| From: | greenboy |
| Date: | 7 Aug 2000 at 05:53:23 |
| Subject: | Re: Fudge, No Recipe |
>> greenboy :
>>The term "punch" BTW is not descriptive of true low bass; it more
>>befits mid-bass in the 150-250Hz region.
> Don Cox :
>OK, maybe "punch" was a bad choice of words.
It's one that it takes awhile to zero in on, because I think bass
frequencies are the hardest ones to learn about. Consumer-oriented audio
speakers tend to be very inaccurate - misleading in their emphasis. And
rooms people listen in affect the evenness of the low-end response and
resonances so much. If one has a problem with treble or midrange it's
pretty easy and inexpensive to apply some common-sense psychoacoustic
treatment. Move the speakers, get some heavier drapes, change the
furniture around, get some rugs, remove some, etc.
But bass control costs money, takes space (just as playback tends to
for the longer waveforms) and having true low bass requires more
amplifier power by far.
When you mess around with studios, tweaking or designing the rooms,
learn about standing waves, Hemholtz radiators and bass traps, find out
how to use your ears and test equipment (and to make the correlation
between the two) a realization that variance in positioning, room
coupling, humidity, etc, have lots to do with understanding what is
going on when mixing and tracking.
Buying real studio monitors and positioning them correctly (and cross
referencing them with other monitors) is essential. Gear from consumer
"audiophile" sources - and information - is very seldom accurate or
appropriate. They are even more in the business of selling what is
difficult to quantify, and has as much to do with status and lifestyle
aural wallpaper as it does sound.
That said, there is lots of good stuff out there - it's just that the
trendy expensive stuff is often "snake oil" and enjoys a profit margin
way out of line with the actual cost and research involved. And the
technical information from this sector is often rife with bad science.
In MI (music industry) circles, much has trickled down from the high
end, and many innovative companies have come up with some great and
affordable stuff. Stuff that one would only see at AS one can now see
at NAME shows. Digital tech for designing and manufacturing equipment
has been a great equalizer for the little guy... Ha, where was I?...
Anyway, the budget can buy good gear that specs out and sits in real
studios and operates in a more predictable fashion at various settings,
which is a must to know what is truly in the music.
>>Many home subwoofers don't even apply crossover to the satellites. But
>>even if it does, if the true crossover (-3db) point is at 50Hz (approx
>>low G on bass guitar) you do not have any effective sub filtering
>>going to the satellites. Crossing over at 100 to 200 Hz is much more
>>effective (and with a far superior active crossover) and has the
>>benefit of not making the satellites reproduce in ranges where their
>>2nd and 3rd order harmonic distortion is highest.
>You have reminded me that for a long time I have been meaning to build
>or buy a better crossover. Mine is indeed just a passive crossover that
>I knocked up in a hurry, and probably pretty inaccurate. It does cut off
>the low bass from the main amps as well as passing it to the low amps.
That's good then, as long as your sub amp/speakers combo can keep up
with the tops. You should move that point up though, or even consider
an electronic crossover, which is more efficient and interacts less at
various settings and frequencies. If you ever wish to pursue that, I'll
point you at some good affordable ones. Moving the point up will get
your mains out of the area they distort more, as I said previously.
>The power amps are ones I made myself.
Great : } Tube stuff?
>The main speakers in this setup are Quad ESL 63s. These don't do much
>below 50Hz (although there is a new model with larger panels that does).
Yeah, they should definitely be crossing over at 150 or so then.
>>It's come a long way. Remastering of old material that has someone
>>really committed behind it will have so much black-box reconstructive
>>surgery performed, often direct from the multitrack masters (instead
>>of the two-track). The good projects haul in someone who knows the
>>music and the style (maybe even worked the original sessions) is going
>>to have the best that technology can muster behind it, and consumer
>>product may very well sound better than the original vault masters.
>"Kind of Blue" is said to be at the correct pitch at last. It certainly
>sounds better to me.
Got to check that out. Hey, you know, some of those old sessions were
done by gods. The equipment they had, and how they used it - phenomenal!
Juts like the artists themselves.
>The Mercury classical recordings are interesting because the transfers are
>supervised by the original producer (widow of the engineer) and no noise
>reduction is used. The best of them are superb.
Chances are this stuff was recorded at 30 IPS, where using noise
reduction is easily more debatable. The bad thing about 30 inches per
second is tape costs, and less low end then 15 or 7-1/2. But orchestras
don't really need that kind of low end anyway. The better response
elsewhere is a good tradeoff.
>"Ellington at Newport" has been turned into stereo by combining two mono
>recordings made by two companies, which is quite a feat. OTOH they used
>the wrong take on one of the tracks of "Such Sweet Thunder".
Yeah, that's almost an entirely different profession than doing stuff
from the multitrack masters, like I was mentioning. It is going into some
strange territory indeed. Many engineers were taking it in the shorts
from critics for building fake stereo images out of mono sources, but
that Ellington idea - that's way beyond music.
>The wicked record companies have been doing a good job with their
>reissues.
Some. But there are some really ugly stories out there too, and I've
heard some of them.
<-- greenboy ---<<<
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