If you can't hear this then you're not an audiophile [See description for link to followup video]
If you're an audiophile then you can hear the tiniest defects in all kinds of recordings. But can you hear the problem in this recording? Check out the followup to this video at • Can audiophiles hear t...
DAVID MELLOR'S MUSIC
David Mellor's music on Bandcamp - davidmellor.bandcamp.com/
David Mellor's music on Spotify - open.spotify.com/artist/6OkaD...
Available on all good streaming services
CREDITS
The Clarinet as Prima Donna - Evil Penguin www.eprclassic.eu/items/Weber...
Video clips and orchestra images source - • "Making of" der Weber-... (highly recommended)
Roeland Hendrikx - www.roelandhendrikx.com/
Woodland video - Matthias Groeneveld
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This isn't a panning problem. It's a movement and stereo imaging problem. So many of the comments below talk about panning but I feel that it might be getting confusing. There has been so much interest in this video that I will follow it up, soon hopefully. UPDATE - Followup available here - kzhead.info/sun/eMh9nqWmioKHo58/bejne.html
There is NO problem. It's not a problem at all except to you. Your ignorance is making what is common use into a problem. That's weird - & is not representative of reality in song production. If you're really an audiophile you're stepping outside your field & commenting on a completely different field but spouting ignorance. You're in no position to comment on the recording business & it's techniques - having already demonstrated you don't know your stuff. Other producers have commented here also - producers who know their craft.
@@SeanWysemanalso sounds perfectly fine in mono so I don’t know what exactly is the point other than to pontificate on needless bs caused by other needless bs
@AudioMasterclass - Most entertaining, but I must take a ittle bit of an issue. I manufacture high-end analog components. I'm also a musician, and have played numerous instruments in bands & orchestras of all denomination. I know what real music sounds like in all manner of venues. I simply don't quite understand your fixation on imagery. I'm listening to my workshop set-up which is basic & limited, but hilariously good! Everyone is gobsmacked by the realism - I played the CD of a sadly late friend, Nigel Richard; bagpipe builder and player extraordinare. He (without provocation) said it sounded just exactly as it did in the recording studio. Amazing what O/B's and concrete walls can acheive. My workshop isn't very large - maybe 5 x 7 metres with the O/B's maybe 2.5 metres from me, situated roughly 1/3rd along the 7mtr, with me near the end wall. The OB's & I occupy that 1/3rd the space, the remainder of which is occupied by the apparitions of melodic performance. A nicely recorded small set up even taken from youtube can sound unnervingly real: kzhead.info/sun/a9F8c7GgrH17jK8/bejne.html&ab_channel=JasonMraz kzhead.info/sun/oq2yhtlojJWwa40/bejne.html&ab_channel=SouthernRaised Well, they genuinely could fit in my room, and they do. Take that second track - the banjo starts right in the far right corner of the room from me. Sounds real - it's there. Rest is kinda mushed towards the centre left with the vocals about a metre forward. Nothing great going on with the imagery here, so why does it sound this good? Without paying autistic levels of scrutiny to imagery (I can feel roughly where it is, and thats no where near the speakers) and I get a strong impression of presence. Go to the first track. Practically mono. In these sort of live gigs, the speakers could be anywhere but I'm pretty certain I'm hearing the best version taken straight from the mixer desk and post eq-d. Pretty sure it's not the imagery that's doing it for me now? Neither of the above tracks require ear-splitting volume - you should always listen at realistic levels for acoustic music. Unfortunately for those desiring of orchestral levels of performance, some 106dB will be required. I don't believe that imagery is as important as you appear to insist. Yes, I have tracks that move backward & forward, left and right. Sure it's a factor, but it's certainly not the most important - otherwise mono would be entirely redundant.Is there no such a thing as a mono oriented audiophile?
@@jamesportrais3946 The guy doesn't know his stuff. He doesn't know that there are 3 distinct disciplines & 5 more sub-disciplines that are normally divided up among as many people. Sometimes you get someone who does it all. But those jobs are divided up - even in the mind of the person that wears every hat. I'm one of them that often does every stage himself because I'm good a them. But when he enters the dialog with a bold & blatant statement that "you're not an audiophile if you can't hear this" - which is really clickbait because it's false. You can find all kinds of misinformation on YT & this is a perfect example. A guy grandstanding with an opening headline that knows not what & audiophile is. Then says you're not one if you can't hear this. Ridiculous. No audiophile is accurately described as such. It may be an audiophile who's using his mixing appreciation skills - but that's not an audiophile's domain - figuring out if the mix engineer should have made the right artistic choice. That's not an audiophile that's making those observations even if he considers himself an audiophile - he's not talking about the fidelity of the sound - which is what defines an audiophile. Why is important to make the correct distinctions - it's not that important unless you want to communicate it to others. Then it's important that you know the roles & definitions or you'll not gain an credibility by not knowing your topic more deeply than the public you are communicating with. This guy doesn't know his topic.
@@SeanWyseman I'm in your camp Sean, but I'm not certain he needs to be eviscerated 😛 - I can see why you were annoyed, but the guy is trying to promote his channel/business. We only learn through mistakes, and the modern culture of cancellation hardly allows any degree of growth. I think the guy has 10 years on me which would mean that his formative years would have come from the late 70's-80's when "specifications" sold typically solid-state amplification. Let's not forget that only a couple of decades previously, your audio aspirations would be curtailed by a furniture-centric wife. I've seen "high end" radiograms from the late 60's/early 70's that had speakers, radio, TT, O/R tape recorder, fridge & cocktail bar (seriously!) all built in. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. Early SS equipment sounded on the whole _shyte_ but measured brilliantly. This was the era when the likes of Krell was king; megawatts & miniscule distortion combined with practically unlimited bandwidth & vanishing noise. All very nice, but sounded crap. Sandpaper treble, paper mids, bass that you couldn't distinguish from external traffic (you got pumped when you thought a truck on the road outside was part of the plot) and absolutely no depth - your program was nailed to a perspex sheet between your probably three-way speakers with seriously _shyte_ crossovers. Everything we hated about early CD players was encapsulated in this meandering mess. What that equipment _could_ do was image. Inherently more consistently reproducible semi conductors meant consistence throughout the bandwidth. This means that a fixed pan-point is less likely to wander with varying degrees of frequency. If that's your only selling point, might as well push it - so they did. Sean, I don't think our man has ever heard a proper stereo soundscape. My experience for more than a few decades has been one that you feel you could walk into. More than a few visitors go looking to the rear wall in order to find additional speakers that aren't there. Funny thing is, being O/B's, they turn around and hear the same phenominon! I'd like our man to pay a few visits to very different set ups and gain a little experience. His writing, or rather talking doesn't smack of someone who's heard a Class A single ended micro-Watt set-up for example. Your thoughts Sean?
I am not an audiophile, just a music enthusiast. I didn't hear anything wrong and just enjoyed the music.
Exactly.
I noticed it but still enjoyed the music!
@@seymourclearlyme 2
That was my take on it. I noticed the panning movement but figured it was intentional. Sometimes they make the sound fields uneven on purpose to add a sort of "dimensional" effect.
@@MrR2185 when I saw the nice pastoral video image I imagined that the clarinet was a little rabbit jumping from here to there, is this music programmatic?
Hi! i was the assistant engineer on this recording. Not all of the mics were used, the orchestra for example is purely our A/B and ORTF main mics combined with the room mics and some spots for the woodwinds and Double basses. For Roeland we used only the stereo mics but not hard-panned, more something like 20%. Personally i like the slight movement. Oh and to comment about the Bricasti, it didn't do all that much, just enhances the natural acoustics of the hall. Lastly, the speakers are Dynaudio BM6a's, OK speakers for on the move and to give a general impression. Our main monitoring is usually a Grace M900 paired with some headphones we know well. The speakers are just there in case a lot of people want to come and listen and to make the recording session less of a headphone-only session. The room we were in (one of the changing rooms) was certainly not ideal for speaker-based monitoring. Thank you for the interesting video and feel free to ask me any questions regarding the recording, i'll do my best to answer!
Keep doing what you're doing. I thought it sounded great.
It is a beautiful recording. I heard the stereo field 'wandering' on the soloist but I don't think it's a negative because it does seem to more faithfully represent how one would perceive the sound if one were in the room with the group and the soloist was expressively moving his body as he played (which it turns out he was). I have been a musician all my life and have both performed with various sizes of groups and listened to many performances in-person, and the details of the musical experience (in-person) differ considerably with even small changes in one's position in the room, let alone the habits and idiosyncracies of the players. I don't consider myself an 'audiophile' exactly (and can't afford really nice equipment anyhow) but I appreciate the clarity - in a recording such as this one - of a faithful representation of how the music would be perceived if I could have been in one of the better spots in that room where it was originally performed. Thanks!
That's fascinating, Robin Breuglemans. I don't know if you saw my earlier comment, and those of others, but there is definitely a group of people who found the slight movement of the clarinet to be entirely natural, and added character to the recording. Thanks again for your comment.
Since we Americans don't use "a recording" and "a mix" interchangeably, I assumed the "problem with the recording" was the noise at 1:17.
I am fond of my old BM10s. I know they weren't the most popular near/mids, but I like them. I have just moved onto Neumann NDH 30 for hp monitoring. It is the first time in a long time I have fallen in love with a tech purchase. I adore them!
Classically-trained musician here. I heard it, but didn't realize that's what you were talking about. IMO, not only is there nothing wrong with it, but that's the best way to capture this performance: get all of the individual idiosyncrasies that the musician brings to it. That's what makes it a performance, not just the sterile perfection of running sheet music through MIDI. What that recordist captured is unique in the universe. Even with the same orchestra and solost, there will never, ever be another performance just like it.
me too
Spooky Cosmic Interference
You so-called musicians! Stop 'playing' music and get serious! How insensitive, dull, blunt, and deaf do you have to be if those constantly swaying, rocking, shaking fluctuations escape your sense of hearing??? Trained ears? Trained to tolerate the most vile torture of your auditory apparatus! How can it be, you're impervious to the oscillating atrocity of the Doppler Effect when the clarinet is swaying from side to side - and more so at varying speeds! Pleeeeeaase, get me some of those MIDI files, you mentioned! Are there any with NO MUSIC in them, at all? I'll add them to my huge collection of recordings of 4′33″.
I like @shanedk's explanation. Imagine being seated in a small recital hall listening to the soloist with no amplification or accompaniment. The movement of the instrument might sound a great deal like this solo on the recording and it's an important part of any live performance. I suppose the problem is exacerbated because the instrument seems to move but the orchestra does not. I always learn a great deal from Audio Masterclass (and I did this time as well), but I'm willing to accept what was "wrong" with this recording as something that might be very difficult to "fix" while accurately capturing both the nuanced solo and the orchestra.
@@CricksWhiteNoise @shanedk certainly is right in his rather 'emotional' approach to recording technique. As humans we want 'moving' performances. One problem that might arise from moving while recording with several mics is phase cancellation, destructive wave interference. Although wave interference can in some musical situations really be used as a kind of 'natural audio fx control' that can be achieved by merely adjusting the signal's run-time differences when making the mic set-up. With classical music recordings it's something you'd rather want to avoid, usually...
- How can you tell someone is an audiophile? - He'll tell you himself.
Like Linux users
Imagine a Vegan cross-fitting audiophile, they would literally explode trying to figure out which trait that they should tell you about first.
@@BlackHatInc especially if they were Scottish 😅
Like Pilots.
I love a reddit comment that states “I purchased *insert basic headphone/speaker* and am officially an audiophile”
I'm not an audiophile, and I did hear the variation you pointed out but, I would never have thought it to be "something wrong."
Same here. Soloists often express physical movements while playing. Most notably Martin Frost, one of our greatest clarinetists. He moves a lot while playing. So honestly even if its audible, I didnt really "hear" it
Same
same, i've also ery appreciated it very much, for me it was more expressive than a mono variant would be
Great performance. I enjoyed the bass clarinet backdrop.
yeah this man is full of bs
As a producer who has worked for majors, "Audiophile" beliefs and their gear are one of the top comedy topics we engage in.
@Dr Curious -- audiophiles are the audio version of Corvette/BMW/Porsche clubs .. (wow! nice chrome, great hemi, super exhaust pipes ...) -- it's all about the impressive array of equipment and the proclaimed results --
@@aBachwardsfellow Yes. Totally. The funny issus for us tend to be the claim of what can be heard in certain situations and the misuse of equipment and setups. Like a 30k speakers in a wooden floored, french doored, square, reverberant listening space, with platinum power cables and 1m long platinum speaker connections. etc.
@@Dr-Curious - Totally! 🙂
when I 'auditioned' my $2,000 PSB speakers back in '92, I thought they were the best sounding in the room sans the $10,000 B&W speakers. I couldn't afford the silver speaker cables for it, but when he connected them to the PSB's, it was like night and day, they just opened up more shimmer, sound stage, imaging, and timber of instruments. You believe what ya want, but I HEARD it myself. Go hear some GOOD speakers and cables, not the mass market crap.
@@trallfraz night and day? sure
I don’t understand why this movement would be considered undesirable. When I think about what’s ideal in a mix, I want it to represent the recorded music in a way that conveys as much character as possible without distracting from the core themes. I wouldn’t want it to ping pong from hard left pan to hard right, but this subtle movement makes it feel more expressive, like you’re going on a journey with the clarinet
To me the whole point this video is clickbait, he even says that he enjoys this recording. Please use the affiliate links in the description. Thank you. :)
The movement can cause a mic to pick up some sounds more and some sounds less, so if he moves away from the mic, those notes will be quieter. But also, the mic will pick up the note a fraction of a second later than when he’s closer, mics positioned further away will also pick up the sound slightly delayed. So it’s not just about the stereo effect but about the dynamics, and tempo of the recording. As a musician who moves a lot, and who works hard on dynamics, tone, and tempo, I’d hate a recording to not represent my hard work.
When i first replied to this comment.... i had just woken up... and i had assumed you meant "the audiophile movement"... But then i realized my mistake xD
It's classical music. It's supposed to be boring.
yeh. its hilarious. i think what we are hearing is desirablee, and trying to remove it is "the problem"
I played violin for years, I immediately heard the slight swaying but it made total sense to me and it didn’t register as a “problem”. If anything it’s more immersive, like you’re attending a recital. I’d hate to hear what some “audiophiles” would think of a solo violinist or saxophonist swaying back and forth. 😂
That's how I hear things in person... so... why would I not hear it here? *shrug* "audiophiles" pay for baggies of crystals to wrap around their $1000 cables and I'm just a hard pass on that no matter what it does to the sound. It's weird. It's like telling me crystals heal cancer. I'm sure some folks wish they did (me fucking too) but... uhm... so far no evidence has presented itself.
This «problem» you described, is what makes the recording unique and give it life i think. Perfection is sometimes rigid and boring.
Exactly. I think that what he didn't understand is that the recording engineer probably *purposely* recorded it with stereo mics to get that life that you mentioned. It makes the recording more interesting.
I wrote a piece of music that features a bridge that builds up to a crescendo following a lead guitar playing a meandering melody... at first I left the guitar in the center of the mix and it felt kind of empty and lacking something... so I automated the panning to make it meander left and right and suddenly that section felt like it came to life. So I can definitely see someone doing this on purpose in this piece of music as well.
this guy gets it :p
Yea, but the dude isn't running left to right, it doesn't really depict the reality of the clarinet being played: not a stereo instrument.
@@LetsGo_Brandon A dude moving the clarinet left to right as he plays *does* make it a "stereo instrument".
I heard the movement of the clarinet in the stereo field, but I did not perceive it as a "problem". I thought the effect of the solo voice swaying in and around the other instruments as quite natural. My mind went to other potential problems (lack of depth in low strings) which is more related to the pair of headphones I'm using. I think this re-enforces your point that much of music engineering and production is a matter of taste. Thanks for the fun and informative video.
Same here... I really don't understand why anything in that track was a "PROBLEM". Probably a wrong categorisation. You're referring more to an issue of setup and interpretation of the audio when recorded through that setup. I was expecting something like, can your audio chain reproduce that issue inherent in the setup? - and I heard the moving clarinet, but I didn't stop to interpret it. I just enjoyed it. If there WAS A difference in the first 2 seemingly identical tracks that an audiophile's system SHOULD have made clear, I guess I didn't hear anything different or different enough to call it out.
Same here. The mics accurately recorded the performance. I like a little movement in the stereo image. I thought we were going to be hearing a phasing issue, or something real. Unsubscribe.
You need a dark matter deflector and randomiser to get the most from your system.
@@Coneman3 Flux capacitors help also. 😁
I would agree that things done in the mix are not "problems" per-se. Personally my first thought was I just found the recording to be sub-par due to the strange imaging. I have heard a recording like this one which had a similar issue and that one it actually was a genuine problem. A distant mic was picking up a soloist in a classical music recording, so to "solve" the issue the recording engineer simply mixed them in similar ratios to how the mics were picking up the sound. The result was the stereo image rapidly shifting back and forth depending on which mic was dominant in its sound pickup, which was annoying. I would say in general _actual_ problems are technical issues like a mic partially dropping out in a live performance, clipping due to inadequate headroom or excessive levels, noise or cross-talk due to poor interconnects or interference being received, etc. Things that actually impact what was recorded.
I thought it was the high end rasp, then I realized it was the player's breath flowing through the instrument, also heard the fingers. At first I thought I was hearing the chains rattling on a snare drum.
#metoo
@@Glidedon why have you hashed this reply????
@@sk8razer just agreeing with comment above.
I heard something in between notes almost a soft clicking
Same, definitely must have been the keys, actually kinda ruins the presentation when listening with good headphones, but if not critically listening probably wouldn't have noticed as much if at all.@@frankm3867
Problem? I love that they caught his "rock and roll" with the mics. We otherwise could not see and enjoy his physical expression of the music. But now, via movement in the field, we can. Brilliant.
I didn't realize it was the "mistake". I perform and hear lots of classical music, so I'm used to Instruments (especially in solo parts) being moved as a physical expression. In my opinion this movement and the resulting shifts in the stereo field are important and a part of the performance. (if its not hard panned)
That's right but sudden movement like this is uncomfortable to hear and you immediately know somethings wrong with the spacing
@@Sizzer1337 Only because he told you that. I am a mastering engineer & work with this stuff every day. We teach people to create movement not stifle it. You're dead wrong about what you said here as this kind of movement is used all the time. Just google 'automated panning plugins' & take a look at the "wealth" of tools that are designed to help you do just that. You let the guy in the video cause you to decide that this was wrong & a mistake & you designed your comment in agreement with him. It didn't sound wrong or bad to me & people pay a ton of money as a producer to make informed & intelligent observations. I do admire his trick of creating a challenge to acquire the clickbait to attract people to see what the hell he's talking about because even the headline sounds wrong but it's that aspect that makes you want to see what he's trying to say. Problem is he doesn't know where that movement came from or why. He just decided that it was wrong without knowing that people are doing that all the time in music production. Also it appears that he's using a sort of cheap trick by presenting the "you're not an audiophile" kind of challenge - presumably because, for the first time, he actually noticed something he'd not heard before & figured that because he calls himself an audiophile & because he heard it - he can use the headline strategy to make himself appear to be an audiophile you should listen to. Then he blusters about how wrong it is & all that bunk. It sounds just like a musician dancing while playing. At the end of the day there is no right or wrong in artistic choices unless a predetermined standard is applied to it & then you can judge it against that standard. However in this case no artistic standard exists except in the authors head so it's an invalid comparison.
I was wondering if that's what he was on about. I thought it was intentional, or at least not an "issue".
@@Sizzer1337 That would only be after he told you it was wrong. It's not. It's what everyone in the professional world is doing these days. He just never heard it till now - meaning that by his own definition - that he's judging everyone else with - he's not an audiophile - or didn't become one until he heard it. But this sort of thing is not only being a lot it's encouraged & taught. Welcome to the real world. Nice of you to catch up.
Sean, I agree 100%. The movement the artist creates is part of his art, not a mistake. Obviously the 'audiophile' making this video prefers the sound of sanitized studio music over a recording of live music. BTW, I couldn't hear any of the stereo shifting while watching this on my phone! 😂
I can even hear how the sound in the speakers changes when a mosquito lands on their fiber optic cable.
underrated comment LOL
🤣
I can hear them rusting
i can hear them radiating microscopic particles
I can hear a fart from 10 miles away.
I really enjoy your videos. You are very knowledgeable about music production and at the same time very engaging. I am not an audiophile, but did hear the wandering clarinet after you pointed it out. I loved the piece and the excellent recording. Thanks.
I'm an enthusiast who learned from others and I continue to learn. I hope that my videos can convey my enthusiasm to my viewers. You can find my further thoughts on this topic here kzhead.info/sun/eMh9nqWmioKHo58/bejne.html and here kzhead.info/sun/oJWPqsyheYWsZXA/bejne.html
I am an enthusiast who couldn't hear the bias. Props to the clarinet player. Well done. And a very interesting technical video.
I actually love the panning, cause I could feel him dancing with the melody right in my ears. Definitely a taste difference!
Yeah, it adds a certain flavour and experimentation and mocking joyfulness. I am proud that I could notice it having worked as a freelance audio technician. Unfortunately, the pursuit of perfecting: "I SING A SOOOONG, AND I AM DONE" got tiring. I love it when a band or composition has different expressions of the same work like Iron Maiden. The changes and imperfections develop the piece as a whole. The recording was classical true, but I think one should not take themselves or their work too seriously. A bit of whimsy open new avenues of development.
a n i m e n i m e
It feels like the audio is flossing my brain.
Falls under the category “It’s not a bug it’s a feature”
I'm an amateur conductor, so I did notice this immediately, but I didn't think it was the "problem" he was looking for.
I loved the stereo wandering of the clarinet. It adds a new dynamic that really pulls the melody out of the rest of the harmony without being "in your face" about it. Subtle and beautiful. By not recognising what was going on, it doesn't mean you didn't experience and appreciate it - the beauty of this piece lies in the subtlety of the effect. Great stuff.
@Zane Edmunds -- Music -- however it is heard -- is nothing without the contribution of the synthesis of the mind and soul which is perceiving it.
Hearing it live, the sound would also 'wander'
Exactly.... i didnt see this as an issue at all... just made it more lifelike.
Agreed. What's the point of multiple channels if they are not used for things that can't be done with mono? I like the feeling that the musician/music is moving around. I wouldn't have noticed it if I had listened blind, and wasn't bothered by it even when primed to listen for a mistake.
@@sumerianliger - which comes around to the question -- does the fact that the "wandering" of the clarinet (which is completely natural in a live performance) is identified as the targeted "something wrong" speak to the perfectionist presuppositional mindset (how it "ought" to sound) that plagues the mind of an audiophile? Do audiophiles create their own Sisyphus hell of endless technical diddling to achieve what never existedin the first place? Microphones on the bell of a clarinet?
I heard the clarinet moving left, right, and center throughout the piece, but I wasn't aware that it wasn't supposed to be doing that. I considered it to be either the clarinetist changing direction/dispersion in their performance, the acoustics of the performance hall, and/or the sound engineer's efforts to create a wider soundstage by encompassing the entirety of the accompanying orchestra. I was more focused on any lack of clarity at various frequency ranges mixing/overlapping and/or the mids and high frequencies clipping. Thank you for expanding my understanding of what an audiophile is; it's not just about the quality of the sound, but also the fundamentals of how these sounds are created. BTW - I found it to be enjoyable nonetheless.
me too, I was searching for any frequencies that are weird
Wasn't bothered at all with the clarinet moving, but found the clipping irritating. Interestingly, I looked up the original and couldn't hear any clipping. Maybe youtube / reencoding messed up the audio there?
The clipping was bothering me too! I guess I was so focused on the texture of the sound rather than how it was produced.
This beautiful recording sounds just as it would if I were in the auditorium. As the artist moves, so the sound projection moves. All part of the "live" experience. I'm not an audiophile as such but a practisig musician. This type of recording has more life to it that static sound images. Thank you for this recording technique demonstration.
I am a career recording engineer (40 years and 2 months) with hundreds of studio and live music recordings in my past. Your opening really intrigued me, so I took your bait. You stated that there "Was something WRONG with the recording." So, I listened attentively. I absolutely heard the "space" that the beautifully performed clarinet moved around in as it was played - I totally didn't feel that is was a problem at all. I fact I enjoyed the movement. To my ears and brain, the movement added a wonderful artistic quality to the recording. I listened in a well treated control room on Genelec 8" nearfields setting on pedestals. Could I hear it? Yes. Wrong? Whatever. I suppose some might call that movement a problem, but not me. But... I really must state that my speaker cables are 12 gauge solid copper Romex - yeah THAT's the "Problem!"
I am a moderately educated novice and had a similar thought. Sure, you can hear the space, but right or wrong is entirely a judgment.
I really loved the movement too. It actually improved my experience of the piece. Very lively! I heard it at home on my cheap home theatre loud speakers 😂 I guess I've just got good perception.... in fact... listen more closely, and you can hear something that can only be the fiddling of the solist hands or movement of his clothes. I'm not quite sure. There's too much music in the way haha. Oh, and I first noticed the "background" noise with my Sony WH-1000MX4 bluetooth headphones.... yeah you heard that right... bluetooth. No expensive audiophile equipment in sight.
can you hear it? NO! due to the way the youtube algorithm and stereo imaging works.. you absolutely did NOT hear it.. LOL! i was struggling to figure out what this guy was going on about because i didn't hear crap until i actually looked up and found a lossless version of the same song on one of my streaming apps.. i do NOT claim to be an audiophile and most of my equipment is set up specifically for atmos MOVIES and not audiophile music.. i think this is a trick question because it was in straight garbled youtube heavily compressed stereo until i found it in lossless audio.
This video does a great job of showing the difference between audiophiles and musicians.
Solid Romex? Interesting. I'm surprised you don't use stranded 12awg. Is that a cost decision? I wonder if one might hear the difference in frequency response due to skin effect if you A/B with stranded wire. Although I'm willing to bet it isn't drastic and can be compensated for when the studio playback system is tuned to the room anyhow.
I noticed the clarinet dancing around the rest of the band both in melody and space but didn’t consider it a flaw. But my formative musical years were spent listening to psychedelic rock where instruments flying through musical space is not a flaw but a feature.
Yep. Thought the movement was intentional as well. Because of the visual background image. Thought it was meant to be some invisible forest fairy flying around while playing clarinet (or being portrayed by the clarinet). And of course I also grew up with vinyl records with titles like *This is **---===STEREO===---*
Same; I noticed but didn't consider the location a flaw; instead I was listening for clipping (and cringing because my volume was too high on a couple spikes) 😊 _[edit, typo]_
You picked an excellent picture to complement the music. I like hearing the high-frequency music dancing through the music piece and across the beautiful picture.
I feel so much smarter having watched this. What a great video. Subscribed!
To me, the fact that the performer was moving, and the recording captured it means that there was no "problem" with stereo imaging at all; the recording is more accurate than you would have known without seeing a video of the performance. And anyway, regardless of the cause, I like how the clarinet dances with its own melody!
I humbly disagree, the subtle or at any rate rhythmic swaying of the soloist would not have created a wavering almost doppler effect naturally, the mic placement created that effect.
@eugenebrandon3914 Perhaps if the performer were playing a sine-wave-generating instrument, that doppler effect would be clearer, but the mics aren't too far apart, so in a way it's similar to sitting right up close to the performer - not much more phasing than would occur naturally between your ears. Regardless, I like the way the notes dance!
@@mikec7604 It is a beautiful piece which I would not have noticed any imperfection in recording had it not been pointed out.
@@eugenebrandon3914 Agreed!
I definitely noticed it moving around slightly the first time, but I don't consider that a bad thing at all, so I kept looking for some other problem. I personally love the dynamic movement of instruments, especially if the movement is actually a result of the performer moving around. It adds so much life to it~ But yeah, stereo movement isn't a problem at all, and doesn't depend at all on the quality of your equipment either.
someone needs a hug. im not sure what intentional or poor engineering has to do with not being able to hear the difference between quality components - granted that investing in premium components has a diminishing return
I didn't hear it until you pointed it out (using DT Prox 700DT closed back headphones). I believe I could hear it when I knew what I was listening for. I thought it added to the recording giving it more depth and another facet I was previously not riffing on. Thanks for the heads up the recording though. I've now gone and played the whole concerto, multiple time.
Half-way through watching this right now and I still think theres nothing wrong with the music. I was hearing faint clicking, and ticking sounds throughout the piece, but seeing the video of the recording session its obvious i was hearing the keys clapping closed. Its bloody impressive recording for me to hear that.
was wondering what the ticking was as well. I was focusing more on that than the panning of the clarinet which didnt bother me at all.
@@claudiobrt652 yeah I liked the panning of the clarinet. It wasn't wildly moving around and felt fairly centred
I had to look for this comment to validate to myself that I was also hearing the keys clicking and totally thought that was the issue. I heard the panning but really just thought that it gave it more of a spatial feel, so I didn't think of it as a negative.
At first I thought it was the little noises too but that's part of the performance.
The clicking is what I head but I assumed it was the instrument, not the recording.
The funny thing is that, although I was only watching this video in an idle moment on my laptop, I heard the clarinet moving about, but since this is what happens when musicians play, I found the effect to be quite natural, and added to the charm of the recording. Indeed, as the music was playing, I had an image in my mind of a clarinetist turning and swaying exactly as seen in the subsequent video clip taken at the recording session. Thus, in this respect, it is an excellent recording!
I agree, The movement is part of the life of the performance.
Exactly what i thought the actual position of musician seems fixed but sounds like he's moving his instrument as he plays very well recorded.
Unfortunately, the phone I listened to this on only had one speaker so I could not hear the wandering
@@dolphaskelly9665 Have your tried waving the phone about in time to the music while it plays? 🙂
Kind of nice having the clarinet slightly drift in the panoramic image, gives the illusion of a live setting where the performer by their movements 'project' the sound of their instrument whilst moving to the flow of the melody.
I'm an audiophile in every sense of the word. I was listening for a more blatant issue, what you have presented is an example of a mix that you found fault with. I'm enthusiastic about rock and 40's-80's music. Sometimes I WANT distortion, but not induced by my gear. Sometimes I may be listening to inferior recordings, old and bad mono, sometimes very noisy. I even have classical in my catalog, but the point is to reproduce each recording with the highest clarity I can get, whether I can hear every nuance every time or not. Thank you for this test though.
As a musician and a front-of-house sound engineer (live show mixer for the less educated), I love the fact that I can hear the wandering instrument. It gives life to the experience, remembering that this is a live recording. As you listen, you can picture the player waving or even walking around. If this was a studio recording then it would be different and maybe not so acceptable.
We do not want to hear zombie robots performing, do we?
It *was* a studio recording. In classical music, it is the convention for players to sit or stand still as they play - wandering around causes any amount of difficulty with the balance the conductor has worked so hard to achieve.
Then you are not an audiophile.
As a clarinettist, to move the clarinet direction during playing happens and that changes the direction of the sound. Including this in the recording adds the element of human performance to the recording
thx for this comment, i will try in my recordings to add it a little bit
And if you wanted to fake this from an isolated track you could always do it in post processing pretty easily.
@@turkeyguy0 i think i will try both, and see if the digital version is capeble of what i do when playing without to much effort
@@tavarno I don't think the point should be adding imperfections for the sake of them. As the late Bob Ross said, they're 'happy little accidents'. Not necessarily something to strive for. In the end, there's a reason why orchestras and musicians in general do many rehearsals and takes before the final recording and/or playing live.
@@omnirhythm i know, but for me this playing sounded very natural, so if adding some imperfections makes the result more natural, i have to try it. Bit probably it will sound just bussy
I think of myself as an audiophile but to be honest, listening with headphones I didn't notice the effect until you pointed it out. I have occasionally noticed certain instruments moving around slightly on my main system but thought it might be mismatched crossovers or room reflections. Your explanation will put a different slant on my music listening. By the way I thought there was slightly less bass and highs on the second example. So much for being an audiophile 🤔.
the low note all of a sudden popping out of the left makes sense thanks ! interesting that not all notes exit the same area of the instrument.
I don't consider myself an audiophile, but I do have a fairly well trained musical ear and I often hear issues with everyday playback of music and speech that most people don't notice or care about. Especially with streaming music services (the compression artifacts due to insufficient bitrate are painfully noticeable). The stereo image "problem" is not a problem. It's 100% accurate to how the instrument was played, including the movements of the artist. Without subtle movements or differences in audio like this, I believe the sound would be less organic and would sound more sterile.
Not to mention it would be a great experience with good soundstage headphones
Exactly! I was looking for compression or low bitrate, maybe some interference or noise... But didn't really notice much. Was a bit disappointed when the real "problem" was revealed.
Thank you for saying this, I'm very unknowledgeable on music and I thought to myself is this really "wrong" though and that perhaps it sounds like the physical movement of the instrument irl
I agree and I would categorize my level of listening to audio the exact same as yours.
If the objective is to faithfully reproduce the experience of hearing the instrument as played, the movement, or more specifically it's effect on the recorded sound is significant. However, on this recording the panning sounds as though the musician has sprinted the full width of the stage. Not a problem to my aging ears but an interesting and obviously unrealistic effect.
I am a developing recording engineer, and I learned a lot from you. The biggest lesson is that it is okay that I had no problem with what I heard. When you defined it as the clarinet moving around I recognized that it was indeed moving around, but I had no problem with it doing so - it fit well into the mix, and the character of the music is actually (for me) augmented by the clarinet sort of "tripping along through the forest" exactly as we hear it. I do get the idea of having sound sources in non-moving positions, but only when it makes sense. When I do recordings of Church services in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, there is a lot of physical movement taking place, and to try to force every singer and chanter to be "static" in a recording is not realistic in context. In my forthcoming CD I tried to bring a little realism by having the deacon in the center of the sound field, with the choir "behind" (as in a choir loft) and the celebrant priest "in front" as "in the sanctuary / altar" behind the iconostasis. There isn't movement, per se, but there is a realistic sense of placement that I have not usually experienced in other recordings of this type. Let's see what happens when it gets released. Thank you for your video! I subscribed so I can learn more. God bless! Oh, and I don't have a real Bricasti M7 - I need money and success for that. But I do have "Seventh Heaven Professional" which is a very good emulation of the M7 and it is my go-to for reverbs almost all the time. Excellent!
@@OskarHersch I didn't hear anything amiss, but it is possible that given the distance to the mics, that the mechanical thingies on the clarinet are what you might be hearing. Do they jibe with his solo?
@@OskarHersch Yeah to me that sounds like the keys on the clarinet being pressed somewhat vigorously
@@OskarHersch the "weird clicking" is what the keys of a clarinet sound like
I feel the at 1:17 like wobbly sounds.
@@OskarHersch I'm hearing a subtle doubled 'brush' tapping sound at 1:12-1:13 and again at 1:14, again at 1:15 and some other place too? (Listening on a Sennheiser G4ME ONE through a bog standard TRRS connector into a laptop)
This vid saved me so much money! Thank you for that, highly appreciated.
Yeah I'm glad you clarified at the end that it is more of a preference, I want to hear the notes bouncing around as it was performed. I wouldn't call my self an audiophile but, a low level enthusiast perhaps. I didn't hear it because I was looking for a problem, when you mentioned that was the problem it was more obvious but, I don't find it to be a problem so I couldn't have picked it out either way before you mentioned what we should be listening for. I think when you start nitpicking anything, not just audio, it really comes down to preference. Perhaps this is why audiophiles argue about everything.
It's impossible for notes to bounce around like this in performance and the massively unstable stereo image is a consequence of the recording technique. I can't disagree with people's tastes though and if anyone likes it, then they like it. I'd go back to the point of my video though that anyone interested in audio would spot, or would like to have pointed out, that the degree of movement of the soloist in the stereo image is very unusual in a classical recording.
@@AudioMasterclass "It's impossible for notes to bounce around like this in performance" "the degree of movement of the soloist in the stereo image is very unusual' I am confused as I find these two quotes contradicting. I agree with @XPotatoPotatoX when they claim to want to hear the notes bounce around as performed. Two mics are positioned in front of the soloist: one to the right and one to the left. The soloist is moving while playing so the mics pick up different frequencies at different intervals. Is your argument that the recording was done wrong on a technical standpoint or is it coming down to your own preference of thinking sounds, especially in classical recordings, should be locally centered? You start off by saying at the beginning of your video that if you can't hear the issue in the recording then you may not be an audiophile or that you've wasted your money on your audiophile equipment, but I am having a hard time discerning whether this video is just another audiophile's opinion or if there was actually a technical error.
You can find my further thoughts on this topic here kzhead.info/sun/eMh9nqWmioKHo58/bejne.html and here kzhead.info/sun/oJWPqsyheYWsZXA/bejne.html@@jb8478
I actually love when the center image dances around, makes the recording feel more alive. As if the instrument player/singer is right in front of me, occasionally shifting weight from one leg to other
right? having the recording be perfectly center makes it kind of boring. I don't find this a problem at all.
It does give it a sort of "an actual human played this" feel. You can tell it's not just computer generated with samples
As a former recording engineer myself (non-audiophile!), I'm somewhat peeved that I didn't spot it. Having watched so many of your truly excellent videos talking about distortion in it's many guises, pseudonyms and euphemisms, my brain was telling me it must be distortion he's on about and was so busy hearing none of it that the elephant trundled by unnoticed! Truth is, the performance was so captivating that someone could have let off a firework in the room and I'd have missed it. Another great video, thank you.
you didn't spot it because its a personal preference, there is no problem with the recording, which you strangely seem to have agreed with regarding your statement, i suggest reading Robin Breugelmans very polite comment who was involved in recording this captivating performance as you put it ;)
Even with both cheap creative speaker attached to my pc, and standing next to me, I heard something, but because the speakers were that close together, I could not pinpoint it. If I had my headphones on, I'd surely knew right away. The moment you said about the clarinet, I recognized what I heard. Nice!
I enjoyed this video - I am 67 with an unconventional (or very old school conventional) Hi Fi system. All my equipment is old often termed vintage. that said I did not intentionally set out to purchase a vintage system - but rather was disappointed with what my budget could support if buying new compared with good second hand kit (there is a risk buying older non-warranty/no returns kit from the web - be warned.). Your demo piece of music was helpful to me but I had been advised there was a problem with it so my listening was already coloured and I was not listening to the music but listening for a fault. I have replayed your video and just listened - and I really liked what I heard but my first listening gave me the impression of it being sort of mono but hearing it a third/fourth time I could clearly hear the stereo so my focussing on a fault was a bit like compressing my hearing into a sound variant of tunnel vision. So the most complex piece of kit in my system is also the oldest - yep - my ears. I do not wear any hearing aids but I do know my ears are far less capable than they were 50 years ago and I cannot replace them and at the moment unwilling to go for add-on upgrades (hearing aids). What this has told me is my system is the best in the world ( Yep pinching a punch line from a different video from David) - because I have built it and tweaked it over the years and have an attachment to it and it is what I could afford. More importantly I do not want to listen to music looking for faults but to immerse myself into the sound and enjoy it, relax to it or to reminisce on past times due to the particular piece of music's relevance to me (old flames favourite piece etc.). The bottom line is I am not an audiophile and nor do I want to be as it must be a soulless existence of only ever being able to hear the shortfalls and forever seeking the audio perfection one could never actually achieve. Dave thank you for planting my feet firmly on the ground regards my ability to hear and that not being perfect does not diminish my listening pleasure.
I'm so used to hearing classical music recorded this way I didn't notice it at first. Or, rather, it didn't bother me. Recording techniques for classical music are often more about the space rather than the clarity. Been in the music industry for years and every single genre has a different way of recording. I think it comes down to what you pointed out: taste. Great video.
I am a recovering audiophile, and I approve of this message.
Hi, I am Joe....Hi Joe....I am an audiophile.....thanks for joining us Joe, you are safe here......tell us about your first...................
what do you mean by that? You have ceased to enjoy music listening with the best possible quality, or you have stopped believing that incremental changes in the playback chain matter?
@@duel5071 Probably means that being pedantic about things that no one but you can hear isn't constructive. If you point out a quirk, everyone will hear it. If only you know of that quirk, either no one else will notice, or they'll enjoy it as a feature. Being overly perfectionistic and looking for improvements in redundant places is *not* the same thing as as valuing quality. Confusing the two creates a HUGE waste of time, money, and sanity.
@@guidXenoCat yeah but audiophile listening, if we are going to use a made up term, shouldn't be defined as investment in redundant places, and shouldn't let people who do that call themselves audiophiles, or we shouldn't even use the word. Best quality playback is a real thing though
@@duel5071 Like most things in the world, a word loses its definition when the wrong groups identify with it. People who actually care about quality and create it reasonably have been kicked out of the audiophile squad. When I hear 'audiophile' nowadays, I think "person who thinks the color of a guitar neck effects tone" (which is quickly disproven with a spectrograph, but these people would rather play games of superstition than use real science).
Yes! You should hear the recreation of the soundstage when you close your eyes. If you can't pinpoint the location of the artists, it's either a recording, compression, or audio system issue.
From the perspective of a mastering engineer: Glad to see you addressing the problem with mic placement. To me it seems as if there are some phase issues between the microphones and the overall stereo of the mix is adjusted higher than dead center because of this. different microphone placement and editing them to all have the same zero-cross would substantially improve the issue (which is incredibly minor, as you said it's basically taste). As for the digital efx that's a problem for me- adding reverb to the live speakers when the room the performance is being held in already has it is in poor taste to my palate.
Amazing content . . . I'm not an audiophile, and I didn't hear it. Your approach is confident and opinionated, not at all condescending or combative. It's a fine line, always cool to see someone pull that off.
Definitely credit where credit is due there!
I think it’s nice that it moves around the stereo image. It makes the music literally dance. It sounds like this isn’t preferable for an audio engineer though. I think this is a case of technicality vs artistic expression. Making the decision to deviate from what is technically correct and what feels better is how art is created.
Except it's NOT technically incorrect. This sort of thing is being taught to emerging mix engineers. Yes you are right that it's purely a creative decision & there are no technical rules against it either.
You're wrong, because on a technical level, this is perfectly fine. I'm an audio engineer, and not only is this stereo imaging an ok thing, it actually enhances the performance. The job of the audio engineer is always to enhance and fully replicate the nuance of the performance. Audio engineers are creative professionals too, and this decision was used to put more emotion in the performance. Not only is it not technically incorrect, in this specific scenario with how the rest of the mix is structured, I would say the imaging of the clarinet is preferred. There are some super technical things here or there that he doesn't talk about, but mostly, it's really good.
If the sound engineer didn’t want the stereo image, then they wouldn’t have spent the time setting up the microphones in such a way as to capture the stereo image. I’m not a professional, but I do spend some time behind a deck at my church. I do a bit of stereo imaging, but mostly just panning a single channel so that each vocalist or instrument has a position within the stereo field. If the engineer didn’t want the lead instrument moving around, them they would have set up a single mic and set its position within the mix.
@@StolenJoker84 Precisely! & well stated. I'm a pro & I've been saying all along that the movement is intentional - regardless of what he used to create the movement - it was achieved by choice. It's not an accident. It may provoke the personal taste of the author of the video - but not everyone is going to have the same taste or experience. Those of us who are professionals have a deeper perspective but at the end of the day - subtle but noticeable movement is a major component, a hallmark if you will, of an ideal recording.
@@SeanWyseman Yeah. When he said there was a “problem” with the recording, I expected it to be something like some kind of faint static or some kind of distortion in the overall sound … not “This instrument is moving ever so subtly around the sound stage” (I personally didn’t hear it, but that could be that I was using Bluetooth headphones to listen). Then, when he went and explained the why, my thought was “And you still think it’s a problem with the recording?!?”
Thank you for settling that for me. I AM NOT an audiophile, and you just saved me a ton of money! Mahalo
as avid classical music listener (not audiophile), this the most interesting thing I heard about recording in years. Thanks. BTW I heard the clarinet spinning left/center/right from the beginning. Hope this does not get te to spend a BIG amount of cash in my next hi fi LOL.
I thought it was going to be the sharp resonant frequencies you hear sometimes on certain notes, but i've found that unless you have some kind of dynamic eq or automation it's hard to tame that without making the source sound thin or empty... I don't consider myself an audiophile by any means, but I have been mixing for several years now! This is a great video!
I heard that too! I thought for sure that was what the problem was. I had to check the comments if anyone else might've heard it too!
thats the setup of the listener taking a roll in the play
yeah first i thought it came from the actual clicking of the clarinet but a few of them actually sound like pure digital audio glitches. anyway i was also certain that was the problem
That third mic certainly did a good job of picking up the clarinet's keys, which was the first thing I noticed that stood out.
Maybe that's what it was there for.
I was more trying to find if a specific frequency band was missing, as It seemed not to have nice high frequencies. Good video, good test and explanation.
I heard it, but did not think it was a flaw in the recording. I was listing on a windows laptop with Sony MDR-750B headphones. Going to go listen to this on my 2 channel stereo now to see what I can see.
I've never considered myself to be an audiophile, I just like music. 😀 I didn't hear anything odd in the music but I did notice that it sounded like a human instrumentalist rather than a VST. Having heard the explanation, I'm sure that it was the movement of the artist that set off that response in me. I enjoy this sort of detailed breakdown, thank you.
I heard it, but I have recently installed low-viscosity electrons in my interconnects so the sound moves around better. With normal high viscosity electrons the sound tends to be sticky and move around less, so localising the sound around the centre.
Where can i get some of these low-viscosity electrons? Do they leak out of your amps, cables and speakers, so need occasional topping-up?
A sticky solution to a fluid problem!
Lol, you need to add quantum phase correctors to your setup!
@@mauricegold9377 I have seen then next to the flux capacitors at the audio store.
@@c128stuff Audiophile air is a much better upgrade, it has a specially selected blend of nitrogen and oxygen isotopes that resonate in phase with the music thus making the sound more transparent, it's like a veil has been lifted when listening to music.
I'm just an enthusiast, and unfortunately I've first watched this video on my mobile phone, and of course, didn't notice anything. Then I had to rewatch it on my stereo to check what was happening. But i can't see it as a problem. I found it very pleasant actually
It depends on what format you are listening to. When I first heard it on my computer it was through a blue tooth mono speaker and sounded great. Later when you said it was stereo I hooked up my ear buds and then I could hear the difference that you were talking about. I'm definitely not an audiophile (after 40+ years doing sports TV with headsets cranked to be able to hear the director and talent over crowd and effects, my fine hearing is pretty much shot), but I could hear what you are talking about.
I actually loved that movement between left right and center...it didn’t bother me at all from enjoying the music...it felt very natural and as if I was there with them during the performance!
Right? It was more immersive, giving a spatial audio feel to it. I liked it, sounded more organic and less sterile.
100% agree... I didn't hear it (the "problem") the first time, not because it didn't go unnoticed, but rather because I found it natural and appealing. This is a problem only to someone that believes it to be a problem.
I didnt hear it at the start because i had to turn my phone around to hear the L and R channel. And not mono.
Personally I like that subtle movement between L and R, it gives it amplitude and spatiality, although I must confess that until the "problem" was revealed I was focused on several things except panning. Thanks for this content!
what did you focus on? I didn't hear the "problem! til it was revealed either, but the squeaks from the clarinet, and the tone being blown too harshly a few times.
Is there any use of me asking hearing strangers on the internet what I asked in hearing people middle school "What's it like to be able to hear with two ears, listen to stereo things 'Properly'?"
I was looking to a little clipping of audio or problem with compression on some frequencies or problem with general audio rather than a music itself. As rock/metal fan panning is natural and it add new layer of complexity. I'm no audiophile I have cheap headset.
If you're experienced you'd not have thought it wrong even if you noticed it.
Great video! Love the way you presented the topic. Now, onto my thoughts: The first time around, I thought, "It's a fantastic piece. I can't hear any issues. So, I'm NOT an audiophile." After watching the whole video, I conclude that I'm NOT an audiophile at least not the type who detects slightly wandering instruments. However, I do NOT judge on those who do. I'm happy with music free of artifacts such as clicks (I did seem to hear clicks in the piece you played but those may be due to my own earphones). To each their own.
I am quite good in hearing things, but I didn't hear it until you pointed it out. Even then, the differences were very subtle for me. I could probably notice them with different type of instrument, but as I have no experience in hearing clarinet, it's even harder for me.
This kind of shifting soloist movement is heard all the time in my 2 channel “audiophile” listening room. Yeah, it sometimes bugs me, but most of the time I simply enjoy it by picturing the musician or singer moving about during the performance. And surprisingly, your video has actually cleared up certain things that have been puzzling me for years. Thanks much for posting this!
Gosh! How I like your videos, the sence of humor! "Any recording engineer would prefer that the solo instrument doesn't move this is why the piano was invented, but the piano has its own problems" loved that one!
The real Elephant in the room.
I understand this, but that’s most likely due to the 6’1” parlor grand in my small living room. Oops. I should have spelled “parlor” as “parlour”
"Sinatra doesn't move pianos"
I'm an enthusiast. Not quite an audiophile. I didn't hear it. Loved the explanation though. Thanks for the video.
The timpani or whatever percussive thing or something in that environment vibrating to some of the notes was more noticeable to me. Of course adjusting the mics as you say would fix or maybe reduce this problem too. Great post. Thanks!
You can find my further thoughts on this topic here kzhead.info/sun/eMh9nqWmioKHo58/bejne.html and here kzhead.info/sun/oJWPqsyheYWsZXA/bejne.html
I'm an absolute audiophile. On the first time listening, I noticed the performance of soloist is superb! enjoyed the phrasing and dynamics. I misunderstood the low D and B-flat sound comes from another instrument, but realized those sound comes from the same instrument. What a wide pitch range clarinet has :) Wandering instrument is normal, it is performer's personality, like Joshua Bell moves a lot and Hilary Hahn does not move, but both players are top tier!
Correct. It was a good creative decision most likely made by the mix engineer.
Being a live audio mixer for the last 40+years , Congrats ! You led me down the garden path so to speak . I was so intent on listening for distortion or noise on the track , That I never considered the panning even though I did hear it . If the guy moved like that while playing , I'm certain it sounded that way in the room also while it was being recorded , so , while you may not like it , it was STILL faithful to what the artist had played !! Just my 2 cents .
You're right of course, it is faithful to what the artist played. It isn't so faithful to what a concert-goer would hear though, even in the front row, and I speak as a concert goer who likes to get as close to the front as possible. DM
This.
@@AudioMasterclass Absolutely right. Your average concert goer will not be standing 1 foot away from the flutist. So no matter how much he moves around, it will still sound like a point source to the audience. This is a problem with the sound engineers basic recording philosophy, rather than a problem with their, or your, or my equipment. However, some recordings are not meant to recreate the sound of a live show from the perspective of the audience. Here we have at least three different philosophies - the "purist", who only wants a perfect recreation of the studio sound as the engineer intended, the "live", who wants to recreate the concert sound, and the "control", who wants absolute control over the sound; to mold it as he sees fit. Lets consider surround sound to be part of the "live" philosophy. To the purist, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the recording, as long as his equipment places the sound exactly where the engineer intended. The live might be "blown away" by the movement within the sound stage, or disappointed that there is movement at all (like yourself). The control may or may not care at all. He just wants it to sound as he wants it to sound. The movement may be aggravating only if he wants to fix it to a particular spot.
@@AudioMasterclass That's really the point, isn't it? Musically, we want to hear the clarinet from a distance, as a unity. Even from the front row, we don't hear it panning left and right, with high notes going to the extremes, and the bass notes falling in the middle. And we don't hear the (wandering) clarinet as being wider than the orchestra. Our brains process the sound so that the clarinet appears to be coming from where we see it being played. And the gyrations are very small.
@@AudioMasterclass While I agree that it might be what the artist wanted, the movement was so exaggerated that I actually believed that it was meant to be an intentionally *cheap trick.* The background picture/video lured me into considering that the clarinet was the acoustic depiction of an invisible forest fairy, flying left and right through the forest. And yes, my tracked the presumed location as it moved. I know I should have closed my eyes while listening.
I heard it, but didn’t see it as a problem. The sound of the “moving” clarinet felt natural, and therefore right. This reminds me of a classical guitar part I recently recorded with an old band mate. There were some non-musical noises in his performance, but they were just the natural creaks, clicks, and taps of an instrument being handled. I tried to keep those sounds to a minimum, but i didn’t want them totally eliminated. To me, those sounds are proof that a human played that part, and not a robot.
I brought my rotel system into the hi-fi store and we lined up 8 speaker pairs for a testing on 3 songs I new intemently. I was blown away by why I was hearing even in the low end speakers, guitar picks and twangs reverb I never knew existed in my songs. I feel in love with mid to low tier B&W 602 S3. I even use it for my home theatre left right and centre speakers. I am looking 20 years later for bigger speakers more for that movie punch sound.
I actually like when the sound source moves around! It makes the music a lot more dynamic, otherwise, why have stereophonic devices if we'd prefer everything pinned to the same position the whole time! Once, I spent days hearing decades of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana's recordings of orchestras from all over the world to find the pieces I enjoyed the most. Thanks for the video, as it brought the subject to the front of my mind!
I didn't really hear it at first. I thought there was a volume inbalance, but after you said it I could hear it when I closed my eyes. It sure gives that human feel/touch to music as opposed to a lot of electronic stuff you hear on the radio these days.
I heard the moving stereo image but that's actually cool and it's something I try to do in my own productions to make it less sterile tbh. In fact, some synthesizers like Oberheim and the Novation Summit can actually intentionally pan all their voices differently from left to right to intentionally get this movement. Still your video was very educational and I learnt a lot from it so thank you for this. But honestly I'd intentionally want it the way it's done in this recording because I really enjoyed this movement 😀 It reminds me a bit about the analogue vs digital synth debate. We thought analogue oscilator drifting was bad and so digitally controlled oscilators and digital synths would solve that problem and yield perfect soundwaves. Right? And once we had them we all agreed they missed life we wanted the old analogue buckets back haha
Great! I'd to laugh in the first moment as i thought "he's about to tell all the stuff nerds...", then i hold my breath. I couldn't hear any prob at all! Wait... Then, after Davids explanation i recessed unstressed. I took that wandering of the clarinette from the very first moment for being natural. Natural at all. So have thanks for this divine video, David!
You're welcome. You can find my further thoughts on this topic here kzhead.info/sun/eMh9nqWmioKHo58/bejne.html and here kzhead.info/sun/oJWPqsyheYWsZXA/bejne.html
I heard it, but to my ears (as a musician, recording engineer, and monetarily-challenged audiophile) it worked quite nicely. The performance was expertly done, and I felt the recording captured both the nuance of the musician and elements of the recording space. The fact that my system reproduced it faithfully makes me happy in my equipment selection. The music, though, makes my soul happy -- even if my cables aren't pricey and lifted off the floor.
Hi! Audio Engineer in training here, still a couple semesters into my college career and I did manage to hear the "issue" even if I wasn't exactly sure what it was at first. As you said yourself, whether or not to call it an issue is certainly based on taste. And overall, what I interpreted as your main point was this: "If you're going to invest the money for audiophile grade equipment, invest the time in training your ears as well." Which I do agree with
The challenge to discern the wandering stereo image of the clarinet soloist raises interesting questions about perceptual audio evaluation. Can you discuss the psychological and acoustic factors that contribute to an individual's ability to detect such nuances in stereo imaging? Furthermore, how do critical listening skills developed by audio engineers and audiophiles differ from the average listener in terms of psychoacoustic processing?new subscriber here
Thank you for this video! I learned stuff! :D
I have rarely felt more triumphant than when you confirmed that I was hearing what I was thinking that I was hearing. Especially since I set up my monitors with a tape measure yesterday. Know that I only did this in response to you convincing me to give a crap about stereo imaging. Also, that's a badass clarinetist. Thank you.
As a musician and producer myself, I was focused on the notes performed more than the soundstage on first listen. On the second listen I paid attention to the soundstage and didn't hear anything wrong. Having that opportunity was a great idea from the person doing the video. I approach music production by letting the artist express themselves. If I hear or perceive something is off after the take, I'll ask what were they trying to achieve. Once I understand their thought process, I might make a suggestion to try it differently or show them myself if it's an instrument I can play. This doesn't happen often. It was a good exercise, but to these ears the slight panning was a nice effect. Not a fan of reverb on symphonic music. When mixing I allow the room acoustics and musician's dynamic playing to rule. Thanks.
I really liked that explanation and running that through my own years of observation, the reasons are validated, your scientific explanation is logical and sound ( pun intended)😅. But thanks for sharing something I was never consciously aware of. That's why you got my subscription.
Not an audiophile, did hear it, but didn't think of it until you mentioned it as the problem. I listen to a lot of music that utilizes the stereo, even within one instrument, so it never occurred to me that this could be an issue.
I'm just here to say that your presentaion is awesome. the way you talk, the clean isolated texture when you speak, it feels very professional to me
The movement of the clarinet in the stereo image adds to the joyfulness of the interpretation. Excelent choice for the ingineer to keep it that way
As a musician, I play the violin, it's very normal for the player to rock a little and also breath and to do facial expressions, not only do not find it a problem I enjoy it, most of the musicians I know feel the same way, classical, I must say. Sincerely didn't knew it was a "problem" until you said, this gives a experience of being near the musician, a warmer approach if I may. Thank you for the content.
You should probably watch the followup where I give examples of musicians in motion kzhead.info/sun/eMh9nqWmioKHo58/bejne.html
Funny how the "problem" you identified was the thing that I enjoyed most about the recording. I love when I can hear in stereo and the few times it was really pronounced when I cranked the volume that was exactly the thing that I enjoyed. I wasn't using head phones either. I wasn't even using my particularly decent sound system. Two very old school 10" Ultra speaker cabinets mated with a shitty amp and I sit DEAD CENTRE between them - THAT is the key.
You can find my further thoughts on this topic here kzhead.info/sun/eMh9nqWmioKHo58/bejne.html and here kzhead.info/sun/oJWPqsyheYWsZXA/bejne.html
Brilliant! I learned that my current speakers are a bit muddy and had to change to headphones and loved the movement! Thanks for the training course on mic placement. I enjoyed the video!
I'm a musician who records his own material and I did notice the stereo movement the first time but didn't think anything was wrong. I mostly do electronic stuff (but also use guitar and some other instruments) so I'm quite used to wild stereo movement of instruments. A well balanced mix does not mean you can't have an interesting stereo field but just that one channel isn't wildly louder than the other.
The first time I heard the music in the video, I could not discern clarinet movement. I had the headphones on and didn't notice any bounce between left, center, and right. I could hear other instruments to the right and some to the left but the clarinet was pretty much dead center. The second time you played it, I can hear the clarinet mostly dead center and maybe to the right ear. Same with my speaker setup on my home entertainment system with the Polk Audio speakers. The movement of the clarinet is very minimal from my own ears. And you're correct that as you get older, the hearing, especially the high ranges, aren't as clear. This is where the bass comes in - to get the heart pumpin' ;) LOL
I didn't hear it until you explained it, but I'm sat in front of two speakers crossing each other. I heard it when I got up and moved forward. As you said, headphones, earbuds or being in a car would have made it more obvious. In fact, I think there's some jazz I heard that did exactly the same. What I don't understand is: why consider it a flaw? I actually like these kinds of surprises.
Thank you as always your content is always educational delivered with a fine sense of sarcasm which I thoroughly enjoy. Which I find most people have a hard time comprehending . I especially think your point of enjoying the music is so often lost. Please continue your course offerings I’ve learned a great deal from your work.
I'm not an audiophile - and I didn't hear it until you pointed it out. If I had noticed it before I would have assumed the musician was moving and it would never have bothered me. I love the detail and explanation you give about mic positions and I will consider this next time I'm on a sound desk or setting up mics. Thank you very much for this video. I just subscribed.
My answer is, Yes, I heard it, but I didn't consider that wrong. So it never occurred to me that was the "problem" you were speaking about. I have seen where 2 mics with different compression settings could make an instrument seem to move depending on what note range was being expressed.
This is why if you're compressing a stereo signal, the two channels of the compressor must be linked so both channels are compressed the same amount. Otherwise, as you say, the stereo image will be unstable.
I seeeee :D really great vid! I was hearing it but I didn't consider it a mistake/false cos I felt like it should be like that when you listen to classical instruments. I mean when you hearing them real life, the experience is more similar to this than to flat centered sounds, but I feel ya.. it is probably individual thing to like/dislike.. thanks!
I am a recording engineer and I prefer the movement of the instruments, but only if you have stereo miking for that instrument. It also works for vocals it makes the whole recording more realistic.
Having recorded heaps of Orchestras, we used to use a Stereo Neumann mic as the main then a number of others for the different sections. Later we moved the Decca Tree which gave a much fuller sound in the 2nd violins, violas and front cellos. It also removed the phase cancelation caused by the middle space of the L & R capsules on the Neumann or stereo pair.
I have 2 Yamaha RX-A receivers, a 3050 main and 2040 for the Atmos amp with 13 Klipsch speakers, two of which are powered subwoofers that I purchased to have a nice system with Dolby Atmos surround sound. I purchased it all used and it separate pieces from e-Bay and spent probably about 2K US dollars in 2019. I wanted a decent 7.2.4 system after having a 5.1 Sony most of my life. Compared to the very few home systems I've heard, being completely biased, I think it sounds the best. My speaker wires are on the floor and they're about as basic as you can get. Sometimes first world problems go a little too far.