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In an analog recording studio if you hear without any board no engineer straight to tape a recording when it is first heard live then when.?
it is played back ,why do some people say that sound quality wise there is a difference between the two when actually there isn't,if in analog recording formats the sound waves are fully represented on the medium (unlike digital where it is snapshots) then in essence it is the exact same sound so there is no difference between when it was "live" and played back,yet some engineers say well this tape recorder is better or this mike is better,truth be told it is all the same sound and there is no audible difference. Add a soundboard to it with eq the eq plus original sound still sounds the same "live" coming out of the headphones as played back, if you could put a concert hall with an audience in a studio then the sound would still be the same "live" as playback ,if you could have studio acoustics in a concert hall and had the audience be totally quiet for the "live" and then you played back no difference ,sound is sound,there is no difference between live and playback in the analog world if the equipment is maintained properly a recording is still a recording when it is "live" so why do people differentiate between live and recording ,if something is live it can still be a recording if a recorder is recording the music in a concert hall then it is both "live" and recording at the same time likewise a studio,if you have overdubs then the magic of the technology is that that original sound on say track one of multitrack is "live" again as is the overdub on track two ..
and also the stereo mix onto tape is a new performance thus with the technology "live" and if you are in a digital studio and you have auto tune that with the technology is still "live" I have a lot of experience with this I have been in a lot of studios and have been an engineer in my own studios in the past,truth be told also analog sounds way better than digital
I guess to some it up what I want to ask is why do some people say 'is it live or is it memorex?" when really it is both ,it is purely subjective saying the kind of live in a studio or without audience sounds different than playback or live in a concert is different than studio,there is still production value in a concert trust me and as for added eq in post production that is outside of the original recording the original still sounds the same. I mean if I put you in ..
a concert hall and blindfolded you and played back the same recording twice and asked you to pick which one is live ,which one would you pick, and if ,for that matter if I locked in room and brought a t.v. in and allowed you to see the 10 oclock news,which they do repeat later in the early morning could you say we were in the hour of ten and it's live or we are in the early morning and it's not???
listen to Sgt. Pepper at full volume on cassette or clean vinyl ,tell me where the background noise is eh
and even without Dolby the background noise is not there if the signal over powers it the signal remains the same as when you heard it live and noise is what limiters and compressors are for also ,but that does NOT change the sound the sound is STILL the same!!
Dolby Noise reduction reduces tape hiss NOT IRREDUCIBLE!!! Maintenance knocks out electrical noise,so do compressor limiters without changing the sound!!!
the sound vibrates the electro magnet in the microphone the sound then converts to electricity then a varying magnetic field ,it is stiil the same sound like when two kids play operator with two tin cans and a string ,sound doesn't have to be airborne to be sound it is the vibrations,in electronic amplification of sound the vibrations get turned to electricity thus representing the sound then with tape becomes a magnetic field again representing the sound hence ..
..Merriam - Webster's definition of a recording "a sound you can hear more than once" not an approximation of a sound .
4 Answers
- JimLv 75 years ago
There is no such an animal as straight to tape. All signals pass through a microphone into a amplifier and then to tape head where signal waves are turned into magnetic values on the tape. You could get pretty close by directly etching the sound onto a wax cylinder from a needle connected to a cone, but the chances the original sound is within the perfect dynamic range of the wax cylinder are very small.
- spacemissingLv 75 years ago
There is a difference.
I didn't read all of your rambling blather
because it is confused and poorly organized,
but I can tell you this:
The more electronic circuitry involved,
the higher the background noise level will be.
Recording on (analog) tape and playing it raises the noise level
because tape has an irreducible noise of its own.
If you did yourself the favour of reading up on the subject
and learning about the technical realities that are involved,
you would (I believe) be grossly embarrassed by the question you posted.
- Anonymous5 years ago
I wish you'd tell us what point you are trying to make or what your question actually is. You sound as if someone has offended you in some way.
Like the others, I really couldn't be bothered to read all of your rant and found what I did read hard to follow. You sound very muddled and confused.
Purely from a hearing perspective (not comparing sound waves or using equipment to analyse sound) I'm sure it is possible to produce a recording that, when played back, is indistinguishable from the original. As I said in one of my other answers, when I play my electronic keyboard through a pair of active speakers the sound is exactly the same as when I listen to a recording of the same instrument through the same speakers (or at least it sounds the same to me).
Generally speaking though, when musical sounds are considered in "the real world", a recoring does not even come close to the original sound from the listener's point of view.
The first issue is actually "hearing" the sound in a way that can be recorded. In the case of natural, acoustic sounds, this requires the use of one or more microphones. Two microphones can produce stereo sound but neither can pick up sound from above, below or behind. The sound picked up by each microphone is very one-dimentional and even combining two of these sounds produce a very poor approximation of what was actually heard by the listen at the time.
Converting the acoustic sound to an electrical signal, sending it down a cable and then through all the electronic componants involved in converting it to a magnetic signal that can be recorded on tape obviously degrades and alters the original "sound".
Some people prefer the sound produced by recording to tape rather than recording digitally and, to me, there is no doubt that tape can produce a warmth and depth often lacking in digital recording and that it has produced some excellent recordings. However, there is no doubt that the process results in a loss of sound quality and that tape noise is a significant problem. If a consistently loud sound is recorded onto tape then any tape noise is masked and cannot be heard but when recording anything with any dynamic range (such as music) tape noise is a problem. When recording live music on a well set-up 1/2 track machine, such as a Revox, running at 15 ips then any tape noice is unlikely to be noticed but tape noise on a 24 track machine can be VERY noticeable. It is for this reason that compression/limiting were used more or less routinely, that Dolby and Dbx noise reduction were devoloped and that even running the multitrack macine at 30 ips was tried - to deal with the limitations and problems of recording onto tape that everyone was aware of. In most cases a "record" is not meant to sound like "the real thing" and people do not have the opportunity or the desire to compare, say, the recorded sound of an acoustic guitar with the way it sounded "live, in the studio". If you have never noticed tape noise on a record, even over the top of the surface noice produced by the record itself, then you have not been listening. It should also be noted that whilst noise reduction systems (when set up and used correctly) do indeed, "reduce noise" they have an effect on the actual sound quality of the recording. Compression and limiting have even more effect on the sound.
Most importantly, in many cases, ANY kind of standard recording, reproduced in a standard way can never sound like the actual sound before it was recorded. This is a limitation of the way in which the recording is reproduced, not of the recording process itself. In a "live" situation the room has a huge effect on the sound the listener perceives. They hear sound from all directions - left, right, from the front, from the rear, up and down. Even just moving the stereo speakers to a different position in the same room changes the sound. Listening in a different room, with different speakers and a different amplifier alter the sound significantly. These variations can't ALL be exactly the same as the original!
If I listened to a radio broadcast of a band as they actually played live and then listened to a recording of the same performance repeated later I would expect to hear NO difference at all, but NEITHER would sound like the actual sound being produced "at the time". As I said in answer to one of your previous questions, a singer performing live with their voice being picked up by a microphone, having effects added to it, being eq'ed and then being played at high volume through PA speakers in a huge hall sounds NOTHING like the sound produced acoustically by that singer (the way they might sound singing in your kitchen). Playing a recording of their vocal for them to mime to would probably sound exactly the same but NEITHER is the original sound.
- John MLv 75 years ago
I'm not sure what your question is, it is difficult to piece together from the rambling.
My guess is that you didn't intend to ask a question, but instead you wanted to convince people that you know what you're talking about, and I don't think it will work.