Deang Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 I just try to listen normally, and then begin to notice things. Critical listening is really just about listening without distraction. What tends to happen is that things within the recording start to stand out as sounding unnatural, or you begin to pick up on distortion artifacts. Muffled snare drums, cymbals that sound splashy and indistinct, spitty vocals, underlying grain or hash -- anything that contributes to a quality that tends to fatique and make you want to do something else with your time. I once heard some LaScalas that had just been worked on. The owner thought they sounded great, while I had a headache halfway through the first song. I really don't know what some people are actually listening too, or if they are really listening at all. I've often wondered if with some, if it sounds better than a boom box, it's "high fidelity". I've given up trying to figure it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
babadono Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 I'm saying the same thing about the digital recording medium. It's only as good as the producer. One of my reference recordings is "The Nightfly" by Donald Fagen of Steely Dan. It was released in 1983 during the Digital Infancy and has withstood the rest of time. Since, in the right hands, that good of a recording could be produced with the primitive equipment available back then, as compared to today, there is not excuse to ever blame bad sound on the medium anymore. ClaudeJ1 must be getting his list together for you Thaddeus, but I agree with him the "Nightfly" is a great reference recording. Engineered by the late, great Roger Nichols. DR database gives the 1982 CD a 16 on a possible scale of 1 to 20. Yessir this recording is dynamic for being of the pop/rock genre. babadono Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaudeJ1 Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 It's refreshing to see everyone staying on topic. What to listen TO is just as important as HOW to listen to it. I'm still wondering why you haven't asked for a list of the best recordings and what to listen for on those recordings. I have never seen a thread that wasn't a victim of digression, whether slight or severe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaudeJ1 Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 (edited) So I need to be forgiven for not being the first in line to wax nostalgic about the "good ole' days" of vinyl. That's where we differ, Claude. For a music lover, there were no "good old days" or "good new days." Every day with good music from any source is a good day. A super clean, dead silent. flat from dc to light recording of crap is a recording of crap...but a great performance recorded 85 years ago is a SMOKE! Dave No we don't differ at al. We agree. This is why I used to buy English or Japanese pressings, Mobile Fidelity, Sheffield Labs, and 45 RPM direct to disc recordings. On virgin vinyl (not "short pressed" with recycle crap) good recordings and good music was wonderful. 78 Shellac records didn't require a tweeter (see old PWK papers). I wanted both good music AND a good, clean medium to carry it. PERIOD. One without the other is not good. In the "microgroove" LP days, audiophiles wanted better sound so badly we were willing to pay 4X the price for it while overpaying for Moving Coil cartridges hand-wound by a blind guru in the mountains of Tibet. I did mention that my worst recording was on CD, right? We don't differ at all. Modern digital MEDIUM has the POTENTIAL for unparalleled sound excellence but the world has gone to low bit MP3's, which BTW, can equal CD quality at 320 VBR from a Lame encoder, but it slows those $1.29 ea. downloads from the servers too much. Greed is only good for the greedy. Very few people give a damn about quality throughout the chain of events. It only takes one missing link in the chain of sonic events to break up the party. Edited January 22, 2014 by ClaudeJ1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thaddeus Smith Posted January 22, 2014 Author Share Posted January 22, 2014 It's refreshing to see everyone staying on topic. LOL, Well you do have to listen for everything I talked about. Would like a list of "test tunes," sir? Trying to make up for slight digressions here, but, hey, they made me do it! That would be great! If you find yourself with copious free time, tell me why they're your test tunes and some things I should be listening for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaudeJ1 Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 It's refreshing to see everyone staying on topic. LOL, Well you do have to listen for everything I talked about. Would like a list of "test tunes," sir? Trying to make up for slight digressions here, but, hey, they made me do it! That would be great! If you find yourself with copious free time, tell me why they're your test tunes and some things I should be listening for. Sorry I missed this one. Give me time, and I will do it here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thaddeus Smith Posted January 22, 2014 Author Share Posted January 22, 2014 lol, no worries. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaudeJ1 Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 I'm saying the same thing about the digital recording medium. It's only as good as the producer. One of my reference recordings is "The Nightfly" by Donald Fagen of Steely Dan. It was released in 1983 during the Digital Infancy and has withstood the rest of time. Since, in the right hands, that good of a recording could be produced with the primitive equipment available back then, as compared to today, there is not excuse to ever blame bad sound on the medium anymore. ClaudeJ1 must be getting his list together for you Thaddeus, but I agree with him the "Nightfly" is a great reference recording. Engineered by the late, great Roger Nichols. DR database gives the 1982 CD a 16 on a possible scale of 1 to 20. Yessir this recording is dynamic for being of the pop/rock genre. babadono I had it on LP before I got the CD. Because of bad vinyl in those days, the CD sounded much better. CD's have always had the potential to give you and perfect copy of the master tape, hiss and all, without adding any non-linearities to the sound, like wrong RIAA curves, wrong capacitance and or resistance on the phono section, etc. A great example of this is "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis. Recorded in 1959, it is the largest selling Jazz recording of all time. The late, great guitarist, Duane Allman said he got his improvisational style of playing by listening to that recording, and almost nothing else, for 2 years. You can clearly hear tape hiss but you don't care once you get lost in that amazing piece. I will do a list of CD's everyone should own, then a longer list of individual tunes and what to listen for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 78 Shellac records didn't require a tweeter (see old PWK papers) Man, it comes hard to say...but PWK was wrong. 78s from the 50s and some even older are good out to 15k in good condition. Anyway, good stuff, Claude. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garyrc Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 (edited) I have never heard a good analog recording from tape or any other magnetic medium, that didn't have some hiss during the soft passages. I have never heard a good sound system, when on, but not playing any program, that didn't have at least some slight hiss audible if you walked over to the speakers. That's O.K. with me. Edited January 23, 2014 by Garyrc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thaddeus Smith Posted January 23, 2014 Author Share Posted January 23, 2014 Ah ha! Just put on my copy of M.Davis - Kind of Blue since it was referenced here.. It's tape hiss I've been hearing in varying degrees across albums. I guess I can work to find system synergies that won't make it worse than necessary, but otherwise just need to not focus on it as a "problem" with my system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Sibilance is like that too. A lot of times we blame the tweeter when it's in the recording. Always a problem with those folk who just can't sing unless they stick the whole microphone in their mouth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 I have never heard a good analog recording from tape or any other magnetic medium, that didn't have some hiss during the soft passages. I've heard plenty that were completely silent even in the absence of signal. Same for systems. Actually, I have even a few cassettes I made on last generation metal tape with Dolby C that are quite free of hiss. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CECAA850 Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 I have never heard a good analog recording from tape or any other magnetic medium, that didn't have some hiss during the soft passages. I've heard plenty that were completely silent even in the absence of signal. Same for systems. Actually, I have even a few cassettes I made on last generation metal tape with Dolby C that are quite free of hiss. Dave I'll bet they weren't free from hiss when your ears were 20 years younger It's all good Dave, don't hurt me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 (edited) I'll bet they weren't free from hiss when your ears were 20 years younger Well, I started to mention that. OTOH, I MADE them when my ears were 20 years younger and they were quite silent. Some of the R2R I made in the 70s using DBX and Ampex GrandMaster. AGM on a 15IPS deck was pretty close to silent anyway. DBX 2:1 compression yielded an SN in excess of a 100db. Dave Edited January 23, 2014 by Mallette Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaudeJ1 Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Sibilance is like that too. A lot of times we blame the tweeter when it's in the recording. Always a problem with those folk who just can't sing unless they stick the whole microphone in their mouth. I think it was Les Paul that advised Bing Crosby to sing close to his mic. with a T-pad compensator, AFAICR in an Audio Mag. interview. Ever since then, vocal clarity in the mix has been improved and the main reason why they use a nylon stocking stretched over a wire frame (6+ in. circular, black being sexiest, LOL) as a low pass filter between singer and Mic. The inverse square law dictates that the distance is critical within a fraction of a inch for a radical change in those sharp peaks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaudeJ1 Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 (edited) I'll bet they weren't free from hiss when your ears were 20 years younger Well, I started to mention that. OTOH, I MADE them when my ears were 20 years younger and they were quite silent. Some of the R2R I made in the 70s using DBX and Ampex GrandMaster. AGM on a 15IPS deck was pretty close to silent anyway. DBX 2:1 compression yielded an SN in excess of a 100db. Dave Yes indeed! I remember the first time a heard a master tape on a Crown R2R with DBX, back in the 70's, during the development of the Philips CD standards (as a member of the Audio Engineering Society). This was a preview of things to come from the digital world in terms of silence, sound dynamics, etc. Heard over a pair of Khorns at the time and it blew me away. This was why I was on of the first people in Mich. to spend over $1,000 in 1983 (what would be over $3,000 today) for the very first CD player, a Sony. Problem was finding available program material even at $20 a pop. I remember Telarc used to make all-digital classical recordings put to vinyl, so they were the first to provide CD demo material because it was easy to convert. Edited January 23, 2014 by ClaudeJ1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiet_Hollow Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Sibilance is like that too. A lot of times we blame the tweeter when it's in the recording. Always a problem with those folk who just can't sing unless they stick the whole microphone in their mouth. This needs to be sticky'ed ...somewhere. In addition to eating the mic, there's no shortage of current youtube self-help videos explaining how to murder a vocal track in DAW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallette Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 In addition to eating the mic, there's no shortage of current youtube self-help videos explaining how to murder a vocal track in DAW. As to voice mikeing, I've never quite understood them putting it right in front of the mouth. Insane for a ribbon mike, fer shure. I always positioned it in a direct line, but enough to one side to ensure no direct air pulses. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiet_Hollow Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 As to voice mikeing, I've never quite understood them putting it right in front of the mouth. Carry-over from pro sound, where ideally FOH / monitor desk wants the hottest signal going into the mixer maximize gain before feedback.It's a bandaid technique for a poorly implemented stage system where sound is being sprayed all over the place instead of directly where it needs to be. Why ever in a studio environment? Beyond me, unless proximity effect is specifically desired for the sake of artistic expression. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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