Soundstage - is it for real?

[Clive]

I was at a small concert in Venice last Friday. The room was about 10m x 20m, there were 4 violins and a double bass. There are those that say soundtstage doesn't exist in live concerts, it did and was very obvious at this concert. I could easily pinpoint each musician. I think what happens with larger venues is that we sit further back and hear far more reflected sound so the soundstage is lost. With live electronic music there's little hope for soundstage but with good mic'ing it can be recorded.

In the case of soundstage I feel that recordings which reproduce this are in this respect often more faithful than the live experience we have in person.

[Oldpinkman]

+1

[realysm42]

Are you feeling ok Richard?

[Oldpinkman]

Yeah your right Martin. My son replies to my lengthy text messages with "K" -and I was having a shot at brevity.

I agree that soundstage and imaging are important clues to both the "naturalness" of a recording technique and the fidelity of the equipment producing it. I hate having to admit this, and please don't repeat it north of the border, but Ivor Tiefunbrun was right, imo, that what you lose at the source can't be made up down the chain. What sits on the vinyl is as good as it gets, and all the equipment down the line can do is f*** it up to a greater or lesser extent.

So the ability to produce "sound stage" effects is a result of messing up less. It is not an added distortion. Good imaging and soundstage presentation represent a systems ability not to lose some of the information they started out with.
You can't "design in" a system to "add soundstage detail"

That's what I meant :)

[Clive]

I agree that you can't design in soundstage but you can design it out. An example being some of Ivor's speakers. Kabers placed against a wall, as they were designed to be - they simply kill off most of the soundstage.

[Oldpinkman]

I agree that you can't design in soundstage but you can design it out. An example being some of Ivor's speakers. Kabers placed against a wall, as they were designed to be simply kill off most of he soundstage.

Quite. Lost soundstage is lower fidelity, however lovely you may find the sound :)

[high.spirits]

Totally agree, having been to numerous live shows.

[icehockeyboy]

I I think what happens with larger venues is that we sit further back and hear far more reflected sound so the soundstage is lost. With live electronic music there's little hope for soundstage but with good mic'ing it can be recorded.

In the case of soundstage I feel that recordings which reproduce this are in this respect often more faithful than the live experience we have in person.

This is the philosophy that Dr Amar Bose used when designing his 901's.
Something like 89% of sound reaching our lug holes is reflected, hence 8 drivers being reflected off a rear wall, and the driver at the front sorting out the 11% direct sound.

[f1eng]

This is the philosophy that Dr Amar Bose used when designing his 901's.
Something like 89% of sound reaching our lug holes is reflected, hence 8 drivers being reflected off a rear wall, and the driver at the front sorting out the 11% direct sound.

The trouble with this approach is that a -huge- amount of ther acoustics of -your- room is overlaid on the original acoustic. It sounds nice, or at least it can sound nice and impressive but high fidelity in the accurate sense it ain't. Omnis are very similar.
Panel speakers are too. I loved mine, but my own recordings didn't sound very accurate on them. I forgave them since they were so brilliant in general, but it always nagged in the back of my mind.
Small boxes image most accurately IME, but have other shortcomings

[Rothchild]

As important as it is I question the desire for 'reality' in soundstage (less so in classical or 'naturalisticaly' presented folk and the like).

The key one, that I play with all the time (and generally have a clear preference for the 'wrong' version!), is deciding which way round to present a drumkit. I tend to always mix kits 'drummer perspective' even though I might mix the rest of the band 'audience perspective'. I'm just listening to the first Foo Fighters album and it's obviously mixed by a drummer, it's drummer perspective (hats to the left) the result is that when you air drum along with the track the instruments are in the right place! When you're mixing a band with a kit there are additional considerations that may affect the decisions about where to place instruments, an easy example would be that if I have a song with kit drums (and the hat off to the left) if there's a clicky strummed acoustic part it will end up going right so it sits against the hats.

The other consideration that affects the presentation of 'sound stage', especially when using stereo miking techniques is which technique you're using. On the same source Blumlein, MS or Spaced Pair will all sound different and give a different depth and room relationship and you need to select the approach that best suits the aesthetic you're shooting for.

Most of my favourite records only bear a passing resemblance to 'the live experience' this doesn't demean the live experience but the magic of recording studios (and the fact that they liberate artists and mixers from the naturalistic soundstage) is often what's exciting about records and recorded music.

Media is distortion and records are necessarily a fiction (even the ones that are crafted to sound like they're not!)

[electric beach]

I think what happens with larger venues is that we sit further back

You need to dig deeper for better tickets Clive :lol:

I saw Tony Green at a small venue in Venice, constructed like a minature theatre, with little balconies and everything, even though it was the size you describe. Same place?

I saw Mary Chapin Carpenter in a largish venue, sat quite a way back but the sound was so clean that the musicians' locations were strikingly obvious, maybe because it was so unusual.

[PaulStewart]

I was at a small concert in Venice last Friday. The room was about 10m x 20m, there were 4 violins and a double bass. There are those that say soundtstage doesn't exist in live concerts, it did and was very obvious at this concert. I could easily pinpoint each musician. I think what happens with larger venues is that we sit further back and hear far more reflected sound so the soundstage is lost. With live electronic music there's little hope for soundstage but with good mic'ing it can be recorded.

In the case of soundstage I feel that recordings which reproduce this are in this respect often more faithful than the live experience we have in person.

It's important here to distinguish between natural acoustic and an artificial soundstage as produced from multiple mono sources panned into place to produce a facsimile of the real deal. I have found that even with a large venue, I can still place instruments with my eyes closed, even in the Albert Hall which, despite best efforts by the people who hung the polystyrene mushrooms, still has a very confused acoustic. But this only works with an acoustic source with no PA. As soon as amplification is introduced, the whole thing goes to rat sh*t. No least of all because a large part of the mix will be MONO anyway so that all the audience can hear all the sound.


I tend to always mix kits 'drummer perspective' even though I might mix the rest of the band 'audience perspective'.

The problem here is that there will be no real soundstage, as we are talking again about panned mono. I used to use stereo overheads and then place fill in s on Kick, Snare and Hat and pan those to their positions in the soundstage from the overheads. I always kept things to audience perspective, despite being a drummer myself :) When PZMs came out, I changed my drum miking and went for a spaced pair of PZMs on the walls either side of the kit, with sometimes a third on the floor in front of the Kick. Also. back in the 80s when people wanted gated reverb on the snare, I would put a 451 or 414 on it just for that, never sounded as good as just the kit in a good acoustic, but you gotta give the customer what they want.

In my experience, a Blumlein pair will produce a good soundstage of a natural sound source be it a small ensemble or a full blown orchestra. MS side will do the same for smaller scale things like soloists or duets. But soundstage is real, if it's captured properly in the first place and if the source creates on to start with. However, the recording can never be "More real" than the original.

Cheers to all

[Macca]

I've never understood how people can confuse live sound with a studio recording. It seems to be quite common on the forums, though.

I was listening to the Stones' 'Sympathy for the Devil' earlier and I could quite clearly hear the acoustic in which the piano was recorded - but that whole sound, piano and its acoustic, have been placed in the soundstage (right of centre and back a bit) by the engineer. It's artifice but it's also real.

[Barry]

Yeah your right Martin. My son replies to my lengthy text messages with "K" -and I was having a shot at brevity.

I agree that soundstage and imaging are important clues to both the "naturalness" of a recording technique and the fidelity of the equipment producing it. I hate having to admit this, and please don't repeat it north of the border, but Ivor Tiefunbrun was right, imo, that what you lose at the source can't be made up down the chain. What sits on the vinyl is as good as it gets, and all the equipment down the line can do is f*** it up to a greater or lesser extent.

So the ability to produce "sound stage" effects is a result of messing up less. It is not an added distortion. Good imaging and soundstage presentation represent a systems ability not to lose some of the information they started out with.
You can't "design in" a system to "add soundstage detail"

That's what I meant :)

Linn (and their fawning acolytes) didn't believe in soundstage or focus - just listen to most of their awful speakers: the Linn Isobarik is a prime example!

It's quite easy to pinpoint musicians playing acoustic instruments with your eyes closed when attending live concerts.

[Mr Kipling]

The Stones' "No Security" live album is said to present a huge soundstage.

[Rothchild]

I too track drums with a stereo setup (at the moment I'm liking a spaced pair 'Glyn Johns' style). Being in Stereo doesn't mean that I can't make the artistic decision as to which way around I present the kit, I just flip the panning of each of the channels that make up my stereo track.

I concur that in my experience too Blumlein is the one to give you that amazing depth and spread.

I think I agree with Martin about the 'real artifice' thing, my kit example is trying to express the same idea. I capture an 'honest' (real) stereo representation of a drum kit (which, with this setup, often sounds uncanily like you're sitting at the drumkit) but there is artifice involved because, like the stones piano, these recordings are then being placed in a further 'synthetic' soundstage created out of panned mono sources and other 'placed' stereo sources. I don't think in HiFi terms this is any less of a soundstage as an 'honestly' recorded live performance, or of sitting in front of an acoustic band and pointing at instruments with ones eyes shut.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter if you're in the albert hall (with a PA) or your living room; if you're not more or less in the sweet spot of the speakers you're not going to get the stereo effect and the soundstage will collapse towards some version of mono (which is why checking mixes in mono is always advisable, to ensure there are no funny phase cancellations going on etc).

[PaulStewart]

Marc, if you are going the spaced omni route for drums, do yourself a favour and try some PZMs, mounted on the walls either side of the kit, it's mind- blowing, I've been doing this since the 80s and it really works :)

[Rothchild]

Marc, if you are going the spaced omni route for drums, do yourself a favour and try some PZMs, mounted on the walls either side of the kit, it's mind- blowing, I've been doing this since the 80s and it really works :)

/sadface Only have one PZM.....

Oh well never been unhappy about adding to the mic stack so I'll stick that on the 'to do' list!

Cheers

[Marco]

You need to dig deeper for better tickets Clive :lol:

I saw Tony Green at a small venue in Venice, constructed like a minature theatre, with little balconies and everything, even though it was the size you describe. Same place?

I saw Mary Chapin Carpenter in a largish venue, sat quite a way back but the sound was so clean that the musicians' locations were strikingly obvious, maybe because it was so unusual.

Hi Steve,

You have an important PM regarding your trade account. Please read ASAP - cheers! :)