Do we really know what "Live" music sounds like?

jerryg:

I did not read the article, just responded your brief Cliff Notes of such.

DeKay

Do we really know what was heard in the recording studio? Mastering studio?

Not sure live performances/instruments are too helpful for end listeners building systems. While there are certainly benefits to hearing un-amplified live, there seems little gained in correlating the two. I guess he's alluding to the often used system evaluation, "that sounds live." 

His point: "....In short, you need to know what music sounds like if you're going to try to effectively reproduce it." I disagree. Maybe for recording engineers.

Make a search and read: the word to search for is "acoustic" the second word "psycho-acoustic"...

If you dont have any experience and fresh remembering about instrument timbre, if you dont learn how to perceive his micro-structure in space, how do you test by listening experiments your room?

Do you think like most that the sound comme from the gear in an immaculate conception OUT of ANY ROOM ?

His point: "....In short, you need to know what music sounds like if you’re going to try to effectively reproduce it." I disagree. Maybe for recording engineers.

 

The musicians may not know what it sounds like from various seats in the concert hall. Nor what it sounds like in venues they have not performed in. Nor concert musicians what it sounds like in a recording studio and vice versa. Nor musicians recorded in Abbey Road studios what it sounds like elsewhere.

But anyone who cares, has normal hearing capabilities, and listens knows what it sounds like at that time in that location with whatever the source may be.

Is that good enough to assume we do know what music sounds like? If we don’t, so what? I don’t know what it sounds like on Mars. Won’t let that bother me too much. Nor if someone else claiming golden ears tells me I don’t know what music sounds like.

The perception of timbre is not only the perception of a "sound" but  the perception of a  meaningful sound...

We were conditioned to perceive human voice for a million year....

This is all we need to create an audio room...

A couple problems with this article. 

Unamplified live music is affected by the room. This has just as much or more bearing on the sound then an "amplifier."

Secondly, it depends on your position relative to the instrument or vocalist. As a guitarist, I sit behind the instrument. An acoustic guitar is going to sound different to me than it does to someone who sits in front of me. And if you're sitting off to the side it'll sound different. And if you're sitting in front of an amplified guitar cabinet it's going to sound a lot more like the recording than if you're sitting 50' away because guitar cabinets are close-mic'd. And if I move my head 1" it'll sound different. And on and on.

And do we really want it to sound real? Almost all recordings are post-processed. Why? Because live performances have real or perceived flaws or deficiencies. Or some instruments are too dominant in the live setting and must be dialed back. Or the room doesn't have enough reverb, or too much reverb. Or slap echo. And so on.

And I'll end with our limited acoustic memory. How do we remember what "real" is? A good example is an Anderton's YouTube video called Head or Tread. Rob Chapman, a very experienced musician and guitar company owner, did a blind test of various tube amps, solid-state amps, profilers (computers that mimic an amp) and pedals to determine which was an amp head and which was a pedal. He owns some of these amps and the profiler. He got almost all of them wrong, including the amp he uses at most of his guitar clinics. And again, according to studies, musicians are supposed to have better acoustic memories than the average person.

These posts reveal the bias in Audiogon towards classical and acoustic music.  Now, that is not to attack the style of music nor those who love it, but it does reveal the lack of a baseline that serves as a foundation for much of the discussions on Audiogon.

Person A:  "What do you want to eat?"  

Person B:  "Apple Pie."

Person A:  "For dinner?"

Person B:  "Oh, I thought we were talking about dessert."

The point being, there is a huge difference between classical and other forms of acoustic music that is intended primarily to be unamplified and rock/pop/most jazz etc. where the mics, amps, and speakers are PART of of the instrument.

I'm sure different systems do better with one or the other. 

Point being, I don't think there is a singular sound of live music.  It depends on genre.  We each tune our systems to sound best with our chose genres.  At least that seems logical to me. 

The majority of my attendance at concerts is to classical or folk, all acoustic.

The question as to the younger set is well framed though - I wonder how many attend non electrified concerts.

It would be almost unheard of to personally experience 100% non-amplified live music unless one were present at a jazz trio, chamber music quartet rehearsal or a parlour piano recital. Therefore, OMG electronically induced coloration and distortion are in evidence! 

This post will spare me to wrote one.... Anyway it is better said than mine would and he says it all... Thanks to the poster...

A couple problems with this article. 

Unamplified live music is affected by the room. This has just as much or more bearing on the sound then an "amplifier."

Secondly, it depends on your position relative to the instrument or vocalist. As a guitarist, I sit behind the instrument. An acoustic guitar is going to sound different to me than it does to someone who sits in front of me. And if you're sitting off to the side it'll sound different. And if you're sitting in front of an amplified guitar cabinet it's going to sound a lot more like the recording than if you're sitting 50' away because guitar cabinets are close-mic'd. And if I move my head 1" it'll sound different. And on and on.

And do we really want it to sound real? Almost all recordings are post-processed. Why? Because live performances have real or perceived flaws or deficiencies. Or some instruments are too dominant in the live setting and must be dialed back. Or the room doesn't have enough reverb, or too much reverb. Or slap echo. And so on.

And I'll end with our limited acoustic memory. How do we remember what "real" is? A good example is an Anderton's YouTube video called Head or Tread. Rob Chapman, a very experienced musician and guitar company owner, did a blind test of various tube amps, solid-state amps, profilers (computers that mimic an amp) and pedals to determine which was an amp head and which was a pedal. He owns some of these amps and the profiler. He got almost all of them wrong, including the amp he uses at most of his guitar clinics. And again, according to studies, musicians are supposed to have better acoustic memories than the average person.

 Re

I'll find out tonight listening to Chris Potter at the Jazz cafe in Philly 

@firberger

I’ll find out tonight listening to Chris Potter at the Jazz cafe in Philly

nice! enjoy! c potter is one of my faves among modern day saxophonists, he is such a brilliant artist, very accessible beautifully crafted music and a very nice low key personality

Of course we do.

Unless you have a very limited musical palette that only consists of amplified music, then you know exactly what live instruments and vocals sound like.

Some of my most enjoyable musical experiences have been "live".

Rigoletto, Turandot, or La Boheme at the Met

Bryn Terfel, Cecilia Bartoli, Joyce DiDonato or Renée Fleming at local recitals

Buddy Rich and his orchestra or Woody Herman and the Thundering Herd at the Commodore Ballroom

It seems that most people set up as the standard to compare their systems to; "sounds like live music or an instrument they are familiar with. That certainty is a noble aspiration, but in my opinion impossible to meet. An audio system is a series of electronic pieces of equipment trying its hardest to sound like wood or metal instruments in which string are struck, bowed, plucked... or blown through with small pieces of wood vibrating or air from the musicians lungs flowing through complex passageways and escaping out the other end. How can pieces of electronic equipment sound "just like" this complex system that generates music. To add to this what is the listener basing his comparison to? A concert attended to in a specific hall. First audio memory is extremely fleeting. I forget exactly how quickly it fades but it is seconds. Second the musical instrument that you are saying your system sounds exactly like will change it sounds based on the size of the hall, how filled the hall is with listeners how many other musicians are around playing, the humidity etc. These influences all affect the sound one hears so one piano played in one location will not sound like another piano played in another location not to mention who made the piano and how in tune it is. Now you play this recorded music in a living room, your basement, a dedicated listening room, a room that has been treated one that has not been treated etc. All this makes me very puzzled with how people tout how their system reproduces music just like what they heard at such and such concert. The best one can say is my system is extremely musical and gives me the impression of what I remember instruments or a concert sounding like. You can talk about decay, harmonics and on and on which are all very important for creating a live accurate sound but one can only approximate the sound of an instrument and will never truly sound like that concert you fondly remember or that instrument you play. The last item I always consider when listening to a review of how great a system sounds is that everyone hears the same sounds differently.

Of course we do.

Unless you have a very limited musical palette that only consists of amplified music, then you know exactly what live instruments and vocals sound like.

i agree with @tony1954 

to add on to the above, i would say, if one plays an instrument, been in or heard a live choir or recital, one is exposed to live music and can form clear impressions of what it sounds like... the exact sound can fade from memory but the impressions formed are more easily remembered

@axo0oxa

i get your skepticism. But from those of us that have been dedicated to creating a great system to reproduce real music, and to people dedicated to develop systems capable of delivering that sound, an incredible amount of skill can be developed over decades. It is one thing going out and listening to live music in different venues one or twice, occasionally. Then it is very different doing the same hundreds of times over long periods of time.

I have gone to concerts at the Oregon Symphony hundreds of times. They always announce when they are recording for a release. My seats are under the primary microphones. I own a bunch of recordings made there. The acoustics are very predictable and different from my seat as they are above mine. But completely predictable. I have also frequented the Chicago Symphony and many venues, and other cities. You can learn about venues and acoustics. All part of being an audiophile or developing equipment with true passion.

Your not hearing unamplified music at a rock concert. The only music to hear unamplified is classical or jazz. Period. I’ve been to enough jazz scenes in very small clubs to know what live music sounds like. Real tenors, horns, pianos, etc. And it was quality music with a legacy going back to the 20’s, not some loud noise not qualified to be called music. Jazz has never been music for the masses. If you don’t dig it, fine, the music doesn’t need you. 

@coltrane1 

You are correct. You are never going to hear an unamplified rock concert.

‘’Although I listen to all kinds of music, I found it was classical concerts and acoustic jazz was what you needed to listen to to in order to zero in your audio system. It would make other kinds of music sound better as well. This helped me develop an empirical ruler, hence helping all music.

Alternatively if you only liked rock… you could get JBL and try to get yourself into a recording studio to understand how it was mixed.

@jim5559 

Some of the concerts I have been to in the past few years are Bryn Terfel, Simrit Kaur, Tool, Joe Bonamassa and Richard Thompson.

Does the fact that I listen to a wide variety of music, including rock, make me clueless or not?

@jssmith 

"Unamplified live music is affected by the room. This has just as much or more bearing on the sound then an "amplifier."

1. Typically, unamplified music is not performed in a "room". It is performed in a music venue acoustically tuned for live music and voice.
2. If the music in that venue is fed through an amplifier, it is most certainly degraded when compared to the unamplified version.
3. Music + room will always be superior to music+ amplifier + room.

Going to electrified concerts, like rock concerts, makes you better able to make judgements on equipment when playing recordings of live concerts, but not studio albums.

Sounds like from where - a foot from the source? 50 feet from the source? Back of the hall at an arena? Live music sounds really different depending on where you're listening from. So the answer is yes and no. 

Deep experience with anything allows you to make adjustments. If you are at live concerts that are being recorded. Look around. Where is it being recorded from. When ever I go to a concert I look and listen to the acoustics. I look for microphones, the concert control panels. 
 

So many rock and other electronic concerts are screwed up… bad venues, bad volume control. But going to them you can learn.

@jjss49 

My Goodness - I never told you how incredible Chris Potter was. A fantastic show. He was so giving to everyone on stage. An intimate setting in Philly  made for a VERY memorable night. 

@firberger 

great to know you enjoyed c.p. -- he is one of my faves, tremendous talent, musicality, tone, and very likeable in how he relates to the audience as well

Back to the amplifier + speaker. If you want the system to have live music, the key is on the right pre. Preamplifiers could be very different,some very high price pre could filter some sparkle of the recording,which you do not know if you do not compare.

@axo0oxa

I am fully agree with you and you are talking the details which I do not on my prior post. Thank you!

The key word to description the while story is "imitate", we use electric device to imitate the live sound, which is completely different things ,but let you feel almost same, and let us enjoy and happy. It is the movies, and it is the carton movies, and try to tell you the real things, which is far far away.

I suddenly find a good example now. In old times, when the society is not so stable, the president have one or more than one substitutes, and they will attend some public ceremony ( Usually the substitute do not speak a lot as it will expose the different with the real one). The real one is the live music in the music hall and the substitute is the music system home,which does not matter how much expensive the devices are.

The internal principle is different, and different by far, and they just try hard to imitate the real one. That’s it.

When I listen to my system or another, what I listen for is the sound stage, pin point localization of the musicians, decay, harmonics, detail, how deep the bass goes and is it details or just one note bass, mid-range beauty and many other details that appeal to me and therefore makes the piece of music enjoyable. A lot of times, particularly if it is electric rock type music I say, it sounds better than going to a concert. If it is classical it can still sound wonderful to my ears and warm my heart, but I cannot get out of my head that I am in a much smaller room and no matter how wide the sound stage in all directions it never sounds just like being in a large concert hall, but still very enjoyable. The bottom line is I build a system to appeal to my ears, room, and budget with the end goal of a very enjoyable listening session for me and anyone else who comes over to listen, but never do I believe it sounds just like a concert I had attended. As @runwell mentions above, it is a great imitation of a concert I attended or maybe even better in the sense that my room is very comfortable and with good acoustics since I have spent a great amount of time and thought in treating the room, but at 12' by 15' it has it limitations.

If your ears and brain enable you to fill in the blanks for a reasonable amount of recordings, you've got a good "lifelike" system.

What the OP reports out of listening live is so important. There are some who will accuse that kind of realization as unnecessary or snobism in terms of guaging what's important in a system. But real live unamplified ans minimally amplified music are the best guides.

The best audio I have ever heard involve Class A tube amps in terms of capturing lifelike tonality and instrumental body. 

@analogj - Might be the best guides if you like that kind of music, but not everybody does. For example, I listen to rock, pop, and reggae, not to 'minimally amplified music', so I wouldn't much care how that kind of stuff would sound on my system.

@larsman 

Sure, you may not listen to live or acoustic instruments, but it's a partial guide to know how accurately your system is rendering the recording.