I think I did not make myself clear.
Of course in those live versus canned experiments(also with AR)
reverberation tended to make things sound pretty much the same
to smooth out errors and so on.
But in fact, if one records musical instrument with a mike
and plays it back with a speaker has no hope at all of
hearing the sound of the instrument as it really was--
except on one axis anechoically.
This just won't happen. Except if one recorded
the power response of the instrument and plays it back
with a constant power response speaker in a highly reverberant
environment.
Real musical instruments are extremely far from being omni
radiators. There is no chance of duplicating their patterns
with a speaker and no determined axis on which the recording
should be done.
Music is a rapidly changing thing and one can get away
with a certain amount of error especially in switching
in the middle of music --because the brain becomes
engaged with the music and expects it to continue
sounding as it was sounding.
Wharf. and AR experiments were interesting
but they were a bit of a cheat--reverberant environment
in particular.
But if one looks at what really happens, this clearly
will not work in real truth. An honest experimment
designed to maximize not minimize discrimination would
bomb completely.
Basically a speaker will do the job of sounding like
an instrument in only two cases
1 an aenchoic environment- on axis is everything
or
2 an extremely reverberant environment, in which
power response dominates. Record the power response
of the instrument and bingo.
In any circumstances in between, it is a fake though
one might be able to fool people with music material
(which is born to fake people out, so ingrained
are the perception patterns).
Look at that link, at how a violin actually radiates sound
(or similar diagrams for other instruments) No speaker
can duplicate the patern which is complex and varies with frequency.
One would have to have a multiple-pole speaker and a lot of channels
of recording of the instrument along various axes.
The whole thing would be like Ambisonics in reverse--lots
of channels needed to make it work.
That would work of course.
Robert
On Sat, 18 May 2013, Gerard Lardner wrote:
I believe Gilbert Briggs of Wharfedale did something like this in the 1950s.
He hired major concert halls and other public venues in the UK and USA to
give concerts comparing live with recorded sound. Of course, the purpose was
to promote his Wharfedale loudspeakers and Quad amplifiers (he and Peter
Walker of Quad were friends), but the events were apparently sold out well in
advance. I'm sure I have a reference somewhere in one of Briggs' books.
On 17/05/2013 16:53, Augustine Leudar wrote:
Dear Robert - what I am talking about has nothing to do with the
multimicing of orchestras etc which are used to subsequently produce stereo
recordings, 5.1 etc - and it has not been sold to the public by the music
industry at all on account of the fact that to listen to it the public
would need a lifesize replica of the space the sound installation was
designed for (in this case a church and a bar ) , a multichannel soundcard
they would be unlikely to know how to operate and about 20 very irregularly
spaced speakers.
However I dont see why it wouldnt work for musical instruments as well - as
long as the speakers were placed in exactly the same place as the
instruments were recorded in and the mics didnt pick up any other
instrument apart from the one they are meant to record . I guess instead of
the musicians in the orchestra you would have speakers sitting in their
place - but you would still need an orchestral hall and the speakers would
still need to be in exactly the same places the musicians were sitting - Im
sure somebody must have tried this - again not something you can listen to
in the living room.
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