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

[Don Cox <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 19/01/05, David Lewiston wrote:

> An example: A decade ago I was present at a huge festive occasion in
> Ubud, Bali, where a very large gamelan played the traditional Barong
> repertoire as two famous Barongs danced. It sounded amazing. By good
> fortune, the two mics suspended overhead captured the music very well.
> It was an exceptional event, the loudness and richness of the gamelan,
> the enthusiasm of the huge crowd, and the power of the dancing. But
> when I returned home and played the recordings, they seemed flat.
> Eventually, putting a limiter (L 2) into the chain, I realised that
> the very large dynamic range of the recording robbed it of excitement,
> which was restored by hefty limiting.

I would have expected a large dynamic range to increase the excitement.

>
> Another example: Tibetan chanting accompanied by the ritual
> instrumental ensemble has a huge dynamic range. Retaining all of this
> results in a playback experience where the volume control has to be
> twiddled constantly, turned down to avoid being deafened by the
> instruments when they are playing, and turned up when only chanting is
> taking place, so that it's audible.

That tells us that the playback equipment is not satisfactory. If the
low level sounds are hard to hear, the signal-to-noise ratio must be
inadequate, or the reproduction is non-linear at low levels.

If you are being "deafened" at high levels, there is probably distortion
or bandwidth limiting at high levels.


> The solution: Decrease the dynamic
> range. It still sounds amazing. On an average playback system, the
> instruments sound *really* loud, but the chanting is audible.
>
> These instances are typical, in my experience: I want the released
> versions of the recordings to convey the excitement that was present
> in the live performances. Often, this means that some modification of
> the recorded sound is necessary.

I think compression is a bad solution.

Regards
--
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx