Re: [ARSCLIST] Sampling Theory (was Fred Layn's post on the Studer list re: Quantegy)

["Steven C. Barr" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Now...

I can't claim any technical expertise here...but I can claim many years of
listening
to music in various formats, all the way from acoustic 78's played on an
acoustic
machine to high-end LP's played on high-end analog equipment as well as
digital
playback of various sorts...AND music being played live in every setting
from
solo classical piano in an acoustically reknowned hall to live electric
blues in
cheap beer joints (and I play the latter, as well!)

Taking all this into consideration, a few thoughts:

1) It is essentially impossible to hear live music in a perfect setting! The
closest one could approach this perfection would be to rent an acoustically
ideal hall for the evening and engage the desired musicians...find the
location
of the acoustically "best" seat in the room...and sit there, by yourself,
breathing as little as possible. Even then there would probably be audible
sounds NOT related to the music!

2) If one could record exactly what was heard at the average
performance...not
what you remember hearing or THINK you heard, but the actual sound as picked
up
by your ears...you would probably find the result unlistenable, given the
amount of extraneous noise and acoustic defects of the venue and the lack of
balance among the instruments!

3) For the above reason, most recordings are made in unnatural and unreal
settings...and have been for many decades, since record companies started
using carefully padded walls to eliminate echo and reverberation. Remember
that we humans use echo and reverberation as well as our "stereo" hearing
to help us establish things like location and distance...a necessary skill
developed back when knowing which tree the bear was behind determined
who ate who!

4) The lack of technically perfect transducers and amplification means
that any recorded sound is, by definition, a limited recreation of the
actual sound being recorded!

5) All known means of analog recording/reproduction are not only affected
by the above...they are also affected by the fact that they involve placing
the recording on a medium of some sort which also produces some sound
("noise") by itself. This can be minimized but, so far, not eliminated.

6) Any digital approach to recording/reproduction produces only an
approximation of the actual sound being recorded, since it involves
establishing and recording discrete values of a constantly varying
curve. Of course, it could be argued that this is true of analog
recording on a molecular level...after all, the number of molecules
affected by the recording process, while extremely large, is still
finite!

Steven C. Barr