I wish there was a system to describe audio 'improvements'

R

rob aylestone

Moderator
In recording, we collect all sorts of little snippets of useful, and mainly accurate information. It's always amazed me that some of these revolve around really tiny changes. Moving a mic a few inches, or blending two mics on a guitar cab, or swapping out the X for a Y and discovering the improvement. All stuff that is accurate - and proven by loads of people. What we also do is accept deficiencies as a sort of normal. In my studio I bought some very tall speaker stands so I could have two video screens with the speakers looking down at my ears, over the top. Two near miss accidents where I caught the speakers falling when I tripped over a cable and caught one with my arm proved to me that tall stands were out - and while I had space for wide footprint tripods I'd kick those too. So I lowered the speakers and half of the LF driver now hits the back of the monitors. The sound is oddly, only a bit different but I live with that. Yet I am a mic swapper, I swap X for Y and say yes (or no) and I do this repeatedly. I'll grab a really long jack to jack cable and stick it in the guitar because I cannot find the normal one. Then I might swap the les paul for a strat or tele because it's not bright enough. This is really stupid, but I do it. Yesterday it was cable city - I ended up using a DI box, simply for the two female jacks, some bodged adaptors and an XLR loudspeaker cable (with no screening at all - just to get sound from one device to another. I've put out a mic and recorded something without listening and spent ages repairing it to remove noise.

My point is that the tiny improvements in blending those two guitar cab mics get wiped out by the other destructive things we do. I've said before that the stupidist thing I bought was a Neumann 87 - I daren't use it, because I want to keep it nice, but that is just daft. I can grab a 57 and it's never done a bad job, and with all of our EQ and processing power it can sound wildly different if we want it to?

We always comment on mic technique, and encourage people to buy more and more, when the first mic I had at 15, 50 years ago was a 57! The things the 57 was plugged into then are museum pieces and technically pretty poor by today's standards. So many people have nice mics and very average speakers. Some place great care on placement of the mics in rotten acoustic spaces, yet we forget our misdeeds in so many areas because we took great care getting those capsules aligned in our coincident pair. It's daft to spend care in one area and not do the same right through the chain to our ears.
 
rob aylestone said:
Yet I am a mic swapper, I swap X for Y and say yes (or no) and I do this repeatedly. I'll grab a really long jack to jack cable and stick it in the guitar because I cannot find the normal one. Then I might swap the les paul for a strat or tele because it's not bright enough. This is really stupid, but I do it. Yesterday it was cable city - I ended up using a DI box, simply for the two female jacks, some bodged adaptors and an XLR loudspeaker cable (with no screening at all - just to get sound from one device to another. I've put out a mic and recorded something without listening and spent ages repairing it to remove noise.

My point is that the tiny improvements in blending those two guitar cab mics get wiped out by the other destructive things we do. I've said before that the stupidist thing I bought was a Neumann 87 - I daren't use it, because I want to keep it nice, but that is just daft. I can grab a 57 and it's never done a bad job, and with all of our EQ and processing power it can sound wildly different if we want it to?
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If you know the specifications of microphones you can make educated guesses on what will work and what won't - you can change microphones with purpose - such as putting cheap microphone where you would normally use your U87 - and create a desired off the wall sound.

The other thing is there is a experimental stage - where you just try things and see what happens -

But no matter what you have to have a solid foundation to work from - good cables - good microphones - great speakers positioned right - good outboard (or software) gear - and a decent idea of where you are going - if you don't it's just chaos - and that may suit some people too - but not me.
 
rob aylestone said:
I've said before that the stupidist thing I bought was a Neumann 87 - I daren't use it, because I want to keep it nice, but that is just daft.
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If you look at a U87 in a working studio you will often find the odd dent in them - mine has one that was the result of a stand falling over. I saw it happen in slow motion but was too late to stop it crashing into the stand next to it. It didn't affect the sound though.
 
I don't know if you'll ever get a system to describe an improvement. Differences, yes. But to say something is an improvement is more nebulous. It's the old "one man's trash" scenario. You get into the issue of the verbiage that is used to describe what someone hears. We want the latest mic to be crisp, warm, fat, detailed, soft and smooth all at the same time. Use high dollar gear to get "LoFi" (whatever that is). People will listen for the tiniest of changes and declare that it's a massive improvement, or massive decline, depending on perspective (it's cheaper so it MUST be worse).

Then you get into the whole area of accuracy vs pleasant. People want the euphonic colorations that you got in the old days with old equipment, and they stick on a system which has gotten increasingly more accurate (as in what goes in comes out). Lets take a very linear, low noise, low distortion system and put on a plug-in that gives you wow and flutter, tape hiss, a head bump and HF rolloff. You've to 20 to choose from.

I have my opinions, and each of you has your own. I'm not an expert, or professional. I don't have golden ears. just decades of listening and making music. I know what I like and what I don't like. For me, content trumps sound quality every time, but you still like the quality to be high.

As Gonzo said, it's magic. It's an illusion. You pick the colors you want to use, pick the canvas and brushes and put things together. If you've done a good job, and have good subject material, hopefully people will enjoy it.
 
I have tried pairing photos of setups with audio references so I can reproduce a particular sound. Turns out; a) it only gets close and b) as a lone person running my personal studio I can't be bothered to check my own reference material when I want to record. Partly because I am in 'creative' mode. Only partly though, the rest is , well, not laziness exactly but definitely akin to it.

I recorded drum parts for two songs where I had to do heavy eq on one of the kick drum mics because it wasn't in the right position. And I knew it. Yesterday I moved the mic, because I just happened to remember beforehand. No more eq necessary.

I think a lot of it just has to do with the nature of the creation of any art- it can feel like a chore to do the actual prep work when ready to go. Also, I find I when I'm not the only 'artist', I am more inclined to do the small improvement work, but that can make the player more impatient.
 
Gtoboy said:
I have tried pairing photos of setups with audio references so I can reproduce a particular sound. Turns out; a) it only gets close and b) as a lone person running my personal studio I can't be bothered to check my own reference material when I want to record. Partly because I am in 'creative' mode.
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This is very true here as well...
 
TalismanRich said:
I'm not an expert, or professional. I don't have golden ears. just decades of listening and making music. I know what I like and what I don't like. For me, content trumps sound quality every time, but you still like the quality to be high
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Yep, this is it in a nutshell.
Some years ago, Pete Townshend said there was too much talking in rock'n'roll. I feel home recording can be in danger of going that way too, at the expense of making enjoyable music.
 
I've said before that the problem with audio is that there is no exact measurement system for something like a mix. In auto racing, you ultimately have the stopwatch. A professional driver at his peak can sense things that 99.99% of us would never feel. And the incredible thing is those elite drivers will be so close. In a recent qualifying session, you had 6 different drivers with 4 different cars with times within 1/4 of a second over a lap of 4.3km. 1/4 OF A SECOND!

Q1.jpg
In comparison, we're a bunch of weekend racers with family sedans who couldn't tell the difference between a Goodyear and a Goodrich. We would be +/- a second or 2 over a half kilometer!

If there was an absolute to mixing, then Gile's Martin's mixes would sound just like George's. But they don't. Each producer has a idea in his head of what he wants and likes and that becomes HIS target.

I read endless threads about how some Klon clone is trash compared to a real Klon. There's no way that a $250 pedal can equal a $2500 pedal. Well guess what, the real thing isn't a $2500 pedal. It's a $225 overdrive pedal (1994 price... $369 when it was discontinued). And if you line up 10 real ones, they will have variations.

Or this U-87 clone is trash compared to a real U-87, because only Neumann can make a capsule like the one in the U87. Guess what, they aren't buying magic dust. Anyone can buy the mylar, do metal deposition, and mill the metal parts to the same tolerances as Neumann if you know what you're doing and have the money to buy the equipment. So there's a 0.5dB difference at 3.3kHz... you and I aren't going to hear that. I'm sure there are elite musicians and producers who can hear the difference but then the U87 isnt the ultimate/perfect reference. It's got variations from flat, it's got an inherent noise floor.

It's hard to throw out all the confimation bias and opinions about audio. The best we can do is try to take objective measurements of various parameters and determine how changes we make vary the results. At least this will give us a direction. Unfortunately it might also not agree with our preconceived notions, so we need to be willing to avoid being dogmatic about everything.
 
Audio equipment improvement is a lot like building motors. For every increase of one horsepower expect to pay 1,000 to get that.

Is it worth it in a home recoding studio?

Not when there are so many different variables involved.

Ultimately it comes down to the creator.

I’ve heard many a great guitar player make a piece of crap fender squire sound like a million bucks.
 
I suppose we deal with differences not better or worse? We pick a mic, then EQ it, so why make the effort to get the right sound with the mic choice when you are going to EQ and process it anyway. Is there any mic that can’t be rescued? When you are skint, you have to use your one or two mics for everything and learn to make them sound good. When you have lots, you still pick mics and make them sound good too. Did the Beatles sound better everytime new gizmos were bought by the studio? Or did they select mics for their tone, because their EQ hadn’t caught up?
 
rob aylestone said:
My point is that the tiny improvements in blending those two guitar cab mics get wiped out by the other destructive things we do. I've said before that the stupidist thing I bought was a Neumann 87 - I daren't use it, because I want to keep it nice, but that is just daft. I can grab a 57 and it's never done a bad job, and with all of our EQ and processing power it can sound wildly different if we want it to?
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I too still use my 20+ year old 57 for lots of things. I also have used real 87s and copies and 251, 67, and 47 real and copies. I'm finally in my own super nice space and often with the time to test different mics on a source and when you find the right one you often do hardly any eq at all because you've found the sound and you don't have to change anything to get there. Not to sound cliche, but the end results of those mixes/projects are just better with less being more than when I have to do crazy eqing of a badly mic'd vocal.

And yes I use some really nice equipment in a really nice acoustic space, but I've got Warm gear mixed in the equation and a United Studio Technology Twin87 as an awesome U87 alternative and I get stellar results. with the mix of a Shadow Hills Mono Gama and the Twin87 for example or the Warm WA-251 through a Warm WA73 preamp.

It doesn't have to be just the expensive stuff to sound amazing, but you have to do a little testing and mixing and matching to get amazing.
 
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