Antares Mic Modeler

[Eurythmic]

Mark H: Excellent, excellent posts. Some comments:

It's a very dark, 1984-ish view of music's possible future. Something that would make a good concept album... you know, if I were a progressive rocker.

In the 60s, some engineers would splice together 30 takes of a difficult piano concerto to get a technically perfect take. Is that valid? Glenn Gould thought so; many others thought it was a crock.

Ouch. With classical music, I could never agree with that. Classical recordings, to me, have always been about capturing a performance. A lot of people think it should be that way with rock, too - but with rock (pop), I think there's a little more leeway. On one hand, there are some cases where the studio can be used to disguise the fact that an artist has no musical ability (Jennifer Lopez), and I don't like that. On the other hand, using myself as an example - I don't know that I could ever take a song I've written, expand it, and turn it into something completely different onstage (i.e. Counting Crows and "Round Here"). I don't know that it necessarily means I'm a less capable musician - well, I AM less capable than Counting Crows. What I mean to say is that I don't think it makes me a poor musician, it's just that once I've composed a piece of music, I don't really hear it (in my mind's ear) any other way. So when I record it, I'm looking to make it as perfect as possible - to try to create the "definitive performance".

When I first heard the Yamaha DX-7 in the mid-eighties through a guitar amp, I believed that the "orchestral chimes" sounded exactly like the real thing. That seems naive and humorous now.

I thought the SAME thing, the first time I heard the Roland MT-32 in 1987 or 88. I still love it, but I can't imagine what I was thinking then.

The compact disc (actually 16 bit / 44.1 khz oversampling) sounds inherently terrible, yet how many of us who had $100 turntables thought that was the case when CDs were first introduced? Until we *hear* music recorded at 24/96 or better, we have no idea how much better digital recording can be than the "Red Book" standard.

You've lost me here. Although I thought that DVD audio was loads better than CD audio when I first purchased my DVD player, I've never actually had identical material on CD and DVD to compare. And even then, the material probably wouldn't have been recorded at 24/96, so it might matter little. So for all intents and purposes, I've never heard a 24/96 recording. Do you really think the difference is that profound? Everything I've been told has indicated that the perceived difference is actually very small.

Finally, and I hope some of you can answer this, why do some musicians and engineers today want to emulate the "sound of the Beattles"?

In my opinion, and this may not be the answer you're looking for, it's because the "Beatles sound" is every bit as fresh, exciting, and timeless today as it was back in the '60s - approaching 40 years ago, for some of those recordings. NOTHING ages that well! Except for maybe Sean Connery. ;-) I stuck Revolver into the CD player last night, in honor of George. And it felt positively ELECTRIC to me. A Beatles album is a 40 minute crash course in how to make amazing music - other than Yellow Submarine. But even that has its moments, of course. In contrast, I bought the first Britney Spears album when I found a copy for $5, because "Baby One More Time" is one of my favorite pop songs from the last few years. Last time I played the disc, I was amazed at how OLD it already sounded.

And honestly, I don't think all Beatles recordings sound bad. Yeah, a few grate on me a little bit when I listen from a recording standpoint, but many sound terrific. I certainly haven't heard a home recording to rival Abbey Road. But then, maybe it's about more than simple sound quality.

Beatles records certainly sound better than most Led Zeppelin records.

But even the Beatles serve as a bit of an example for something you're talking about. Why were their albums so groundbreaking, beginning after For Sale, or Help, or whenever the cutoff was, when they stopped performing live? Well, obviously Beatlemania was a huge part of it, but also their ideas were getting so huge, that it was becoming impossible to reproduce them onstage. Sure, "Tomorrow Never Knows" could be performed live TODAY. But in 1966? Good luck! You have to admire them for doing such a good job live with songs like "Paperback Writer". They were able to do more things without the burden of being expected to perform them in concert.

Remember the 70s? Disco nearly killed muscianship.

But it didn't, and the next "disco" won't, either.

Just my opinions, of course...

But first, I sometimes don't think that us musicians give "Joe & Jane Public", the average music listener, enough credit. I believe that people know how to recognize an amazing performance and latch onto it. I think that's why, for example, Michael Jackson was huge in the '80s while other famous artists were merely big. The guy couldn't just write the songs, and hire the best collaborators, producers, and backing musicians to make them sound amazing. He could get on stage and perform them like nobody you'd ever seen before.

Also, whenever popular music becomes too "disco", for lack of a better term - that's when Rock breaks through again. In the '70s, the saviors were artists and groups like Talking Heads, Blondie, the Ramones, Bruce Springteen, and Tom Petty. In the early '90s, it happened again. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Counting Crows, Soundgarden, and the like saved us from RATT, Poison, whatever other terrible hair bands there were, New Kids, and Vanilla Ice. How ANCIENT does "Ice Ice Baby" sound these days? And yet, those first four bars of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" get my blood flowing every single time.

Pop and rock seem to seesaw in 10-ish year cycles. Which means we're about due for another renaissance. I don't know about you folks, but as far as I'm concerned, rock music has never been as devoid of talent and inspiration as it is right now. Radiohead is an exception, but are they even rock anymore? I don't really think so.

But it's hard to tell how much longer it will last. I think of it as the next iteration of "classical" music - renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic, modern, rock and roll. I know, some people laugh at that. But now that it's been around for fifty years, and considering the fact that a musical "era" is roughly a hundred years...

It makes you wonder what it will be like in another fifty years. Will the band and orchestra systems of our schools be replaced with Rock Class? "Mommy and daddy, will you please rent me that Yamaha student guitar so I can join the school band?"

Anyway, returning to the original point: For today, I believe there's a middle ground. I love computer recording, because when I sit at my computer - I don't know if I have the talent - but I at least feel like I have the ABILITY to do something that's never been done before. On the other hand, when I pick up my guitar, I don't feel that I can do a single thing that hasn't already been done by all of my rock heroes. So I thank gosh for my Sound Blaster, my Roland MT-32, and all of my other little toys. And who knows. Maybe one day I'll have my moment in the sun, and it'll be one of you guitar slingers that knocks me off the charts and brings Rock back to the world.

One can dream.

 

[Rthodox]

this discussion took an interesting turn

I don't think it's appropriate to compare the imitation of an electronic device (the microphone) with the imitation of the soul (someone's singing). However hard one might try, he/she shall not succeed in imitating perfectly another person's voice and even if that were to be accomplished the singer's modulation will certainly not be possible to imitate. I think that a microphone's sound could be imitated even by software (provided that you use a linear mic as the source) but I don't know if Antares really does. Judging by what most of you said it certainly doesn't.
About the new subject that's been brought up (the pop explosion) I have a lot to say. I live in Romania, and over here what you call low quality music or Disco/Pop is the ONLY thing that sells. It's only that the term Disco here includes a lot more styles than just cheap POP. Ethno music is the best sold music, and Disco/Pop is the second. Most of the rock bands that used to make quality music now sing shi@#y pop influenced music because otherwise they won't survive. It's not uncommon to hear bands play a commercial version of electronic/rock/disco crossover. The whole music business in Romania is a tragedy. I can't wait for the next Romanian version of Pearl Jam, but judging by the people's thick heads over here that won't be happening too soon. I mean, there are bands making great music but no labels will sign them. I know quite a few (Rock and Hip-Hop), but more of them make compromises each day in commercialising their sound just to be able to record an album. The final product though has no relation in sound to what those bands sang in the first place. Too bad about that!

Now I think I'll go cry myself to sleep!

 

[Executivos]

Sorry, I know the current direction of this thread is more of a philisophical vibe right now, but I read this earlier in the thread and wanted to comment.

Generally, the folks at Antares want to borrow mics that sell in the $5,000 to $20,000+ range to add to their database of emulations, since most people aren't going to use the Mic Modeler to make their Manley Gold Reference sound like an SM57..........

Mark H.

It would be helpful to for antares to model the Studio projects c1...not so that I can turn my manley gold reference into a c1, but so I can record with a c1 and turn it into a manley gold reference.

To use the plugin, they have to have modeled the mic you actually had used...thats why you'll notice they have cheap mics in their system...I don't know how many of us want to turn our akg c12's into oktavas.....they had to model some mics which we actually own.

W/ regards to the ones that think mic modeling is the anti-christ (I mean that in a humorous way, don't get pissed)

I like the plugin...I don't use it much but I think it's greatest benefits are simply to mess around. Record something with an sm57, but tell it you used a akg 414 on omni directional and turn it into a u47....whatever......Get the sound of sticking your u87 inside a bass drum....


The other point is that everyone thinks it's sole purpose is to turn a really crappy mic into a really good one. What about turing a decent mic into a different decent mic? Do high end studios just buy one $10,000 mic and use it on EVERYONE? N....most have an extensive mic closet....no one mic is good on every voice

Up until last week my only mic was a rode ntv...most would agree that it's a nice mic. When it's working with the right singer, it's INSANE. Then I had a femal vocalist in here and it just wasn't happening. Turns out her voice sounded MUCH better when I modeled it to one of the sony mics in there. I would have rather had that sony mic but hell. it's not gonna happen.



Oh yeah I found aipl warm tone kinda...harsh as opposed to warm....maybe more of a solid state simulator? The amp/tube simulation on hyperprism does a great job. I use it on most of my raw drum samples before they go into fruityloops so they have a fake tape warmth

 

[Mark H.]

Eurythmic, your post is the best thing I've ever read on any on-line forum anywhere, regardless of topic. Thank you so much for taking the time to address my thoughts and concerns with such intense focus and precision. I feel like you're inside my head.

Rthodox, thank you for telling us about the scene in Romania. It is sad, considering the rich musical traditions and innovations of eastern Europe, but I have complete confidence that the pendulum will swing back towards quality. My comment about disco in relation to Digitial Signal Processing was actually not a criticism of the style or sound of disco, but rather the fact that the *phenomenon* of disco in the 1970s put a lot of performing musicians out of work. Clubs that used to hire a band every weekend began spinning discs instead. Live musicians were replaced with live DJs, whose art was (and is) in how they present music that is already recorded. It was exciting, and dancing became aerobic again, one song after another inviting you to stay on the dance floor all night. But disco made it miserable for some bands to find a gig.

Likewise, the advent of the synthesizer (and later the sampler) meant that you didn't need to hire an oboist, a flautist, a trumpet player, a string section, a choir or even a symphony orchestra. (However, for a very long time, no one could synthesize a believable cello or violin, which is another thread in itself.)

Synthesizers put a lot of studio musicians out of work. When I was growing up in the late 50s and 60s and early 70s, "everyone" knew that, except for super-stars, the coolest people in the world (and certainly the best musicians) were the mostly unnamed studio musicians who did everything from soundtracks for movies and television to backing up the super-stars with orchestral extravaganzas. They made their living as full-time musicians. Today, even some well known musicians make their living working at record stores for not much more than minimum wage.

Executivos, thank you for telling me about your experience with the NTV and about how the Antares helps improve your recordings. I think everything you said was valid. And I don't really think of mic modeling as the anti-Christ, but I loved your comment.

Eurythmic, the Orwellian view springs from my bipolar depression, and therefore should be taken with a large grain of salt. When I have something stinky in my beard, it's hard not to imagine that the whole world smells bad.

Your comment about how you hear your music in your head reminds me of an old saw in the audiophile world that musicians have the worst sound systems. While anyone who thinks critically about that for more than three seconds realizes it simply cannot be true, the fable survives for a good reason. Whatever it is in your head that makes it possible for you to hear your music a certain way ALSO enables you to LISTEN to the crappiest reproduction of a live performance and still HEAR the perfection of the original, even if it's being played on a boom box or car radio. If we all had that gift, there would be little reason for so-called high end audio, because no playback system will ever be as rich and detailed as what people with good musical ability and imagination can create in their own heads.

Likewise, critical listening is very different from experiencing music. My wife, who has much less musical *knowledge* than I have, for instance, nevertheless hears with her heart, directly, while my hearing is filtered through the part of my brain that is taught to distinguish differences and flaws (a large part of my work is fixing other people's writing and budgeting errors). Her opinions of the sound of a microphone or preamp, for instance, are far more accurate and immediate than my initial perceptions. It may take me two hours to finally hear what she experiences right away.

quote from my earlier post:
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The compact disc (actually 16 bit / 44.1 khz oversampling) sounds inherently terrible, yet how many of us who had $100 turntables thought that was the case when CDs were first introduced? Until we *hear* music recorded at 24/96 or better, we have no idea how much better digital recording can be than the "Red Book" standard.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You replied:

You've lost me here. Although I thought that DVD audio was loads better than CD audio when I first purchased my DVD player, I've never actually had identical material on CD and DVD to compare. And even then, the material probably wouldn't have been recorded at 24/96, so it might matter little. So for all intents and purposes, I've never heard a 24/96 recording. Do you really think the difference is that profound? Everything I've been told has indicated that the perceived difference is actually very small.

__________________________________________________

Over the years, my wife and I carefully put together a CD playback system that, if we had bought the components new (which we could never have afforded), would have cost us about $13,000. Even by carefully buying quality used equipment, we're still into it for more than $6,000. In the audiophile world, one component can cost that much or more, but among ordinary people, it's a pretty good system. Note that our system does not include tape, phono, subwoofers, surround or any other inputs; it's just a Sony CD player, a halfway decent Melos tubed preamp/headphone amplifier, a pair of Muse monoblocks for the treble, a consumer Adcom amp for the bass, and one pair of Genesis speakers. Our wires are made by Monster; nice, but no one's idea of high-end.

The problem was one we didn't foresee: on our first stereo, a NAD receiver and a good pair of Polk speakers with some Kimber cable and a Radio Shack CD player, most everything sounded pretty good. When we added an inexpensive C-V subwoofer, taking the power burden off of driving the Polk woofers beyond their range, it sounded even better. Later we added a delay line and some rear speakers, and the soundstage expanded.

However, by the time we had upgraded everything a few times to the level of the system we have now in our living room, about 75-80% of the compact discs we own (some 1500 or more, mostly classical, bought at the rate of one or two a week for 15 years), sound generally awful. The bare "truth" of digitally recorded or re-recorded sound is not particularly pleasant or musical. We bet on CDs to be better than LPs, and in terms of ultimate sound quality, we lost. (However, in terms of being able to expand our classical listening experience, we won the musical jackpot!)

We addressed the situation for ourselves by putting together a second CD playback system in our bedroom, using the same Sony CD player, passive stepped attenuators in lieu of a preamp, a single stereo Muse amp, and -- most importantly -- a pair of Rogers Studio 1a speakers that had their binding posts, internal wiring and caps upgraded by the previous owner. The Rogers, a simple 2-way ported design in a medium-large box, are not accurate, full-range or detailed, but they are ALWAYS musical. It gave us a system on which we could enjoy the vast majority of our CDs, as well as a system downstairs on which the very best CDs could be revealed in all their glory.

So my opinion of the *potential* of 24/96 and 24/192 is completely speculative and unsupported -- I want to make that clear. However, I strongly believe that on a reasonably accurate playback system, the difference will be absolutely profound, that a stone will be able to hear and enjoy the difference.

People with inifintely more knowledge and experience than I have are saying that with top-quality 24/96 and 24/192, digital audio will FINALLY sound as good as a high-end multi-track 2 inch analog studio tape recorder. If you're falling on the floor laughing at the bitter irony of that statement, believe me, you're not the only one. The only people who cannot laugh about it work in studios that have zillions of dollars invested in 16/44 equipment, and the labels whose vaults contain great performances that were only recorded digitally at 16/44 during the height of the CD era.

(And yet, for another thread sometime, perhaps, what about those 20% of recordings released on CD that in fact are unarguably gorgeous? Who engineered Joan Baez's 1974 album "Diamonds and Rust," and why does it sound so much better than most of what has been recorded in the last 10 years? Why is it that, even with my bad ears, I can still discern the difference between a Stradivarius and a Montagna cello on a couple of CDs? Were they recorded superbly on analog and then "transferred" with meticulous care to digital (and, if so, what does THAT mean)? Were they recorded at 24/96 and carefully brought down to Red Book? Why do the best CDs sound SO MUCH better than the average CD?)

That's why all the stuff you guys are talking about here is so incredibly exciting to me, starting at the source: microphones.

Even more important is the *potential* inherent in computer recording, which is nothing less than being able to make a recording on your own equipment at home that is as good or better than the best compact discs ever released, for a tiny fraction of the cost of owning and outfitting a commercial studio, let alone a post-production and CD-pressing plant.

When we can finally record AND playback 24/96 or 24/192 at consumer prices, I predict the difference will make most CDs sound as archaic as the monoaural recordings of the 50s sound to us today (I have a Furtwangler recording of Wagner's Ring from 1953 that sounds like it was recorded off the AM radio.)

In fact, the best listening example I can think of is the three recordings available of Glenn Gould playing the Bach Goldberg Variations (music made once-again famous through its cinematic association with Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal Lechter in "Silence of the Lambs" and "Hannibal").

The first CD release of the 1955 recording sounds like a mid-fifties tape or LP of someone playing a piano on a record player. The 1982 digital recording (a new recording, as Gould was very interested in improving the sound quality) has its own distinction: another great performance, but an early and rather mediocre digital sound recording. Finally, and its actually been several years ago now, Sony went back into the Columbia archives and re-mastered the 1955 performance using 20-bit processing and their new Super Bit-Mapping technology (a form of DSP). Suddenly, the 1955 performance no longer sounded like a 1950's record player, it sounded like a piano! And think how far we have come since then.

Eventually, even Sony (with the advent of the Titanic-like super-CD format SACD) admitted that "perfect sound forever" was just an advertising slogan, and that even ordinary people could hear the difference between good and bad recordings, regardless of format. The owner of Wilson Audio, which makes and sells $150,000 speaker systems for home listening, claims he sold a system to a wealthy farmer in Nebraska who owned only 16 records, four of them by Conway Twitty. He waits about a second and then adds, "and those were the good ones." Just like SACD.

For me, this forum isn't just about getting something down in a saleable format, although I understand that for a working musician it often is. It's about the entire future of recorded music, a revolution in sound quality, a Renaissance of interest in all types of music, inspired by formats that make centuries of music newly available, affordable, realistic and listenable.

In my darker moments, the samplers and synthesizers improve to the point that there will no longer be any full-time musicians. The economics of mass production will assure that most musicians will be making their living some other way. (The famous folk singer Mary McCaslin worked for several years in a local used record shop in town for minimum wage -- her labels didn't even bother to tell her when they released her earlier recordings on CD.)

In my better moments, I foresee easily affordable recording and playback systems that are so effortlessly exacting and musical at the same time that ONLY recordings of real musicians on real instruments will be acceptable, and synthesis will be discarded as a sad phase in late-20th Century recording and music-making, a time when efficiency invariably won out over artistry.

I have to spend a LOT more time digesting your comments on the Beatles before I can respond. I hope the above helps to clarify my earlier statements.

I hope I don't hold the record for the longest posting -- I just am so glad to find others who would even consider these thoughts and who respond with such intelligence, insight and experience far greater than my own. Thank you to all.

I'll be on retreat for the next week, so I'll "see" you all again sometime the week of December 10.

With kind regards,

Mark H.

 

[Eurythmic]

Mark H,
I hope I'm not starting this too late in the evening to write a quality response, but here goes.

I'm home sick from work today, so I've actually been doing a lot of critical listening to some of the music we've discussed...

First off, thank you for the extremely kind words regarding my earlier post. Actually, reading your thoughts in this thread have been equally as illuminating for me.

Likewise, the advent of the synthesizer (and later the sampler) meant that you didn't need to hire an oboist, a flautist, a trumpet player, a string section, a choir or even a symphony orchestra. (However, for a very long time, no one could synthesize a believable cello or violin, which is another thread in itself.)

I still haven't heard a believable trumpet. But then, I probably haven't heard the "best of the best" in current synths/samplers, either. It could also have something to do with the fact that I used to be a brass player.

Synthesizers put a lot of studio musicians out of work. When I was growing up in the late 50s and 60s and early 70s, "everyone" knew that, except for super-stars, the coolest people in the world (and certainly the best musicians) were the mostly unnamed studio musicians who did everything from soundtracks for movies and television to backing up the super-stars with orchestral extravaganzas. They made their living as full-time musicians. Today, even some well known musicians make their living working at record stores for not much more than minimum wage.

Sad but true. Most "hired guns" that I know play in church bands, and that's about it.

Now this part of your message:

Your comment about how you hear your music in your head reminds me of an old saw in the audiophile world that musicians have the worst sound systems.

Along with the story about your wife made me feel like YOU were inside my head. I can actually sort of relate to both of you. When I was younger, I collected Led Zeppelin bootlegs. 90% of them sound horrible - but it didn't bother me at all! Around the time that I got into recording, my patience for them dropped, and I ended up selling all but my absolute favorites. Also, buying a "real" hifi system four or five years ago made a big difference. People always say that buying a great stereo makes you more fully appreciate why great recordings ARE great - but it also makes every flaw in a bad recording that much more obvious. (I have to say however, your system absolutely dwarfs mine - it must be amazing.) Although I don't have a "golden ear", I think that I can listen fairly critically to recordings. Other people's recordings, anyway. With my own recordings, I either don't have the skill, experience, or equipment (or all three) to reproduce what I hear in my head. It's extremely frustrating sometimes, because although I do sometimes come out proud of what I've done, it never sounds like what I originally heard in my head. I'm also completely incapable of describing what's different. So if I ever find a producer who thinks the way I do and actually has the talent to make it happen, that's about the time that I'll give up home recording and leave it to the experts.
I've never been able to answer the question "What kind of music do you make?", either. I usually fumble for the words and end up saying, "Uh, pop, I guess."

What you said about your wife really blew me away, because I feel exactly the way you do in the situations you described, and I've never heard anybody put it into words before. I'm terrible, just terrible at testing guitars and amplifiers for that reason. I hear that they're different, but I'm not immediately able to describe what the differences are. I need somebody else to tell me what he or she hears, before I hear it too.

I just thought I was weird.

Moving on...

Your post gets even better from here:

People with inifintely more knowledge and experience than I have are saying that with top-quality 24/96 and 24/192, digital audio will FINALLY sound as good as a high-end multi-track 2 inch analog studio tape recorder. If you're falling on the floor laughing at the bitter irony of that statement, believe me, you're not the only one. The only people who cannot laugh about it work in studios that have zillions of dollars invested in 16/44 equipment, and the labels whose vaults contain great performances that were only recorded digitally at 16/44 during the height of the CD era.

First of all, if I end up marrying a woman who is as tolerant of my musical obsessions as your wife is, I'll be an extremely lucky guy.

You covered a lot of ground. I hope I don't miss anything. To begin, I didn't realize that your collection of mainly classical music. I can now understand what you mean about all of the terrible sounding CDs, because most of the classical CDs I've owned have sounded really bad. The majority of my collection is actually on LP, though - but I don't have a turntable on which I can listen critically to those recordings. It's a cheapie $100 model.

Anyway, as a little test, I dug out the four classical CDs that I have thought of as my "favorite classical" recordings through the years, and listened to them critically, really for the first time. The result was not what I expected.

The CDs were:

Holst: The Planets - Berlin Philharmonic, Deutsche Grammophon, DDD, 1981 (Original-Image Bit-Processing)

Holidays & Epiphanies: The Music of Ron Nelson - Dallas Wind Symphony, Reference Recordings, DDD, 1996 (HDCD)

Trumpet Rhapsody: Timofei Dokschitzer - solost with various Russian orchestras, Melodiya, ADD, Recorded at varous times - I was listening to the performance of Alexander Arutiunian's trumpet concerto in Ab, recorded in 1968 (20-Bit Processing, NoNOISE used {Thankfully, I heard no artifacts from the NoNOISE})

Romantic Favorites For Strings: Leonard Bernstein - New York Philharmonic, CBS Records, AAD. I listened to Barber's Adagio for Strings, which was recorded in either 1964 or 1971 (the package doesn't give dates for specific tracks). No special mastering technology mentioned.

I bet some of you are already grinning. You probably already know what I'm going to say, but it came as a total revelation to me.

The first thing I had to set down for myself was, "What does a great classical recording sound like?" I came to the conclusion that the ultimate classical recording would be the one that most closely recreated the experience of what I hear when I attend a performance, or (in the past) perform at, my favorite concert shell here in Michigan.

So I began to listen. I figured that the HDCD would be my example of a great recording, and the Adagio for Strings would be the "murky recording that doesn't quite cut it", with the other two lying somewhere in between (Keep in mind, I am sure that none of these recordings were originally tracked in 24 bits).

Hah!

My conclusions:

Holidays & Epiphanies: Extremely clear and detailed, but also HARSH! Especially in the trumpets. Ron Nelson likes to have the trumpets punctuate the music with a lot of stacatto bursts... upon listening to the recording, I came to the conclusion that it sounded "hyper-real".

The Planets: Very good. Much warmer than the Ron Nelson recording, but also the loudest parts of "Mars" had a bit of a "mass of sound" effect that I didn't like a great deal. So while it had the warmth of a good shell, it didn't have the detail.

Trumpet Rhapsody: Maybe I should have compared recordings of similar music, because this recording ended up being the "odd man out", in a way. While I liked the sound of the solo trumpet, it wasn't the best solo trumpet recording I've ever heard, and I didn't care for the way the ensemble was captured. After this listen, I came to the conclusion that I liked the CD because the PERFORMANCE was amazing (it's the definitive recording of the Arutiunian trumpet concerto), but the actual sound of the recording didn't excite me a great deal.

Barber's Adagio: Would you believe it? This recording, this non-$25, non-HDCD, non-1024-Bit, this AAD CD, was the only one I tested that sounded really gosh darn close to a live performance at my favorite shell.

Again, I can just imagine that some people out there are saying "Well, duh." But I was SHOCKED. I learned a heck of a lot from my little test.

I wanted to extrapolate what I learned, to pop music...

(And yet, for another thread sometime, perhaps, what about those 20% of recordings released on CD that in fact are unarguably gorgeous? Who engineered Joan Baez's 1974 album "Diamonds and Rust," and why does it sound so much better than most of what has been recorded in the last 10 years?

I'm going to refer to an album that you may not have heard of, now that I know where your tastes lie (and the album didn't sell all that well, anyway), but it really isn't important: Earlier this year, I purchased Poe's album _Haunted_. I think this album sounds absolutely amazing, and I've told a lot of people that I think it's the best sounding album ever. However, in a lot of ways, it's NOT.

I read the liner notes to the album. Poe recorded it in her home, on her Mac, with ProTools. She produced it along with another engineer, and a few talented backing musicians performed with her on the album. It's right there in black and white, in the liner notes. I don't have the album in front of me, but it says something like: "We decided that if we were going to do an album in ProTools, we had to do an album that couldn't have been done on tape. Otherwise there's no point."

Lights, bells, angels!

I prefer digital computer recording when things are being accomplished, that couldn't be accomplished with tape. I realized this in part through this discussion, your comments, and my tests, and from the other discussion currently going on about the best produced albums ever. All of the standard rock recordings that I named were just exceptionally well-made albums from the analog era. My current "great rock recording" poster child is the song "Rosanna", by Toto.

This is an extremely complex recording - a few vocal tracks, drums, guitars, bass, auxillary percussion, horns, synthesizers - but no exotic effects. I can hear every single instrument clearly... well, in a word, it's beautiful. It doesn't have the "hyper-real" feeling of a more recent rock recording - Jethro Tull's _Roots To Branches_. On _Roots_, I can also hear every instrument clearly. But it doesn't feel quite right.

And I think the difference must be analog vs. digital! I'm hoping that my inferences here are correct: I don't have recording information for either album, but the album containing "Rosanna" was released in 1983 (If I recall correctly). Therefore, since almost all digital recordings at the time were classical ones, and this was pretty much the tail end of the tape era, it's gotta be extremely high-end analog. These guys, after all, were basically first-tier studio musicians who also played together as a band. They must have had access to the best analog equipment available at the time. I'm not positive about _Roots_, as it was released in 1996. My heart and ears tell me that it's a digital recording, but I can't find information in the liner notes. It's got that "hyper-real" quality. I wish I could describe it better than that. I found that album through a girl that I used to date, and although I really enjoy the MUSIC, I'm not enthralled with the way the album sounds. I tried to describe to her what I didn't like about it, and she couldn't hear it. I think I said something like "It sounds ... almost ... TOO good, doesn't it?"

I'll be really embarrassed if I find out one day that I'm wrong about all this. Then it'll be back to the drawing board, I guess.

Thank god I can't listen to my own recordings in this way. I wouldn't sleep. Ever.

Lost in all this discussion of "the big things" is another very very important point:

The only people who cannot laugh about it work in studios that have zillions of dollars invested in 16/44 equipment, and the labels whose vaults contain great performances that were only recorded digitally at 16/44 during the height of the CD era.

Re-reading this, I realized - obviously we have all kinds of technology to keep improving the sound of classic analog recordings (at least, as long as the tapes hold up). That sort of dovetails with the Beatles topic, so I'll go into that in a second. But what about digital recordings? Especially the ones made on early equipment? How much better might my pressing of "The Planets" sound if it had been recorded on tape, rather than the most primitive of digital technology? But more importantly, what about digital rock recordings? There's always going to be great orchestras, which means new opportunities to record classical music on the latest and greatest of equipment. But with rock, once an album is in the can, it's DONE. And musicians die. Try all you might, nobody else can perform <insert song here> like <insert band here> did. And whatever's lost in those 44100 samples per second is gone FOREVER. What will be done when those performances become classic and it's remaster/re-release/bonus track time? Is _Haunted_, to use an earlier example, already as good as I'm ever going to hear it?

It really makes one wonder.

And, as music often does these days, we go back to the Beatles.

I have to spend a LOT more time digesting your comments on the Beatles before I can respond. I hope the above helps to clarify my earlier statements.

I'm very anxious to hear what you have to say about this, because I have a feeling that it'll make me want to slap my head and say, "Oh, yeah!"

But this discussion made me want to go back and listen more critically to some Beatles recordings, rather than just going by what I remember about them. I came to the conclusion that SOME of them sound very good, but mainly after a certain point. For a timeline, I used The Beatles One.

"Ticket To Ride" is the cutoff. I think the difference between that song, and every previous single, is profound. To me, that single sounds beautiful. As does "Yesterday".

Other singles that sounded particularly good to me: "We Can Work It Out", (I didn't listen to "Yellow Submarine", as I hate the song), "Eleanor Rigby", "Hey Jude", "Something", and "Come Together" (Really, I think _Abbey Road_ is a magnificent sounding album - at least, I remember it that way).

I left out a lot of post - "Ticket To Ride" singles that didn't sound particularly great to me. I came to the conclusion that either George Martin wasn't fabulous at recording the electric guitar, or it had something to do with the solid-state Vox amps used on a lot of Beatles recordings (I just don't know which specific ones).

However, I also think that we don't hear the full picture. Think about it - the Beatles back catalogue is the only classic rock catalogue that hasn't been extensively remixed, remastered, and re-released (WHY??).

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, the special edition White Album, and The Beatles One, were merely repackaged, and possibly lightly remastered (apply some noise reduction, maybe a little bass boost, and call it good?) - but the only extensive remix/remaster job on any Beatles material has been on the most inconsequential album at all - _Yellow Submarine_.

It just so happens that "Hey Bulldog" is an all-time favorite Beatles song of mine, so I compared three versions: The UK mono mix, the first CD pressing, and the remix.

The mono mix is very treble-heavy, but I like it because I can hear Paul absolutely go crazy on his bass. Talk about under-rated technique. It's also sped up about a quarter-tone, which is fun if lo-fi.

The original CD pressing, from "Beatles Rarities" (which may be a bootleg; I just have an mp3 - was this album even released officially on CD before 1999?) sounds terrible.

The remix, however, sounds GREAT. It's a litle bass-heavy, which I don't like, because the bass playing that I enjoy so much in the mono version really loses detail - but everything else is drastically improved.

It gives me the feeling that maybe a lot of those recordings were very well-captured, we just don't have pressings that are high-quality enough for us to appreciate it.

Whew. I think I've said all that I wanted to. Off to bed!

What a great discussion this has turned out to be.

 

[bongolation]

I think it would be useful to read the description of the microphone modeler's technology that Antares has in the manual.

No, it's not just EQ.

They also give a very clear explanation of what it can't do and why not. In a nutshell, it can't compensate for the differences between individual source microphones of the same type, and these differences are more extreme in cheaper microphones. It also can't boost someting that's not there. A _really_ cheap microphone like a Nady Starpower or the one that came with your webcam can have huge holes in its response beyond the ability of the program's compensatory functions.

The better and more consistent your source microphone, the better the results.

If you have, say, an Oktava MK319, you are not going to get a perfect model of a Neuman U87 because there is so much difference individual Oktava MK319s. However, the Oktava MK319 that Antares used for THEIR sample did wind up sounding like THEIR Neuman U87.

Antares is supposedly going to do a broader sampling of popular inexpensive models so that there will be several MK319 (say) source models to choose from so you can come closer to a source model approximating the individual microphone you happen to have and thereby give a more accurate rendition of the desired end model.

As far as the other questions go, I'll say this:

I come from a fine arts background. I can remember the time I caught my first teacher using a projector to get a rough-out of a painting layout on a canvas. I was shocked. I suppose I thought everything was supposed to be done freehand while wearing a beret.

He looked at me like I was an idiot and simply explained that an artist should use _everything_ that worked as a tool to get his vison out of his head and into a finished product as accurately and as efficiently as possible. There _were_ no "rules."

I never forgot that, though I have always had to fight the inclination to do things the "right" way. That's stupid.

ONLY THE RESULT COUNTS.

Instruments, musicians, recording equipment, peripheral whatnot are nothing but tools to be used in realizing someone's particular artistic vision. When the new works better than the old, dump the old. Nobody is going to care _how_ you got that sound, just that you managed to produce something that makes them sit up and take notice.

DSP is about quicker, faster, better, cheaper. It's still in its relative infancy, but already it's making headway and has a lot of frightened people who are locked in their self-imposed little purist orthodoxies screaming foul. Nobody cares. The traditional tools that are available to me now are frustrations more than anything else.

[Edited for clarity and typos]

 

[nessbass]

There's still one more thing to add...

Lead singer: (to piano accompaniment)
Half a bee, philosophically,
must ipso facto half not be.
But half a bee has got to be
vis a vis it's entity.
-D'you see?



Sorry guys.

But seriously,

Your comment about how you hear your music in your head reminds me of an old saw in the audiophile world that musicians have the worst sound systems.

You should have a look at the stereo of the singer of my band. In fact, he doesn't have one! He's got his PC fuul with mp3s, a crappy amplifier and speakers that look impressing (think monstrous dico design), but sound like ... I don't know how to describe it. Horrible!

Apart from that, I'm really looking forward on Mark's reply on the Beatles topic.

David.

 

[Executivos]

did you ever try the plugin bongolation? I remember you asking me questions about it a long time ago and your opinions have stayed the same. I hope this doesn't come out the wrong way, but it sounds like you've only read a lot about it.

Yes the quality control on most cheap mikes can be bad. But honestly there aren't really any mics in the list that I would think had MAJOR quality assurance issues other than the oktavas, which were probably just added to the mic modeler cabinet because of guitar center.

Low end stuff included:
It has like...the sm57 and 58 and some other shure stuff...I've always though of shure to have good solid well tested mics.

Rode nt1/nt2...same thing...I think most of us would agree that they are built well...

Some Akg's that might be low end dynamics and maybe some ATs. Still not what I'd consider terrible QA...

Maybe you assumed it was loaded with nady's and radio shack mics and the whole enchilada of chinese mics. (excluding the c1...it should never be compared to the rest )

I don't know...I'm a computer tech so maybe I just appreciate advance in technology. I don't want it to sound like this revolutionized my recording process and that I don't need to buy anymore nice mics. It just affords me some other options...

When is antares going to come out with "Antares Mic Pre Modeler"
Thats what I want....I'll order 8 behringer 602's and turn them into neve's api's and avalon's

NOW WE ARE GETTING SOMEWHERE!

 

[nessbass]

When is antares going to come out with "Antares Mic Pre Modeler"
Thats what I want....I'll order 8 behringer 602's and turn them into neve's api's and avalon's

NOW WE ARE GETTING SOMEWHERE!

Yeah!

 

[bongolation]

Whoa, there!

First, it's TOTALLY untrue that only Oktavas have quality control problems. There are equal or worse quality-control problems with Chinese output and probably others - this referring to actual faults, not just variation in sound.

Secondly, it's TOTALLY untrue that you can expect microphones of the same make and model - particularly in the under-$500 range - not to sound substantially different from one to the next. This is why people pay premiums for so-called "matched sets" of microphones. Even these just sound like _each other_, not like other mics of the same models.

Inconsistency from one microphone to the next is true even in the case of very expensive microphones ...it's just not so gross as in bargain microphones. As to your comments about Shures, in my experience, I have seen truly huge differences in the sounds of two of the same model and age, much less ones from different years or production and degrees of use.

This is the big stinky fly in the ointment of the whole Antares concept - individual variations in the source mics - as Antares says.

The whole model success depends on how closely your mic sonically resembles the one Antares used to write their model.

Not having a room full of $5000 classic microphones to compare to, I can't honestly say how closely you can get a random Oktava MK219, for example, to sound like a vintage RCA ribbon mic, but I can say that you can effect some amazing changes with whatever source material you're using.

This is the true strength of the program, according to all reviews I have read and my limited experiments so far. My studio won't really be running for a couple of more weeks as I get all my Cubase mysteries figured out. :-D

 

[Eurythmic]

I've not rated a thread before, but I thought that this would be a good time to start.

 

[Executivos]

so you haven't actually used it before, or you've only used it a very little?

Of course the same mics are going to sound a bit different. We all know that. BUT most of us don't worry about it until you get into some mic makers...It's when you get into bad QC that it becomes a problem.

I've read so many threads on here about so many diff mics. If you put a post on here about wanting to go buy for ex: the behringer b2....people would say "i'd be concerned about the QC"

Same thing with oktavas. If I told people I was going to buy two sm57s, one for a kick and one for a snare, do you think anyone would say "hey test all the ones in the store...there might be some bad ones" or "Those nt1's have horrible QC....watch out" No, well at least in all the threads i've read.

My point is that of course there is going to be a bit of variation in just about everything you buy. Yet on most of the brands in mic modeler, it's just not a big enough issue to worry about, IMHO.

It sounds like i'm flaming, but I'm really trying not to...It just bothers me that you have such a strong opinion and seem to know so much about it, and it doesn't sound like you've used it before. Reading manuals and reviews is one thing.

Here's another point: The difference in QC might shake the accuracy a little bit....but who cares? Most of us (and the people using the plugin) are recording in our living rooms. We have blankets drapped all over the place. Some of us are using behringer mixers..(sorry I had to ) I have a pool next to my apartment and it's hard to record during the summer because kids are yelling and playing in it. There are many more important variables that we're more than willing to deal with. We do what we do to get by...but you're raising the issue of a little bit of variance from mic to mic?

 

[bongolation]

> but you're raising the issue of a little bit of variance from mic to
> mic?

Yes, because THAT is what makes the Antares MM not work predictably, not because the source mic isn't a great mic, but because it isn't _consistent_.

I don't see what's so hard to understand about this. It's the _entire_ point.

And it's also not "a little bit," it's often a lot.

QC issues are not even primarily about basic microphone sound but about bad switches, loose screens, dings, crossthreads, etc.

 

[Executivos]

sooo.......still yet to be answered...have you used it? or just tried it? or neither?

I completely understand what you're saying...I don't know why you keep saying it.

The algorithim needs x to turn it into z.....if there's variance from x, you don't know if it will still turn out z. Then again that variance could make it sound better than z as well.

What difference does it make? When I use it, I don't pick the u87 so that I can say I have a virtual u87. I go through every mic until I find the one that works best.

If they just called the output mics mic 1, mic 2, mic 3, etc instead of telling you what model it's simulating, would you be happy? Then you couldn't complain about accuracy, because it wasn't being matched to anything. Kinda like a blind taste test.

If they did that then the focus would be on sound and not on the model of mic you're getting, which should be the focus anyway. The issues you're raising don't have as much to do with how they sound as how accurate they are.

Yes a large variance in the source mic CAN make it sound bad. Sucks to be you if thats what you've got. Not just for using mic modeler but for using the mic in general. That means you didn't get what you paid for.

 

[bongolation]

Seems like we're in total agreement, finally, on almost all points.

I have not used the MM much, as I said already. I probably will use it extensively in a couple of weeks. I'm still unpacking the newest samples from Antares to my recording computer, as a matter of fact. Have you used it a lot?

I do still think that you underrate the differences between individual microphones of the same make and model. It really is substantial - frequently startling - on most microphones I've used over the past thirty years, and I'm not a "golden ears" type. A/B them on a scope and you'll be amazed.

I've also noticed that microphones slowly "die," even dynamics, which I no longer use for anything. I have some Shure 545s that I would like to have rebuilt, though, just to have.

 

[Executivos]

I have used it a lot, when I needed it. Like I said, if it's coming across great on the mics I have, no need to even try it. Thats not always the case, so then I find the one that works.

I'm going to start using it a lot more on my fake drum tracks. Everyone knows that most cymbal samples just don't sound that real. It helps a lot.

 

[rodvonbon]

Hey,
The mic modler can make yer recorded track sound "different" than the original take. You can run through all the presets and find one you like or love to use ( I ignore the names the program gives) They may not even closely resemble what the plug-in is supposed to do, but if you dig the change then let it rock, rod

 

[Fab4ever]

Wow. I'm sorry I missed some of the earlier discussion on this thread - it went WAY off the beaten path!

I have MM and have only used it a couple times. I agree, of course, that experimentation is the way to go. If it sounds good, do it.

As for the Beatles records...

I agree that pre Rubber Soul, Beatles recordings were spotty at best - as recordings. You'll find vocal bleeds, buried bass lines, etc. And even in early stereo recordings (post Sgt. Pepper), you'll note extreme panning that really doesn't hold up.

But for the most part, to my NON-golden ears at least, Beatles songs are generally quite well recorded. Just the SOUND of the bows on the strings in Eleanor Rigby... geeze. And front to back, Abbey Road is one of the best recorded records EVER. IMHO, of course.

Still, though, I agree that there's a danger in over-romanticizing the analogue era. You'd think Tape Hiss would be sold as a $300 plug-in by now! The key, as has been said before, is to use the digital tools that HELP the recording, but retain the spirit of experimentation that allowed the creation of Sgt. Pepper using four-track technology.

 

[Executivos]

I'd agree to that, but keep in mind everything changes....Things are different. In 20 years people are going to say the same thing about digital recording. "I can't beleive they don't sell an $8000 (inflation) digital harshness plugin.

Remember....I wasn't alive when those beatles records were released, so they all sound bad to me in a quality sense. The music and song writing however still sometimes has me in awe.

It's been really cool to hear everyone talk about the beatles stuff. I can sense in all of your messages a genuine deep inspiration and I think that that is just the coolest thing. I've shared those experiences with more underground bands from my generation but the idea is all the same.

 

[Fab4ever]

Well I was born the year they appeared on Ed Sullivan, and I was only 6 by the time they had broken up! But.... I started really listening to the albums in the 70s and in no time was a confirmed Beatle-holic.

They have influenced/inspired so many people... and the thing is, they did so many things FIRST. Printed song lyrics on the back of the album - first. Used feedback - first. Used backwards guitar, invented automatic double-tracking, close-miced drums... the list goes on and on.

Just today, I heard "Here Comes the Sun" on the radio and just cranked it and smiled..... Their music is so warm, melodic, inventive....

It's amazing - AMAZING - to me the crap that passes as Top 10 pop these days. No wonder the Beatles' 1 was such a huge hit! Their 30-to-40-year-old music just blows away most of what you hear on popular radio.