Live vs recorded percussion reproduction

[Fantastic]

On some thread on this forum there were some opinions on live vs recorded sound. I basically felt that nothing compares with live sound and one generally cannot equal live sound especially with percussive sounds.
Here is a link trying to show the quality of good speakers. They must be expensive as the mid drivers look like ceramic cones !
I was listening with some good headphones .
The instant they play the speakers version you can hear the magic disappear from the initial live portion even though both sections are coming to us through a microphone recording. In real life the live portion must have been really spectacular ! The drop in 'quality' with the speaker reproduction is quite remarkable. Check it out. We assume they must have used the best methods to record the sound which they used to play back later.

Hi-End System vs percussion band - YouTube

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Once you commit something via a microphone, camera, etc to a lossy-compressed Youtube upload you are a miles away from the original live sound anyway. In fact, as soon as you feed sound through a PA system you have lost a lot.

Here is a carnatic concert where the mics were used for recording, but there was no amplification whatsoever in the room. I was sitting just in front of the artists. The video sound is actually not bad, it is perfectly listenable-to --- but it is not at all like the experience and sound quality of being there.

You are right... Nothing compares with acoustic sound!

 

[Fantastic]

I'm very curious. What is that blue background with what looks like clouds ? A picture or a window ?

 

[captrajesh]

I had once visited the Vandaloor Zoological Park at Chennai with my family. We had visited an area that houses the captured wild cats which stray into human habitations around Chennai. There were a half a dozen of them and we were inches away from their cages; their growls were so terrifying that the growls of similar animals recorded in the documentaries aired on the likes of Nat Geo or Discovery Channel don't even project 10% of the content in comparison.

 

[Ambio]

It is is difficult to make any reliable conclusion from the YouTube. This demonstration was heldby Gauder Akustic to promote their world's best loudspeaker. The recording was recorded live and replayed through the speakers.

The sound that we hear from the YouTube is the duplication of the orginal recordings and loss of resolution is expected. The first live sound was played via the speakers and recorded again and therefore we can't make any conclusion based on the video. Orginal recording vs recording of the orginal recording is all we get from the YouTube.

I read from another forum that the audience who were present there couldn't tell the difference which is not surprising at all as since 50s and 70s hundred of live performance vs recorded sound in concert hall proven to be indistinguishable. There was also another live violin and speakers comparison over here and the difference was indistinguishable as well.

The O Zone Percussion track from Manger Test CD is a highly demanding recording on the speaker and amplifier. I used to demonstrate this track in my old speakers connected to an Electrostiatics Super tweeter where at the peaks you could see corona flying off from the super tweeter. The peak reach 106dB loudness. It is a damn good recording to use to define speakers and amplifier power. In most system, you cant push the volume to the limits of the speakers or amplifiers due to room boom.

To Thad:-

Is this a live recording or gone through some processing? I don't hear any echos at all which is unlikely in a bare room with a reflective aquarium behind the the performers unless my iPad is not resolving enough to reveal the room signature.

 

[malvai]

I use the same track on every set up to test the attack..

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I'm very curious. What is that blue background with what looks like clouds ? A picture or a window ?

a reflective aquarium behind the the performers

Ambio has answered your question!

It was a very fine house, with a large hall, and a couple of beautiful built-in aquariums (aquaria? ). I don't know fish, but I think this was a proper tropical aquarium, and very well kept.

Back to the music...

Is this a live recording or gone through some processing?

It was a webcast. The mics that you see were used for recording, and I have no idea what happens to those recordings. The webcasters (Parivadani) have an audio feed from the mixer board, which goes to a small mixer, and thus to a laptop. The video is via a low-cost web cam. I do not know what ADC is used: their equipment is, I would say, very low budget and could probably be greatly improved on, but hey, it's a free service to the public. They are trying to build a commercial arm to their organisation with "premium" content such as lecdems, but have committed to covering and transmitting concerts free of charge. They add another to their channel nearly every day!

The acoustics of the room were not perfect. I mentioned this in another thread. Whilst the "soundstage" was exact (well, it had to be, unless one only had one ear!) there were not so much echoes as resonances in the room. I noticed it on some of the violin notes. Somehow, when listening to actual musicians, it might be more acceptable, but sure, it is still it still a distortion.

We were guests in a private house, and, although large, this was a private living area.

I sat slightly to one side, almost within touching distance of the violinist. Whilst everything leads to debate, and this experience leads to the debate why is voice projection not taught to carnatic musicians, or, to put it bluntly, why are they not taught to sing? :sad: it is, without a doubt, the true way to experience music. Returning to sound in an auditorium, via speakers, the next day, I found it very rough by comparison.

Bharathi, by the way, has no problem with voice projection: speaking or singing, she is as clear as a bell and just as easily heard