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Re: What Constitutes Accurate Musical Replication?

Hello Beerman,

I agree 100% that it is virtually an impossibility to replicate a live unamplified musical event in our homes. The reasons for this are many, insufficient dynamic range capabilities of the audio system, inability to replicate the size of a large hall within the confines of the typical audio room, various cues that our era/brain uses to recognize live umaplified music are are stripped away in the recording process etc.

What we should strive for is to get as close as we can to replicating the sound of individual instruments such as a violin, piano, sax, guitar etc. This is, of course, a lot easier to do when the person is quite familiar with the sound of live unamplified music itself. Then one could use a small jazz ensemble with say a piano, bass, sax and drums. These would provide a nice variety of instruments, plus it would be recorded in smaller rooms than say a symphony would be. Thus we'd also have a room that closer to the dimensions of our audio rooms, so we should be able to get viable spacial clues. I believe "IF" we can get a small jazz ensemble to sound as close to how it would at a live unamplified event, we're off to a good start. Next I concentrate on getting the vocals correct, I like to use Khani Cole, Kevyn Lettau, Diana Krall and Pamela Driggs's (from Brasilia)for individual females with different vocal ranges and singing styles. Next I use Steve Moos and the harmonies from the band Jump In The Water for male vocals and group singers. I'm postive there's a myriad of other singers that could be used as well. Typically once the system will do these vocals and instruments correctly or as correctly as I'm capable of achieving, the other music, in different enviroments, symphonies, larger jazz groups, rock etc. are done the best an audio system can within today's limitations of the software and equipment.

I recognize that we'll never replicate a live unamplified musical event with 100% accuracy as it occured. However it's my contention that just because we cannot replicate a live unamplified musical event 100% accurately doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to get the highest percentage of that 100% that we can. Once we've achieved the highest percentage that we can within our financial means, our personal capabilities, and within the limitations of today's software and equipment. Then that will constitute the most accurate musical replication we can achieve as individuals period!

But this highest percentage will NEVER be achieved by comparing the signal output of a microphone vs my amplifiers signal output for accuracy. The only real chance of getting as close to the 100% mark that we are capable of is for individuals to familiarize themselves with as much live unamplified music as they can. Then as our ears become more and more accustomed with how these different instruments really sound like, we'll be more adept at reaching higher percentages of the 100% we all, hopefully, are striving for...


Thetubeguy1954

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