Are We Being to Nitpicky about Recorded Tone?

[redavide]

You can't really ask are "we" being too nitpicky about recorded tone . . . It's not a group decision. It's up to the individual whose doing the recording to make a musical judgment about how nitpicky he wants to be about any aspect of the recording.

[Allman_Fan]

It's not a group decision.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'm with ferg on this one, BUT if someone else wants to spend a bunch of time in the studio, who am I to tell them what to do?

I haven't spent a great deal of time in the studio, but even that small amount of time was WAY TOO much on songs/ideas that weren't going anywhere.

You can put a lot of shine on a piece of crap, but it is still a piece of crap.
But chocolate cake is great on both chrystal and paper plates.

[Brent Hutto]

I prefer the coffee analogy. The best freshly-ground, just-roasted, brewed to perfection one cup at a time coffee served cold in a styrofoam cup tastes mostly like cold coffee in a styrofoam cup. I'd rather have some Maxwell House in a proper mug.

But the mug doesn't have to be antique Wedgewood china, it can be a piece of Corelle-ware.

[Bob Womack]

Recorded tone is my job.

I guess it is no surprise that there have been times when I've bought recordings simply because they were great recordings. But my favorite recordings tend to be driven by great music that I love. I've got a classical record that I simply can't stop listening to (thirty-five years later) even though it is a horrid recording. I do love it when great music and great recording come together, though.

Bob

[wthurman]

I'm nitpicky. I have recordings I can no longer listen to due to poor production/performance values and others that I still can. I contend that muffly, poor recordings I like are despite the production values, but I would like them even more if recorded well. And old recordings of people like Bix Beiderbeck or Robert Johnson have other issues, like instruments that were not necessarily all that amazing, and two year old strings. And yet, you listen to old Glenn Miller or other (esp 40's era and after) and for the most part, they still hold up.

As for the compression/MP3 debate, I dislike smashed music, too, but that isn't a function of the MP3 format at a high enough bit rate. That's a function of modern production/mastering values.

Compressed data is not the same as compressed audio signal. Data compression issues show up in things like fluttery percussion or loss of consistent tone - not lack of dynamics. I have yet to meet someone in person who, with a duplicate song sync'd up and brought to the same levels, can definitively tell the difference between CD Audio and a 192khz bit rate MP3 when they're blind A/B'd in a tuned room through pro equipment. However, I haven't met the person who can't definitively tell at a lower bit rate. I'd call 192khz the minimum. That person may be out there, but I'm only saying I haven't met him or her yet, and I've dealt with a lot of people with pretty fabulous ears.

My opinion, and some fact mixed in.

[alohachris]

Aloha Ferg,

It's pretty easy to see which side of the "Nitpicking" issue you come out on - trusting a Zoom H-2 or H4n for your audio while matching them up to that wonderful t2i DSLR.

Just a joke, Ferg. But....

There are usually signal chain compatibility & quality difference issues, plus knowledge gaps when it comes to so many of us not achieving optimum results.

Nitpicking is the positive attitude that can lead us out of our own "lousy sound abysses."

I mean, if I weren't nitpicky, then I'd probably record & gig through a UST or an Anthem, through a PADI, record in a bathroom, & scrap the high-end mic/pre combo's, compatible signal chains & room treatment altogether. Then I'd sound like 99% of the youtube acoustic offerings - like s&^t!


alohachris

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by wthurman

.

Compressed data is not the same as compressed audio signal. Data compression issues show up in things like fluttery percussion or loss of consistent tone - not lack of dynamics. I have yet to meet someone in person who, with a duplicate song sync'd up and brought to the same levels, can definitively tell the difference between CD Audio and a 192khz bit rate MP3 when they're blind A/B'd in a tuned room through pro equipment. However, I haven't met the person who can't definitively tell at a lower bit rate. I'd call 192khz the minimum. That person may be out there, but I'm only saying I haven't met him or her yet, and I've dealt with a lot of people with pretty fabulous ears.
My opinion, and some fact mixed in.

More or less true but I do hear some differences on some music with a good playback system.

For example here are two files. I just converted (via lame) the 318 bit rate mp3 to a 192 bit rate mp3.
The higher bit rate file to my ears is a bit warmer and fuller sounding - the original way a bit more even.
Do you hear any difference between the 192 and 318 (try not to notice the file sizes).

http://dcoombsguitar.com/Guitar%20Mu...gSheemore1.mp3

http://dcoombsguitar.com/Guitar%20Mu...gSheemore2.mp3

[Brent Hutto]

Chris,

Don't get me started on the occasional posts we read on AGF where someone just raves about the sound of this or that guitar "blew them away" on a YouTube clip, yet when you follow the link it's recorded with the microphone of a laptop camera sitting eight feet from the guitar in someone's sheetrock bedroom. You have to figure the nameplate on the guitar did the blowing away as the YouTube audio is indistinguishable from a mistuned banjo or electric zither.

[redavide]

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

Chris,

Don't get me started on the occasional posts we read on AGF where someone just raves about the sound of this or that guitar "blew them away" on a YouTube clip, yet when you follow the link it's recorded with the microphone of a laptop camera sitting eight feet from the guitar in someone's sheetrock bedroom. You have to figure the nameplate on the guitar did the blowing away as the YouTube audio is indistinguishable from a mistuned banjo or electric zither.

When someone talks about great sound on Youtube, often they only mean that it's relatively great sound -- in other words, "sounds great for Youtube". And that can definitely be true -- sometimes on Youtube you run across recordings that sound much better than most others of a similar type. When someone is "blown away" by the sound of a Youtube clip, they've most likely been sitting around listening to Youtube clips and then all of a sudden one stands out as having exceptional sound quality -- in that limited audio environment . . .

Some people seem to have figured out how to compensate in the recording process for the audio degradation that Youtube compression causes. Maybe it's an audio engineering skill for the modern world: "How to get the optimum sound knowing that people will listen to it on Youtube very often through lousy little speakers."

I'm not knocking recordings by audiophiles for audiophiles involving extremely expensive equipment on both the recording and playback ends -- there's definitely a place for the very few people who have a very high regard for "perfect" sound (and who can also afford it) . But you obviously can't compare that world with the Youtube world . . .

[Brent Hutto]

After a mis-spent youth hanging around high end audio shops it took a few years of going cold turkey to lose my Golden Ears. So I can be perfectly happy listening to music purchased from the iTunes store (medium bitrate AAC) on a $150 set of headphones or playing the same iPod songs through my car stereo. And I've done fairly rigorous ABx testing to determine that I surely can not distinguish between an uncompressed WAV file and MP3 or AAC files of a couple hundred thousand bps, on most kinds of music (not counting specifically chosen "torture tracks" that elicits artifacts).

That said, I marvel at the tolerance people nowadays have for YouTube. There are definitely differences between the decent-sounding productions and the really nasty ones but best case it is still completely lacking in nuance and tonally unpleasant. But perfectly adequate for learning how a song goes or for enjoying a clip that's awesome for reasons other than tone quality.

[redavide]

Brent, I would agree with you that of all the popular audio mediums these days, Youtube pretty much comes in last place tone-quality wise . . .

Having said that, off the top of my head, here are a few examples of acoustic guitar recordings from Youtube that I think have fairly reasonable tone quality when you take the limitations into account:

An example from Candyrat Records, which generally has good quality Youtube recordings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EuB6F2Ru7I

From Augustin Amigo, who posts here occasionally:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geRGiaQGQUI

From Fran Guidry, who recently posted this in the Show and Tell section:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwyDhCZWIwg


Granted, the tone quality is far from optimum, but relatively speaking, not bad at all . . .

[wthurman]

Youtube, to me, musically is the video/audio analog to Twitter. "What are you playing right now?" Sometimes amusing, sometimes interesting, most often neither.

But that's me... YMMV

[Brent Hutto]

Originally Posted by redavide

Granted, the tone quality is far from optimum, but relatively speaking, not bad at all . . .

Agreed. Fran and a few other folks here and there do manage to sneak some listenable audio through the YouTube sausage grinder, somehow.

[ferg]

Originally Posted by alohachris

It's pretty easy to see which side of the "Nitpicking" issue you come out on - trusting a Zoom H-2 or H4n for your audio while matching them up to that wonderful t2i DSLR.

Chris - I know you're joking, but I actually think the H4n and the T2i are pretty well-matched. The T2i is not a professional video camera. It's consumer-level DSLR that also shoots HD video. Compared to a flip camera, the video is much better, but compared to a flip camera, the audio of the H4n is much better.

Originally Posted by alohachris

I mean, if I weren't nitpicky, then I'd probably record & gig through a UST or an Anthem, through a PADI, record in a bathroom, & scrap the high-end mic/pre combo's, compatible signal chains & room treatment altogether.

Well, there's nitpicky, then there's NITPICKY. The question I was posing maybe would have been better worded. I'm really wondering if it's worth going through the extra significant expense and time to take a recording from, say 85% of what I consider technically fantastic (though still good to my ears).

I'm not sure if you're heard any of my recordings posted in the show-and-tell section. I use reasonably priced mics, a reasonably priced firewire interface (or a cheap usb interface), and I try to make a decent recording in what limited time I have. Sometimes these are just for the purpose of tracking something for the sake of posterity and sometimes it's for demo purposes.

Here's an example of a recording I made that I think is "good" enough. It's not a perfect performance, but I'm not a very technically proficient guitarist. I recorded this right after I wrote it, but I would probably re-do the lead vocal before any distribution, as I'm more comfortable singing it now, but you get the idea. I'm not recording through a UST, but I am using relatively cheap gear otherwise. Just to be clear - what I mean is - the recording and the performance are, to my ear, good enough for it to be enjoyable. Some of this is subjective (whether you like the song, etc, etc), but despite not being a "top notch" recording or performance, my personal feeling is that this sounds good enough that the technical side of things won't ruin it for you if you would haver liked it otherwise.

Originally Posted by alohachris

Then I'd sound like 99% of the youtube acoustic offerings - like s&^t!

In the grand scheme of things, if you're posting to the web, while I do find having better original audio and video to start with does yield better results, I think there are diminishing returns once you get above a certain level.

Again, I know you were just making a joke, and the initial question WAS a question. There is part of me that DOES want to spend more time and money on the technical part of things, but as the sole household income and 3 kids, there's only so much of those things to go around.

[RustyAxe]

I don't think so. Among acoustic players the "holy grail" is fidelity ... does it sound like the instrument, like MY voice? I think we fret too much over live sound, actually. A live performance is transient, ephemeral. Gone the second it's played. A recording, OTOH, has a permanence, and every effort toward "perfection" is worth the trouble. Of course, there are degrees. I'm not wealthy, and none of my home recordings, no matter how much I put into them will sound like a $500K studio with a proper engineer.