nickbatz wrote:
On Monday, March 25, 2019 at 1:36:46 AM UTC-7, Adrian Tuddenham wrote:
Most listeners hear but don't really listen; they don't try to form a
'sound picture' in their heads, if they did it would be obvious that the
unnatural reverb is fake.
Well, I'm truly surprised that no one here seems to get what I'm saying.
I've talked to a couple of friends (both music/audio pros) about this, and
they understood right away - but also didn't have a great answer why (I'm
going to say it again) the human brain accepts multiple spaces on a
recording.
And it absolutely does! Tests have proven!
[...]
The *exact point* is that it *doesn't* sound unrealistic, even to people
who do listen properly! It *can* sound like a suspension of disbelief,
but I'm telling you people - whether or not you agree that you hear
what
I'm telling you that you hear 
- the ear accepts...
Just because the average of the population tends towards acceptance, it
doesn't mean that there aren't others who find fake reverb very obvious,
unrealistic and disconcerting; I am one and I suspect that there will
be a higher than average number of people in this group who also don't
accept it - mainly those who are classical recording engineers.
There will be many who have learned to 'listen properly', but in an
environment where they rarely or never hear realistic recordings, so
they don't notice certain types of fakery. What they are listening for
is something different, we haven't all learned to listen for the same
things.
The tests you refer to may have been done predominantly on multi-track
recording engineers or listeners. There are very few people around now
who make commercial recordings with just one or two stereo pairs of
microphones in natural acoustics - and far fewer people listen to them
than listen to pop music and multi-track recordings, so the tests are
highly likely to be skewed.
You wanted an explanation of why those who do accept it find it
acceptable - I suggested habituation was the most likely explanation. I
used to accept artificial reverb myself when I worked in other fields,
but since I became a recording engineer (many years ago now) I have
learned to recognise it and I don't like it when I hear it.
--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk