EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 55, Issue 19 This issue's topics: Do You Miss The Hiss???? (2 messages) Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 08:01:00 EDT From: Mario Vergona Subject: Do You Miss The Hiss???? ...Date line Old Rockers Home, London: Keth Richards commited suicide today after hearing the latest dititally re-processed mix of SATISFACTION, they finally cleared out all that distortion on the lead line. Anyway, Last night I went to the B.B. KING BLUES fest, which featured KOKO TAYLOR, LONNIE BROOKS, BUDDY GUY, ERIC JOHNSON and that most famous star of stage screen etc AND OTHERS. So what does that have to do with the ditital/anolog de-bate/tie-rate? THIS: I had purchased the BB KING BLUES SUMMET CD and listended to it about 2 hours before the concert. Some of the songs on the CD were played at the concert, but they were far better. No they were not that different, just better. After realizing this during the concert I tried to put my finger on why this was true. I believe it is that hiss from the interplay of the instriments, the amps the mikes the breath of the people. This is what CDs strive so mightilly to eliminate. Records and cassettes had their own built in ambiant noise, CDs do not. One of the things that make the Korg Wavestation so great is that the sound is evolving, changing as you play it. This causes its own ambiant hiss in the listeners ears. This may why no matter how much time you spend recording something, it NEVER sounds like what you were playing when you played it. Its the room noise, the hiss that is missing. CDs are great for music recorded and heard first on CD, but whenever yo hear something that you heard first on records they seem a little off. If the purpose of recording is to capture a live performac, why are we trying to sanitize/sterilize it so much? One of the reasons that U2 and Peter Gabrial reco sound so great is that they are so dense. The producer has given interviews stat that the room noise is a great part of the recording process. He even mikes it on its own channel, having mikes placed in corners, close to the ceilings and in the middle of the room. Digital is great, but sometimes there is such a state of too much of a good thing. m ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 14:44:03 EDT From: Bill Fox Subject: Re: Do You Miss The Hiss???? Mario Vergona posted, in part: > what you were playing when you played it. Its the room noise, the hiss that is > missing. CDs are great for music recorded and heard first on CD, but whenever yo > hear something that you heard first on records they seem a little off. If the > purpose of recording is to capture a live performac, why are we trying to > sanitize/sterilize it so much? One of the reasons that U2 and Peter Gabrial reco > sound so great is that they are so dense. The producer has given interviews stat > that the room noise is a great part of the recording process. He even mikes it > on its own channel, having mikes placed in corners, close to the ceilings and > in the middle of the room. Digital is great, but sometimes there is such a > state of too much of a good thing. Before I start, Mario, let me just mention that your lines that were longer than 80 characters got truncated before I received your post. Please try to stay under 80. It also helps improve legibility when you get quoted by reducing the probability of lines wrapping. Thanks. Start: At least in pop (and probably many non-classical) recordings (CD, LP, Cassette, whatever) the goal usually is NOT to capture a live performance. And some of the items you listed as hiss either aren't hiss ("interplay of the instriments, ... the breath of the people.") or are hiss of an annoying nature (amps, room noise). Either way, these particular items have nothing to do with the storage medium, be it analog or digital. Please don't confuse storage medium with recording technique, production values, or the excitement of attending a live show. Speaking of storage medium, I prefer digital to analog because its quality (fidelity) is not dependent on the medium. The tape hiss and LP crackles, pops, and hiss, and the compression and restricted bandwidth of both compared to CDs are not things I miss and do nothing to enhance my listening pleasure. ("Records and cassettes had their own built in ambiant noise, CDs do not.") Sorry, I don't think so. That's noise which I can do without, thank you very much! But if you're talking about ambience (sound reflections in a room, i.e. reverb), you'll find that (naturally and/or synthetically) on most recordings. Once again, that has nothing to do with the storage medium. It boils down to this. I'm not sure if I understand what it is you've observed because you and I seem to assign different meanings to various words and phemonena. But I have no doubt that certain aspects of your concert experience were far more satisfying than any recording could ever be. Bill Fox ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************