I still don't get this one thing...

[six]

ok, maybe this time i'll reach the limits of my english again... but let me try:

imagine: you got a mic that picks up everything as it is. you got speakers that playback everything as it is. and everything between the mic and the speakers handle the "sound" as it is... ok, that's a dream... but just imagine.

now here we go: I do think that a singer sounds best singing unamplified without any technical helpers just in front of you at a distance of about 6 feet or something.
so now I want to get exactly that sound. how do I do this?
if my mic and my speakers handled the sound just as it is - I'd place the mic where I stand and put my ears right onto the speakers... or I'd put the mic right in front of the singer (no distance) and place the speakers 6 feet away from me. or the mic 3 feet away from the singer and the speakers 3 feet away from me.
that should give me the same sound as hearing the singer without mic & stuff 6 feet in front of me. shouldn't it?

but doing this in reality it doesn't work. why?

(am I nuts???) ;-)

 

[Tom Hicks]

What does the room sound like?A mike 6 feet from the singer would pick up the singer as well as the room echo.The closer the mike gets to the singer,the ratio of vocal signal to echo increases according to the inverse proportion law.
The thing is that is is terribly expensive to acousticaly treat a room so that strange room resonances and standing waves don't distort the vocals.So unless you have a handy cathedral or world-class opera house available to record in, most likely close-miking would be better with artificial reverb added later.
Small bathrooms and long hallways are possible candidates for home recording with interesting natural room reverb.

Tom

 

[bvaleria]

In addition...

... the fact is, all things being equal (ie, great room, transparent gear, great mic), you will never hear back what your ear hears because a microphone doesn't pick up sound the way our ears do!

You hear with more than just your ears - the brain interpolates sounds that it thinks are missing, and more - the frequency response varies depending on amplitude (volume). So... bottom line is you can't simply throw a mic up at ear level and get the sound you are hearing - you need to adjust mic position and the mic itself to get as close to what you're hearing as possible (which may not be the positioning you think it should be...) All that AFTER you've gotten the room, the mic, the gear to pull it off effectively!!! No one said it was going to be easy -- you can certainly go nuts trying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bruce