[Atropos]

Hi!
I wonder how songs are recorded to get a good soundstage?
I think Diana Krall - live in paris has a good soundstage. is this just achieved with some micros placed in front of the stage?
but in some songs you can hear the piano going from the right to the left side.

and how is Eric Clapton - UNplugged recorded? I cant see any microphones place d in front of the stage or are the farer away?

or do all songs just record directly every instrument on its own and the soundengineer mix them afterwards to fit in a soundstage?

 

[Atropos]

what does it mean if a recording has a background hissing when I turn the volume up? does this mean it is recorded analog?

I wonder because the 2002 Norah Jones Album is not hissing but the 2004 is hissing. does this mean they changed to analog?

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atropos Hi! I wonder how songs are recorded to get a good soundstage? I think Diana Krall - live in paris has a good soundstage. is this just achieved with some micros placed in front of the stage? but in some songs you can hear the piano going from the right to the left side. and how is Eric Clapton - UNplugged recorded? I cant see any microphones place d in front of the stage or are the farer away? or do all songs just record directly every instrument on its own and the soundengineer mix them afterwards to fit in a soundstage?

These days, just about anything other than orchestral music is recorded by close miking each instrument and vocalist and creating the soundstage in the mixing process.

 

[SimonWang]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atropos Hi! I wonder how songs are recorded to get a good soundstage? I think Diana Krall - live in paris has a good soundstage. is this just achieved with some micros placed in front of the stage? but in some songs you can hear the piano going from the right to the left side. and how is Eric Clapton - UNplugged recorded? I cant see any microphones place d in front of the stage or are the farer away? or do all songs just record directly every instrument on its own and the soundengineer mix them afterwards to fit in a soundstage?

eh... i think there must be some in-phase recording equipments recorded the sound when E.C. was doing performance.

 

[HollisBrown]

Hiss in the recording does not nessecarily mean it was recorded on analog. There are digital recordings with a lot of hiss and analog recordings with none at all. It depends more on the mastering techniques. For example, if you're listening to an old recording (pre 1980 or so) and you hear a lot of hiss it's probably because the sound engineer had to bounce tracks. Many old tape recorders only had 4 tracks which means only 4 microphones could be plugged in at a time. A typical thing to do was record the drums with 2, 3, or 4 mics and then bounce them to one track, which means moving the recording to one track on the machine, leaving the other three open. Due to the 4 tracks that Abbey Road studios had at the time The Beatles were recording A Day In The Life, George Martin had to bounce tracks like crazy. That's why there's a lot of hiss on that song, as well as the rest of Sgt. Pepper's.

Or maybe it's a crappy cd pressing - who knows?

[/rambling]

 

[SimonWang]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HollisBrown Hiss in the recording does not nessecarily mean it was recorded on analog. There are digital recordings with a lot of hiss and analog recordings with none at all. It depends more on the mastering techniques. For example, if you're listening to an old recording (pre 1980 or so) and you hear a lot of hiss it's probably because the sound engineer had to bounce tracks. Many old tape recorders only had 4 tracks which means only 4 microphones could be plugged in at a time. A typical thing to do was record the drums with 2, 3, or 4 mics and then bounce them to one track, which means moving the recording to one track on the machine, leaving the other three open. Due to the 4 tracks that Abbey Road studios had at the time The Beatles were recording A Day In The Life, George Martin had to bounce tracks like crazy. That's why there's a lot of hiss on that song, as well as the rest of Sgt. Pepper's. Or maybe it's a crappy cd pressing - who knows? [/rambling]

Wow, what i understand is, you mean the quality of record depends on techniques only, it got nothing to do with the recording equipment ?

 

[HollisBrown]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SimonWang Wow, what i understand is, you mean the quality of record depends on techniques only, it got nothing to do with the recording equipment ?

I don't mean to say that recording equipment doesn't play a part. I think that the techniques involved in the recording process and the way in which the CD was made have a greater effect. A good producer or engineer can eliminate ambient hiss from an analog recording. A bad one can heap tons of it on a digital recording. A **** ton of compression will also bring out hiss in a recording.

 

[AdamWill]

BTW, Febs was right in answering the initial question. Modern rock live albums are done by taking the separate feeds for each instrument off the soundboard then mixing them to create the best impression of a live concert (or, in some cases, intentionally making them _better_ than they were at the live concert...). Some people claim well-recorded bootlegs sound more 'authentic', it's a preference thing really.

edit: of course, there's usually a couple of mics pointing at the audience somewhere so some audience noise can be mixed into the recording for effect. Hardly needs much fidelity, though. I wonder if anyone's ever forgotten to mic the audience when recording a live show, and just taken some audience noise from some other source and edited it to cover up? I bet no-one would ever know.

 

[SimonWang]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atropos Hi! I wonder how songs are recorded to get a good soundstage? I think Diana Krall - live in paris has a good soundstage. is this just achieved with some micros placed in front of the stage? but in some songs you can hear the piano going from the right to the left side. and how is Eric Clapton - UNplugged recorded? I cant see any microphones place d in front of the stage or are the farer away? or do all songs just record directly every instrument on its own and the soundengineer mix them afterwards to fit in a soundstage?

So, now we can say that the soundstage was created at the mixing process, right?

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HollisBrown Hiss in the recording does not nessecarily mean it was recorded on analog. There are digital recordings with a lot of hiss and analog recordings with none at all. It depends more on the mastering techniques. For example, if you're listening to an old recording (pre 1980 or so) and you hear a lot of hiss it's probably because the sound engineer had to bounce tracks. Many old tape recorders only had 4 tracks which means only 4 microphones could be plugged in at a time. A typical thing to do was record the drums with 2, 3, or 4 mics and then bounce them to one track, which means moving the recording to one track on the machine, leaving the other three open. Due to the 4 tracks that Abbey Road studios had at the time The Beatles were recording A Day In The Life, George Martin had to bounce tracks like crazy. That's why there's a lot of hiss on that song, as well as the rest of Sgt. Pepper's.

Just a couple of minor points here:

1. You're right about older recordings have a limited number of tracks, but I'm not sure where you get the 1980 date. Eight track recording became available in approximately 1968. Sixteen track recording was available by the early 1970s.
2. A 4-track recorder is not necessarily limited to 4 microphones. Engineers could use multiple microphones on a drum kit, for example, and mix those mics on the fly to a single track. The issue with that, of course, is that you cannot alter the mix of the drum kit once it is recorded--you've got to get it right during the recording.
3. Part of the reason that you can hear a lot of hiss in a Day in the Life, particularly on the big chord at the end, is because as the giant piano chord faded out, Geoff Emerick was slowly pushing the levels higher and higher to make the chord seem to sustain forever.
4. During the Sgt. Pepper sessions, one of the engineers developed a way to use one track of a 4 track record to synch to another 4 track recorder, which let them combine two recorders to make 6 track recordings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SimonWang So, now we can say that the soundstage was created at the mixing process, right?

While there are undoubtedly some exceptions, I would say this is true for almost every rock and roll recording ever made.
Quote:

Originally Posted by SimonWang Wow, what i understand is, you mean the quality of record depends on techniques only, it got nothing to do with the recording equipment ?

To say that it has "nothing to do with the recording equipment" is going way too far. Obviously, equipment plays a crucial role in the process. But I would say that the skill of the engineer is at least as important. I would rather record on mediocre equipment with a great engineer than on great equipment with a mediocre engineer.

 

[robert]

if by "good" one means kinda like it is in the space where the music was performed (without goboes and the like), then there are three sources off the top of my head:

RCA Living Stereo (about 1954 to 196?, 197?)
Mercury Living Presence (after about 1959; the name was first used for their mono stuff)
Water Lily (current production)

RCAs and Mercurys keep being re-mastered onto CD. with Mercury, there are at least two types: 35mm and regular. some folks only consider the 35mm recordings to be of the type. the ones I have have a 35MM logo on the front; if there's no logo, then usually the recording was to standard tape. not always, though. if there's multiple performances from different original releases, and one is not 35mm, then the logo doesn't appear. or something like that.

Water Lily records usualy, maybe always, with just 2 mikes. I have "Meeting by a River". will knock your *socks* off.