I've recorded in the studio for twenty years and sibilance 9not simbilance) is a common thing
Alan
> > Ever had someone sing into your ear from an inch away??
There are very few recordings made with microphones placed at the position a typical listener would be at a live performance.
Almost all modern pop & rock recordings are heavily multi-miked at close range. Even the majority of classical recordings place the main stereo mikes widely apart and elevated above the orchestra and immediately in front. That is much brighter than what the audience hears. There are no seats at that position. Not even the conductor is there. And that still doesn't account for the fact that many modern classical recordings still use highlight mikes. This is especially true if there is a solo artist playing.
Sure, there are plenty of other factors involved, but the basic question is why would you expect a recording to sound the same as live when the mikes are never located where you ears would be?
There are a few binaural recordings out there, but their total count is some miniscule sub-fraction of a percent, all from obscure labels.
"Why is it when I listen to live, unamplified music I never hear any simbilance, but when I hear a recoding of that same acoustic event there will be sometimes be excessive simbilance?"
That has not been my experience. You should look closer at the playback/listening room chain rather than microphones or recording engineers.
Whereas the brain is able to store information in recent memory so that the musical verse, the notes and the melody make sense. Without memory we would be unable to make heads or tails out of whatever we're listening to -- there would be no pace, rhythm or musicality. And in order for a rhyme scheme in the lyrics to work you have to be able to remember the lyrcis on the fly. Same for the "story" told in the lyrics.
And I answer in great sincerity.The late Dr. Gizmo once said that the biggest transformation while capturing live sound occurred at the point the microphone membrane converts acoustic pressure into an electrical signal.
Mics are VERY different from the ear-brain system. A mic is like a single version of one human ear with a completely different mechanism of action but no interpretive system on the other end. The mic is a transducer. It turns one thing into another thing. But what is music? Is it air waves? If a deaf man played music in the woods, would anyone hear it? No. Music is a human experience. When humans are in proximity to music they experience it. When mics are in proximity to music they "do stuff" according to the tenets of their design. Then what mics do is changed AGAIN - from electrical signals into a form that can be stored. Grooves, bits, magnetic domains on tape... Then this information is converted AGAIN to electrical signals and converted again using ANOTHER transducer - the amplified loudspeaker.
So, first off the mic (alone) is too far of a specific view of the process involved in the recording and playback process. BUT, the mic is said to be responsible for even more obfuscation of the original live event than the speakers.
Microphones absolutely do NOT hear as we do becase they don't hear. They don't even create electrical signals the same way our ears do. And the very biggest thing a mic does not have is this: a human shaped head. The HRTF (head related transfer function) is also a very important part of why mics and humans ears "hear differently".
But all of this matters not. Audiophiles are convinced that all that matters is to perform system iterations with the last few steps in the playback chain - the "source" (which is fallacious language when you think about it) the preamp and amps, and the speakers. There are very significant ways in which the "original event" is obfuscated far before the music is placed on portable media. But audiophiles are convinced that a playback system worth tens or hundreds of thousands can compensate for inherent and common deficiencies in the recording / playback chain. They believe that the "live event" is captured in that 'little black or silver disc' somewhere and that a lifetime of endless obsessing will one day result in some sort of metaphysical or emotional transferrence through space and time to the "original event". The live event will be ultimately revealed through some fantastically unique, mystical and "super synergistic" pile of components and audio euphoria will be had. Godlike musical experiences for mere mortals. The allure of this idea is understandable if you compare it to tanrtic sex or an obsession with immortality. (The late great Micheal Jackson who slept in hyperbaric chambers to combat the aging process succumbed to a very common, tragic and very human fate - simple drug addiction, tolerance and the resulting organ systems failure tolerance eventually results in.)
The point is that music is permanently changed in the recording process and the biggest change happens at the mic membrane. But this does not matter because it's an excuse for gear heads to keep buying and playing with new gear. If the goal truly was the "closest to the live event" theory, the entire recording process and how soundstages and venues are mic'd (and then mixed) would have to be turned on it's head. Unless you get into HRTF equalisation and impulse convolution to get the listening space to simulate the acoustics of the original venue, you're never going to get anywhere close to the acoustic "envelopment" of the original venue. You may get a very aeshetically pleasing rendition, but to say soundstage and other spaciallly-related attributes are "accurate" is complete rubbish. These are audiophile beliefs and nothing more, and the word "accurate" implies that the audio-master using this power word has achieved audio grand master status and enjoys sonic zen through years of refinement, mastery and dedication. No no, they say. HRTF and venue sonics are not important and don't 'sound' live anyways. "I want to create an effect that simulates 3D acoustic space (badly) and then fuss and fuss and then say my pile of components throws an 'accurate soundstage with precise instrument placement and proper depth of sonic field'. What poppy cock and clever use of imagination! The terms 'accurate' and 'proper' never have, do not now, and never will be correct terms to define a mere effect - an artifact - that is part recording tricks and part listening room acoustics and part loudspeaker directivity and transfer function. Reviewers use these power words to describe soundstage and get away with it because no little boy will come out of hiding and exclaim that the emperor has no clothes. Well, I do all the time, but I'm probably seen as either stark-raving mad or just a bitter, disgruntled contrarian with tin ears and "insufficiently revealing equipment".
Microphones. Another reason to get some decent gear, set it up, listen to the music more and obsess less.
There is no reward of sonic euphoria to those who obsess long and hard enough. Just like all the wishing and witchcraft and wholistic medicine can never save man from the ravaging sands of time and the inevitable end of our time here, in this form anyways. The truth is you can enjoy a cool "stereophonic simulation of live music" today. And you can play with iterations from now until the end. Just don't think for second you've ever recreated the live event.
But all that being said, if you FEEL like you are there, then hey - that's one hell of a system you have!! If you get the same live-sound goosebumps and you are captivated and sit without moving for hours on end even though your ass fell asleep and went numb after thirty minutes, well then you have a system that should be revered.
But do know that as an audiophile after 10 tracks on your new system the little voice will be suggesting that just ONE more tweak or one more component swap will get you just a few little iotas closer to the real thing. And your chances of that are about the same as someone using the internet to fall in love, have sex and maintain a long distance relationship using only computers, monitors and keyboards.
Mic's take away the human aspect of the live event and turn it into a mere simulation. Sometimes it's a darned impressive simulation. But more often than not, a simulation is all that it is and will ever be.
Cheers,
Presto
Edits: 03/27/11
I don't understand your logic in this sentence: "If a deaf man played music in the woods, would anyone hear it? No." What does being deaf playing music have to do with "anyone" not hearing the music.
Carolyn Sekela
My point was that if the musician himself were deaf, and there were no other people present to hear the music, the purpose for the musician playing in the first place becomes somewhat irrelevant.Of course, we're not counting a deaf composer who can imagine music in his head. Nobody can hear him imagine music any more than he can hear the music he composes. That disconnect will always be there despite the fact his compositions are incredible and those who hear his music are moved.
Cheers,
Presto
Edits: 04/13/11
"My point was that if the musician himself were deaf, and there were no other people present to hear the music, the purpose for the musician playing in the first place becomes somewhat irrelevant."
That may be, but first you might want to check out this video.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Yes and no both.
A very good measurement microphone does a good job producing a voltage proportional to the pressure.
We measure with a microphone which is one place in space.
WE hear from two points in space BUT we have learned that all the ripples and comb filtering ones ears CAUSE as a function of source position, are how we can hear height, front to back and such, domains seemingly inaccessible with only two reference points.
We can’t hear any of those huge looking deviations because they are the only thing we know, we don’t hear a source grossly distorted because of what our ears do to it with changing position, we only hear a changing position.
In many ways, we do not hear at all like we measure but those things allow us to hear more than just two references like microphones would allow.
Are microphones “perfect” no but they can be very very good compared to loudspeakers, the ones used in recording generally have some “flavor” and so are not “faithful” but enjoyable transducers.
You’re on the edge I can feel it, scout up a 200-300 dollar measurement mic and make some mono recordings with your sound card. If you want a bit better, get a usb audio interface .
I use an M-audio fast track pro which has nice mic pre-amps and does 24/96. Nothing beats things your familiar with and an event you recorded as a “known reference”.
As the Girl in National lampoons radio dinner “catch it and you keep it sketch” advises “Go for it Ron”.
Best,
Tom
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