Dynamic Range

[Audioraven]

You don't have to be an "audiophile" to hear major differences between different recording microphones.

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by Audioraven

You don't have to be an "audiophile" to hear major differences between different recording microphones.

Microphones NO but cables will always be up to the debate. What I said earlier is still true. Not many recording studios, perhaps a few that I have heard of have ever utilized exotic cabling.

[PHC1]

Speaking of microphones... The Tacet "Das Mikrophon" volume I and II are a fantastic way to be able to listen to the various mikes of past and present. From what I recall the Volume I was also very interesting music content wise.

This recording follows on from our first project, Das Mikrofon. This second collection goes further and offers the listener a much closer view of the world of microphones. And in order that you can really judge the differences in sound and are not confused by the different compositions, different instruments, different surroundings, etc., the Georg Rox Quartet played the same short piece each time in the same position in the same room. So you can make an objective comparison and pick out your favorite microphone.

Many listeners of the first SACD were particularly fascinated by the fact that condeser microphones dating back to 1949, 1947 or even 1929 displayed astonishing recording qualities. This aroused our sporting instincts. The "constestants" travelled from far and wide: from the USA, Canada, England...in addition to the condenser microphones of 1927 (Neumann CMV 3), 1947 (Neumann U 47) and 1949 (Neumnann M 49) their most important historic relatives the ribbon microphones have joined the party, represented by teh RCA 44, RCA 77 and RCA 10001. These mics were widely used in the 1940's and 50's for movie sound. When I first heard the sounds picked up by them, I immediately thought of Humphrey Bogart. Maybe you'll feel the same way.

[clpetersen]

Originally Posted by Still-One

I have seen Brandi Live at least a half dozen times including once at Interlochen's Corson auditorium where they acoustics are so good they did three songs without any mics.

Streaming Brandi Carlile, who I learned about via this thread. Not too bad, not bad at all.


A comment on dynamic range. Technically, dynamic range compression is pretty simple for digital files (see link below). So, in this day of downloads and streaming, why not offer a mobile version and a home version? Or maybe a decoder header file built in to restore the dynamic range?
http://sox.sourceforge.net

[PleasantSounds]

Right now I'm listening to an album with average DR of 3. Somehow I'm enjoying the music, but the sound is really baaaad. The irony is that this music has been mastered to sound loud, but it makes me turn the volume down. Makes me think if the producers realise that people who listen to the music have volume controls too?

There's one point however that I'd like to bring into the discussion: we tend to chase the highest possible DR, yet from my experience there are also upper limits to what sounds good. In practice many tracks with DR between 10 and 15 will sound fantastic, but I have found that most tracks with DR exceeding 20 feel like the sound engineer didn't really do his job.

Some of these dynamics outbursts are due to the way the microphones work and don't sound natural at all. These need to be compensated for, and compression is the tool to do this.

[Still-One]

I believe there are at least two issues we are dealing with when comparing CD's from the mid 80's and early 90's to those released since. Every early CD I have in addition to many I stream seem to have been recorded about 3db lower in volume than current releases. This is a separate issue from dynamic range compression. Whenever I play a track from one of my older discs I must increase the volume.