LA Phil at new Disney Theater - odd sound...

[jnorman]

i watched the concert last night on PBS of the la phil in the new
disney theater in LA. there were schoeps mics everywhere, and you
know they had top notch engineers doing the sound for both live
reinforcement and recording for the tv feed, BUT even through my very
nice surround system, the sound was pretty uninspiring - it was okay,
but really had no life to it at all. i dont understand. could it be
that the hall itself isnt what it is cracked up to be, or was the
micing and mixing sub-par? the balance was pretty good in that i
could discern the instrumentation well enough, but it was all quite
dull... thoughts?

[William Sommerwerck]

As an amateur recordist, I have long been dismayed at the distant, overly
reverberant sound you get from simple, purist miking -- regardless of the size
of the room, or its basic acoustics.

The WD hall was supposedly designed to deliver "intimate" sound regardless of
where you sit. I love it, love it, love it. It doesn't sound as if everything is
buried under lush reverberation. But neither is the sound cold or analytical.

The WD hall heralds a new kind of concert hall, which "sounds good" both to the
ear and the mic. Maybe it will encourage recording engineers to minimize
multi-miking and overlaying synthetic reverb.


jnorman wrote...

> i watched the concert last night on PBS of the la phil in the new
> disney theater in LA. there were schoeps mics everywhere, and you
> know they had top notch engineers doing the sound for both live
> reinforcement and recording for the tv feed, BUT even through my very
> nice surround system, the sound was pretty uninspiring - it was okay,
> but really had no life to it at all. i don't understand. could it be that
> the hall itself isn't what it is cracked up to be, or was the micing
> and mixing sub-par? the balance was pretty good in that i could
> discern the instrumentation well enough, but it was all quite dull...
> thoughts?

[Les Cargill]

jnorman wrote:
>
> i watched the concert last night on PBS of the la phil in the new
> disney theater in LA. there were schoeps mics everywhere, and you
> know they had top notch engineers doing the sound for both live
> reinforcement and recording for the tv feed, BUT even through my very
> nice surround system, the sound was pretty uninspiring - it was okay,
> but really had no life to it at all. i dont understand. could it be
> that the hall itself isnt what it is cracked up to be, or was the
> micing and mixing sub-par? the balance was pretty good in that i
> could discern the instrumentation well enough, but it was all quite
> dull... thoughts?

I thought it was warm, up close and personal sounding. YMMV.

--
Les Cargill

[R Krizman]

<< i watched the concert last night on PBS of the la phil in the new
disney theater in LA. there were schoeps mics everywhere, and you
know they had top notch engineers doing the sound for both live
reinforcement and recording for the tv feed, BUT even through my very
nice surround system, the sound was pretty uninspiring - it was okay,
but really had no life to it at all. >>


Maybe it was the tv feed. I had just the opposite experience. I was driving
out to dinner one night, turned on the radio and there was the most incredible
performance of the Rite of Spring I had ever heard. Lively and enthusiastic
playing and a deep, rich, engaging sound. Only later did I put it together
that it was opening night at Disney Hall.

Incredible. To my ears they've captured an ideal balance between clarity and
transparency on the one hand, and warmth and euphonic richness on the other.

The next night was also amazing, with Salonen's original composition, "L.A.
Variations." I listened in my back yard, staring at Mars and smelling the
jasmine and rosemary, and I knew that he knew. Later, my 7 year old and I were
listening to the new John Adams piece and jamming along with our plastic toy
saxophones.

Wheee !!!!

(and I'm not a guy who sits around and listens to classical music).

-R

[---MIKE---]

I thought the sound of the hall was good but I would have preferred to
judge it with more conventional music. The full chords in Beethoven's
fifth or Brahms' first would have given a better sense of how the hall
sounded. Also, I don't know if the organ is installed yet but if so, it
would have been interesting to hear something like the Saint-Saens
third.


-MIKE

[Gidney and Cloyd]

jnorman wrote:

> i watched the concert last night on PBS of the la phil in the new
> disney theater in LA. there were schoeps mics everywhere, and you
> know they had top notch engineers doing the sound for both live
> reinforcement and recording for the tv feed, BUT even through my very
> nice surround system, the sound was pretty uninspiring - it was okay,
> but really had no life to it at all.

Maybe the TV feed? Or what local affiliates did to it on it's way
to the air?

About halfway through I grabbed my Senn HD280 Pro's ... wish I'd
grabbed the HD600's for the Rite of Spring.

I noticed that the vocalists made some nice 'plosives into what
looked like a (redundant? differential?) pair of Schoeps.

[Baldwin3722]

(jnorman) wrote in message:

> i watched the concert last night on PBS of the la phil in the new
> disney theater in LA. there were schoeps mics everywhere, and you
> know they had top notch engineers doing the sound for both live
> reinforcement and recording for the tv feed, BUT even through my very
> nice surround system, the sound was pretty uninspiring - it was okay,
> but really had no life to it at all. i dont understand. could it be
> that the hall itself isnt what it is cracked up to be, or was the
> micing and mixing sub-par? the balance was pretty good in that i
> could discern the instrumentation well enough, but it was all quite
> dull... thoughts?

Have you ever heard a TV broadcast in past years of a concert that
struck you as displaying really great sound? I thought anything
relayed by PBS or other TV stations would be automatically compromised
in terms of aural quality.

I've heard sound from WDCH on 3 occasions now, either on TV or radio.

I first heard a few snippets played on a local TV news/discussion
program (on Ch. 28, LA's PBS station) showing a concert at Disney held
for kids before the official opening. I then heard actual opening-day
concerts on FM, and then heard a very condensed version of the 3-day
affair on the same show you saw on PBS.

For comparison, I listened to an FM radio broadcast tonight (on the
exact same local station that had feed from WDCH's premiere last week)
of a concert held in Segestrom Hall---admittedly a so-so auditorium in
Orange County---and I've re-listened to a Boston Pops concert on PBS
(filmed at Boston Symphony Hall, world renowned for its sound) that I
taped a few months ago.

The sound from the 2 other concert locations all seemed to have less
vibrancy and noticeable bass response than the sound I've heard from
WDCH, not only via the FM broadcast last week, but also from the Great
performances show and even from the Channel 28 news/discussion
program.

When I first heard sound from the new hall on the news/discussion
program, I went hmmm!!, but discounted it. When I then heard sound
from the same building on the FM station, I thought the aural quality
was due primarily to it being a LIVE broadcast and, of course, a
program relayed on an FM band. But now after detecting a similar sound
quality on a pre-taped PBS broadcast, I don't think what I'm sensing
is necessarily coincidental.

But like someone above noted: YMMV

[Les Cargill]

Baldwin3722 wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> Have you ever heard a TV broadcast in past years of a concert that
> struck you as displaying really great sound? I thought anything
> relayed by PBS or other TV stations would be automatically compromised
> in terms of aural quality.
>

KERA in Dallas seems to to pretty good work, consistently.

<snip>

--
Les Cargill