Headphones are never accurate, just like speakers they have their own sound.
At the risk of exposing myself to extreme
because of age/viewpoint..I have somethin I need to say here.
Some of you missed the point.
Which IS..TRANSLATION. The whole point of a control room, is to PREDICT an AVERAGE translation of the recorded material in a broad range of room ACOUSTICS and AMPLITUDES
Untill the point comes where EVERY SINGLE ENVIORNMENT has no need for acoustical response, how could you possibly predict what its going to sound like.
Look at it this way. There are THREE scenarios to cover.
REAL musical instruments produce hundreds of minute harmonic "interstices", which gives each instrument its characteristic sound.
It is precisely these harmonics which make real instruments sound real. However, even real instruments played in an anachoic chamber sound dead and lifeless. This is why REAL instruments are called...ahem..ACOUSTIC instruments. When played in bad acoustical environments, they SOUND bad. Played in great environments...they sound GREAT. And when played in combination with other instruments, these "harmonic interstices" add "richness" to the overall sonic spectrum.
When "acoustic" instruments are recorded in a "acoustically controlled and enhanced" environment, such as a large recording studio, the rooms ACOUSTICS is what "blends"(diffuses) these sounds, much as blending a cake mix before cooking.(forgive the analogy
). However, some instruments have amplitude differences, that each musician when playing with emotion, cannot
"adjust" to compensate when compared to other instruments..ie(drums in relation to flute). It is these amplitude differences that led to the invention of "mixers", multiple mic techniques, gobos', isolation rooms, etc. In the context of ACOUSTICAL instrumentation, and in the STUDIO(ie...live room) I don't see ANY contribution to this device whatsoever. Either the instruments are live or they're not.
Not to mention COMB FILTERING(see below). Once engineers discovered that mic placement was to blame for comb filtering(phase cancellation due to time differentials between direct and reflected sounds)at the mic, it was a short interlude to understanding that a control room MUST NOT MASK the comb filtering taking place in the studio lest the control room monitoring LIES.
Hence, TDG(time delay gap) and the so called RFZ(reflection free ZONE) control room designs in vogue in the last 4o years.(my personal feeling is there is no such thing as RFZ..unless you are outdoors in the desert and the surrounding land is completely FLAT..see John Sayers experiment)
1. On the contrary, consider the situation of NO Acoustic instruments(except drums perhaps, or maybe not.) IF, in the LIVE ROOM, (oxymoron in this context) ELECTRONIC instruments(guitars/keyboards etc) feed amplifiers which in turn feed one of these transmitters, which mics are picking up DIRECT radiation from these devices, which isolates propogation of sound fields to adjacent boundarys and back to the mics. What would be the purpose, when in fact, electronic insturments have the abiltiy to directly feed the mixer via line level feeds.(Which can be digitally altered for effects etc...and which can feed headphone systems regardless of the technique used. In other words, why use mics if the purpose of the device is to remove "acoustics" from the equasion? Conversly, if INDEED, you are trying to record the acoustic "blend' of multi instrument ensembles, then this device would serve no purpose, no? You mention "bleed". Yes, you may be right. However, removing the "acoustics" from the equasion seems stupid when viewed in context of multi instrument mic'ing. EITHER you are MIC'ING or you are not
Should you have a Vocalist in the same room, AND at the same time as other "live instruments, seems to overlook the point of MULTITRACKING.
The WHOLE point of "ensemble" recording is predicated on the fact the performance via ensemble, captures not only the "magic" interplay of an ensemble(vs multitracking of seperate performances". In the context of recording a "vocalist"...where would this device fit in? In "ensemble" recording, either you use gobos, seperate booths or multitracking to remove/reduce "bleed". Should you be trying to "capture" the acoustic signature of "ensembles"...well, that pretty much explains itself
I see no function for this device in that context. Electronic instruments used "ensemble" can be fed direct, and monitored by other musicians through headphones. The ONLY possible purpose would be..ELECTRIFIED instruments...ie...guitars. Should you feed the guitar to an amp...in turn to one of these divices...in turn focused at a MIC..you now remove the whole point of "electric guitar"...which IS...the sound characteristics of the AMP/SPEAKER...combination. Guitars too are routinely
run direct through digital simulators(hardware and software) which removes "bleed" as well as amplitude from the equasion. Especially in HR context. I can just hear a guitarist trying to get a screaming Marshall/speaker distortion effect from one of these devices...ie...DUH!
Hence.. this method is an oxymoron when you can feed direct.
2. Which leaves the second link in the chain. The control room. In HR RECORDING context, there are USUALLY, two big difference between pro and HR control room characteristics. One is isolation from not only the "live" room, but from adjacent rooms in the building as well as adjacent neighbors. And two, pro level monitoring geometry design,treatment AND amplitude. Typical HR control room restraints require the control room to serve as the "live" room as well. This usually results in the control room being treated for "average" broadband absorption, and in many cases, because the rooms are so small, extensive LF absorption as well. Which means, hypothetically, these rooms leave much to be desired when it comes to recording not only seperate "acoustical" instruments, but "ensembles" as well. Which for many typical HR enthusiasts, ensemble recording remains an elusive creature, precisely because of lack of other rooms for a "lve" space, or space/amplitude restraints in the control room itself. Hence "multitracking" seperate performances, regardless of isolation from other rooms/neighbors.
But here is the rub. Since, recording performances in the same room as you are trying to monitor the mics, REQUIRES the use of HEADPHONES to 1., remove the possibility of feedback from mic/speaker occillation..and 2. to keep the LIVE sound from masking the sound you are trying to MONITOR to do your job as an engineer..ie...level,pan, eq, effects and all the other aspects that you apply to taste. However, as you well know, monitoring LIVE sound in headphones is bad enough, but IN THE SAME ROOM AS the live sound is a lesson in pro/vs HR control rooms...ie...TRANSLATION suffers. ie..when the performance is played back over monitors, it sounds TOTALLY different than in the headphones....in other words, it may require multiple takes to "get it right". Unless you are a "fix it in the mix" kinda guy...this don't cut it when you are getting PAID for studio time.
Ok, so, lets see, in the context of recording in the same room as the performance is taking place...I see TWO possible advantages to using this device,
1.as a set of monitors for the engineer, whereby they remove the possibility of feedback from mics in the same room(focused at the engineers ears). Although, anyone with half a synapse could see the problem with this...WHAT ABOUT THE LIVE SOUND MIXING WITH IF NOT MASKING the focused sound from the device as you do NOT have headphones to eleminate or reduce the live sound.
2..removing a source of irritation from adacent neighbors(should you NOT be recording acoustical instruments with LOUD footprints..or feeding the mixer with electronic instruments)at the same time.(otherwise, the amplitude of the instruments bothering neighbors is the same thing as your monitors bothering them....duh!)
This is where critical thinking comes into play regarding the PURPOSE of a control room. And what is that purpose? There are three actually.
a. To give the engineer a way to hear any COMB FILTERING occurring in the "live room" without the control room's OWN comb filtering MASKING those of the "live room", which in this case is the same room as the control room...which anyone who has been paying attention all these years will understand... is IMPOSSIBLE when the control room is the same thing as the "live room."(see (1) above.
Although, considering as an example, the current crop of POP recordings I've heard on the radio, I've come to the conclusion that this purpose has all but disappeared from the attribute catagory as artistic content of recordings has degenerated to that of adolescent babbling, out of tune, out of synch, out of ideas, out of touch with what real talent is, out of embarrasment for thier lack of talent, out of appreaciation for that which
has been historically revered as REAL TALENT, and generally sounds like crap. Think loudness talentless wars.
2. To give the engineer the tools to evaluate the sonic palete occuring in the studio, while capturing the performance on industry acceptable media and THEN
give the producer tools that allow artistic license to balance, pan, eq, blend, etc etc according to their interpretation goal ...ie...MIX. Historically, mixing was used to blend amplitude/frequency differences of various mics and the
"acoustical SIGNATURE", LIVE in the studio. Once multitracking became common place, a whole different technique and sound emerged. MIX now become post performance and took on a whole new meaning. Engieers/producers now became artists within the recording process themselves, who were now free to remove/add the "acoustical signature" at will.
3. To produce a semi finished product that meets industry standards for mastering and then mass production. Although, at this point in time, with so many Home and project studios producing upwards of 25,000 releases a year, and portable media reduced to downloadable MP3 files directly into Ipods etc...MOST releases hardly meet the historic meaning of sonic quality. If anything, these products reflect the times. Most people who have become part of the Ipod generation don't have a clue or care what sonic quality really is. All they want is current artistic dogma as loud as possible.
So now, we come down to where this device MIGHT fit into the equasion. And that is exactly what techomind elluded to. MIXING. I can see where these might work in the context of a home studio/modern recording appreciation tastes, and may even evolve into a whole new sonic tool whereby totally acoustically dead tracks may be digitally altered to reflect different acoustic "sounds", much as Autotune became a sound unto itself. HOWEVER...when it comes down to TRANSLATION in ACTUAL ROOMS...(ie...NOT Ipod/earbud users), this device is useless for monitoring. The reason is simple. Unless your listener is using the same device, you can't possibly predict the "acoustic average" for PLAYBACK ON SPEAKERS IN A ROOM! Because conventional control room design dogma demands a FLAT AS POSSIBLE room "response"(the standard +/-2db 20hz-20Khz @ mix position = flat) in order to hear any frequency amplitude deviation(whether intended or not)and this is achieved by that which this device CANNOT do...which is... EXCITE THE ACOUSTIC RESPONSE OF THE ROOM...PERIOD. Exactly that reason why MIXING IN HEADPHONES is a lesson that hindsight is 20/20.
Of course, current artistic license and availability of recording gear to the masses via a ITB machines, reduces this reason to that of nostalgic nonsense.
TOO BAD. Compared to a recording produced in a major studio during the hieght of "CLASS A" engineering, mixing, mastering, equipment, rooms, and most of all, TALENT...
current "pop" youtube class recordings/talent remind me of tedious, homogenised, chameleon-esque scribble which amount to nothing more than the demented cacophonous racket of a drugged lunatic banging loudly on kitchen pots and pans.
I rest my case. Of course, old fart HR opinions carry no weight.
Have fun with your new found "solution" tool. I'll stick to speakers/acoustics thankyou.
fitZ
