From: chrisc@gold.gvg.tek.com (Chris Christensen)
Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: Re: Bose Speakers
Date: 23 Jan 93 02:00:33 GMT
Organization: Grass Valley Group, Grass Valley, CA

In article <93Jan17.024810est.47601@neat.cs.toronto.edu> tgk@cs.toronto.edu 
(Todd Kelley) writes:
>gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:

>>The whole "direct/reflecting" thing is based on the idea that since
>>most of the sound you hear in a live event is reflected, you should
>>bounce a lot of the sound off the rear walls, etc. to re-create the
>>effect.  Nice idea, and eminently marketable.  But the man forgot that
>>the sound has _already_ been bounced around before being recorded. 

I agree with Gabe here.  The best imaging speakers are the direct
radiator type (owners of ESL's will disagree for sure) IMHO.  :-)

>Hold on now.  That depends on how the music is recorded.  I must admit
>upfront that I know little about recording studios, but I can't imagine
>why an engineer would amplify the output from an electric guitar or
>electric piano, run it through a loudspeaker, and record the sound
>with a microphone placed so that it gets both direct and reflected sound

Hold on there yer self!  You are speaking of multi-tracking pop/etc
music and Gabe is (generally) speaking of recording an orchestra, etc
in a nice sounding venue.  Something he does a lot.

And yes even in pop, rock, etc.  It is commom practice to mic
amplifiers,  and yes sometimes you put the amp in a big room and
distance mic.  That's how you get a wall of marshalls to sound like
they do on stage.

This applies to acoustic instruments.  The drums on S&G's "Bridge over
troubled water" was recorded with the kit set up next to an open
elevator shaft and a U47 was lowered down the shaft (this was pre
digital reverbs don't ya know) for the blooming reverb effect.

>waves.  When a vocal is recorded, the singer is always just several
>inches from the microphone, so that sound waves bouncing of the walls
>should be insignificant.  Aren't those wall anechoic, anyway?

The sound of the tracking room is well imprinted on the instrument,
even if it is close mic'ed.  The Beatles in the Abbey Road Studio is a
classic example.  

Not every vocalist is recorded close to the mic.  It is based on the
singers voice,  the type of mic used, the strength of the vocalists
voice, etc.

I was doing a session once (playing not engineering,  I do both) we
had the fiddle player in the vocal booth.  The VB was small, about
8'x10'.  The instrument was close mic'ed (about 1') with a U67.

There was a _lot_ of the room sound inparted to the instrument.  The
small size of the room made the instrument sound boxy and unnatural.
It worked fine for this rock date though.

The vocals that we did later sounded fine also, about the same
distance from the mic,  the room tone built up the male vocalists week
nasal voice.  The female BU singer sounded great also,  besided being
drop dead beautiful!

The walls in a recording studio are not anechoic!  Reflective,
absoptive, defracting but _not_ anechoic!  I take that back...some
studios have been done that way.  They are crazy to work in.  It feels
like you are playing real hard.  I played on a drum kit that was set
up in a small iso booth, with sonex panels at each side of the kit.
The sound on the cans in the booth was strange,  dry, lifeless,  it
forced me to play harded.  I believe this was intentional,  to get a
specific sound (listen to SuperTramps "Breakfast in America")  The
sound in the CR was dramatically different.

I once walked into an old Radio Production Studio.  It was nearly
anechoic.  It felt like someone sucked my brain outta my head.  The
lack of reflections was very distressing!

>>That is just one example of the brilliant engineering that the company
>>practices.

>Can you think of different example?  'Cause I don't think the one
>you gave makes your point.

You all must bored if the best you can get onto is Bose bashing.......:-)

Have a nice day all!
-- 
Chris Christensen                  The opinions I express are my own,
chrisc@gold.gvg.tek.com            and sometimes they are wrong!
916-478-3419 FAX 916-478-3887      After all, I *AM* only human.