In article ,
ST wrote:
On Tuesday, July 23, 2013 7:45:28 AM UTC+8, Audio_Empire wrote:
In article ,
ST wrote:
On Sunday, 26 May 2013 04:51:42 UTC+8, wrote:
Gary E:
Be very quiet as you read this. Listen to whatever sounds you are
hearing,
whatever they are coming from and which ever direction....
That is stereo! Where ever you are - in your house, on a commercial
flight, hanging upside down from a set of parallel bars, rowing a canoe
across a rapid, etc. - is stereo.
How can that be? Sound which originates from a single source travels into
your left and right ears. A violin or a person singing cannot be consider
stereo. However, when we playback the recordings in stereo we are
listening
two identical violins or singers over the left and right speakers and it
cannot be correct but we accept that as natural.
Actually there aren't TWO violins or singers. Each mike is "hearing" the
same ONE violin or singer from two different perspectives - which is
precisely what your ears do when you are there. Each ear hears the same
violin or singer from a different perspective. It's likely not the SAME
perspective that the microphones hear, but it's close enough to give the
listener the illusion that he can locate that instrument in space.
That's stereo
There was two experiments conducted in 1957 and in the 70s to see if
audiences (3000 of them) could tell difference between live sound and
recording. The experiment concluded they couldn't. How good can the gears
and
the recording be in the 50s?
Means nothing. Live versus recorded demonstrations going back to the
turn of the 19th century, using acoustical recordings and playback gear
came to the same conclusions.
Reference: Reed and Welch
"From Tinfoil to Stereo"
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When there's a group of musicians playing there are lots of sources,
and the majority of sound may even be coming from the ceiling! Our
brains tell us where the sound is coming from, but as a matter of
physical reality it often isn't. The sonic illusion that satisfies
our brains may be far removed from the actual sound of the performance
space.
Andrew
My issue is not about making recording in stereo but the playback in stereo
what supposed to be a mono sound. Let's forget about scholar's articles or
research papers about stereophonic. I am asking to look into ourselves for
accepting stereo sound as natural.
I grew up in a rural area and my first experience of stereo sound started
rather late in my life. I still remember the first experience of hearing
sound going from left to right and getting all excited. Not excited about
the music but the magic of sound floating beyond the source. That was not
natural but rather a different experience of the new way of presenting sound
to my ears.
Audio Empire showed an example of stereo recording supposedly capture exactly
how we hear.
Not really. I said that the stereo mike's pickup of a single instrument
or voice, in space, was doing the same thing that our ears do when we
are listening live. I also said that while the perspectives between our
ears and our "surrogate" ears, the microphones ARE different, we
interpret what we hear using that mechanism of two different
perspectives, to reconstruct in our brains the stereo info carried there
by the microphones, our speakers and our own two ears.
Let's say we were to record a violin according to Audio
Empire's method shouldn't the reverse also be true for reproducing the sound.
The idea of recording a sound is to be able to reproduce as accurate as
possible. So how can we then say by splitting the sound into two speakers
placed a distance many times wider than a violin and expect that to sound
correct and natural? That's illusion and that how stereo works but is it
natural? Or have we been brain washed and adapted such stereo sound to be
normal?
Again, it IS an illusion, but it's a fairly well understood one. The
microphones "vector" the two channel's information together by a
combination of loudness differences, phase differences, and time delay
between the channels. I.E. if the instrument is midway between the L & R
mikes, then the instrument will register it as appearing exactly midway
between the L & R speakers as well. Move the instrument closer to one
mike than to another, and the instrument will seem to move to that
channel. This can be accomplished by moving the instrument laterally, R
to L or L to R to put it closer to one mike than the other, or
conversely, one can leave the instrument stationary and move one mike
closer to the instrument than the other by either advancing it's level
or turning the off-side mike down, or by physically moving one mike
closer or further from the playing instrument. Either way, if you make
the sound of the instrument louder in one speaker than it is the other,
it will seem that the instrument has migrated to that side of the room.
I am not advocating mono but for a single instrument or vocal - the replay of
them using a single speaker sounds more accurate than stereo.
There is no reason why it should. It might be a single instrument or
voice, but the ambience around the instrument or voice is still stereo.
You are confusing miking the instrument with miking the SPACE that the
instrument occupies.
Many audiophiles think Sonny Rollin's Way out West recording is outstanding. Isn't
that recording actually made of two mono channels. Each channel playing just
one instrument?
I can't speak to Sonny Rollins specifically, as I've never heard of the
gent, but most studio "pop" recordings are multi-channel mono, so I
suspect that's what you are referring to.
It is my understanding that most vocal recordings were made in mono and then
panned over to left and right but why are we saying that's more natural than
listening the vocal with just one speaker in centre. To my ears Tracy
Chapman's Behind the Wall sounds more realistic over the centre channel than
in stereo. (Behind the wall is vocal rendition without any music.).
It isn't more natural, it's less natural, but it is the way most
commercial "pop" records are made. Since much pop music does not exist
outside of a studio anyway (this is so true that most rock musicians
have to take their studios with them when they go on concert tours and
the attendees are listening to the P.A. speakers, not the musicians
directly). Their performances generally don't exist in real space, and
if they want their performances to sound, at a "live" concert, like they
do on their recordings, they need to perform the same studio "moves" on
those performances that were applied when the recording was made.
The point about the experiment mentioned earlier is that it shows we don't
really care much whether the sound is stereo or not. In a concert hall when
many are performing simultaneously what we hear is just one big sound.
Not true with an acoustical concert, maybe partially true of a
electronic pop concert.
All the information about the location is no longer important. Stereo does not
exist the moment we turn our head towards the sound. It can be a harp playing
at the extreme right but the moment you turn your head to focus on the sound
then it comes straight to you like it is in the centre.
This would be true if our brains didn't interpret what we hear and it IS
true if one moves microphones in that manner during a performance.
We focus to the sound
that pleases or frighten us by hearing them directly by facing towards the
sound. In such situation the minute spatial information required to locate
the sound is no longer is important once the localization process over.
But ambience from the hall as well as localization cues all form our
mental image of the sound we hear. It is short sighted and frankly wrong
to assume that because we don't consciously focus on these elements that
they aren't contributing to the overall experience.
Try listening to solo instruments using a centre channel or in Mono using a
single speaker. Listen for a couple of months abstaining yourself from
listening to stereo playback of anytime material and then try to listen the
same in stereo. You will know something is wrong with stereo.
No, what you will likely notice is how the sound-field has completely
collapsed in mono.
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