wjm@whuxk.UUCP (MITCHELL) (11/29/83)
In answer to Spencer's questions: 1. Fortunately or unfortunately, I can hear those (BLEEPED) ultrasonic alarms and try not to shop in stores that use them. The only thing I buy from those outfits is Excedrin to cure the headaches the alarms cause :-) 2. Several of the high-end Nak decks (like my 680ZX) go up to at least 22 KHz (higher if you use the standard -20dB record levels with metal tape). 3. Now that I've answered the flame, let's look at this digital vs. analog business. As I said yesterday, I'm somewhat concerned about SOME digital systems with their 22.05 KHz (44.1 KBit sample rate) cut-off frequency. I'm NOT knocking digital recording itself - some of the Telarc and Delos digitally mastered LP's are among the best LP's I've heard and I suspect the CD versions sound even better. However, there is (unfortunately) a fair amount of digital garbage out there (put out by the same people who put out garbage analog recordings). It appears that digital recording is much less tolerant of the sloppy recording techniques used by some large record companies (especially multi-miking) and that the best digital recordings made so far use much simpler mike setups (like Telarc's two microphone technique). "Audio" magazine's reviews have done a good job of separating the CD sheep from the goats and the real dogs. 4. One major advantage of CD's is their scrach and damage resistance which will greatly improve sound quality for most people. Also, they won't suffer from the surface noise that LP's produced by several US record companies that don't seem to care about quality do. End of Flame Bill Mitchell whuxk!wjm
burris@ihopa.UUCP (David Burris) (11/29/83)
Well after month's of seeing statements blasting the multi-miking techniques, I can only assume that the posters are discussing classical music. I would prefer that people who take this stance qualify their position. The main reason being that it is virtually impossible to record popular rock and electric jazz and/or fusion without using multi-miking. Imagine if you will what bands used to sound like in the early sixtys before P.A. systems gained widespread use. Remember the high school sock hops where the singer was unintelligible if heard at all? It seems that even when recording classical music there is much room for interpretation of what an instrument should sound like. Even when a soloist is performing the engineer often has his own perspective of how an instrument sounds. For instance, the performer himself would constantly experience the sound of the instrument from the players standpoint, usually BEHIND the instrument. Add a few people and a conductor and you now have the conductor's interpretation of what instruments should sound like. Namely equidistant from the instruments and a very short distance IN FRONT of them. Now we get to the trickiest of all, the audience. There are basically unlimited variations of how the performance sounds to the audience. Such variables as acoustic properties of the room, location of the listener, number of people attending the performance and in large halls even temperature and humidity can affect the sound quality. What is the point? Well, the point is that everyone has their opinions of how professional recordings should be made, even those who have never and will never be in the capacity of a professional recordist. Sound recording ALWAYS involves compromises. If you do not believe that, you are inadequately informed about how sound behaves in the real world. There are no simple cookbook answers of how recordings should be done. The recording engineer must always consider as many of the variables as possible to decide on a sensible compromise. Included in this decision is the overall philosophy of the engineer as to how things should sound. If this doesn't agree with your opinion it doesn't make it wrong, only different. Please temper your judgement before you flame about these sorts of things. Many of the worst flamers' qualifications in the audio field are simply that they have ears and a stereo and read popular hi-fi mags. -- Dave Burris ..!ihnp4!ihopa!burris AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, Il.