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What exactly is colored sound?

I guess the definition would be a deviation from what what was originally intended but how do we really know what was originally intended anyway?  I mean solid state mostly sounds like solid state.  I guess that would be a coloration, push pull amps and set have their own colorations.  It seems we try to denote certain definitions to either promote or dis certain sounds I guess.  We could have a supposedly neutral amp but their just is not enough bass so we turn up the subwoofer or the bass, a coloration per se.  I guess one could say that colored sound would be a good thing.  after all, each instrument has its own sound (color).  A mullard, a telefunken, I mean who knows what tubes were in the recording studios at the time of the recording.  Syrupy, sweet, rich, NEUTRAL, forward, backward I mean really...  I guess its all about certain preferences for each person.  even in the studio.  who knows, maybe a recording may be meant to sound syrupy or sweet and then we try to make it as neutral as possible.  Maybe thats a coloration in itself.  I guess what I am asking is why do reviewers use the word colored in reviews anyway?
tzh21y
wolf_garcia
6,704 posts
 
More than accurate, I simply want recordings to sound good to ME. I have actual instruments around for reference, but to say I use those for that purpose isn’t particularly accurate (no pun intended) since I don’t. How an "actual performance sounded" is also relative to where you sat for it, and what the sound tech (sometimes actually me) was thinking, except when there is no sound reinforcement (saw Brad Mehldau last year playing an unamplified Steinway in a hall near Harvard…lean in man…lean in…softer notes were eaten by the room, but I still enjoyed it). I mix live shows with the sound check as the point where my goal is to make the artist think (!) it sounds good so they can relax and play, and when the great unwashed show up to hear the show it all changes anyway…experience allows one to adjust for that, but the goal should be clarity and balance and audience happiness. It’s always a head scratcher when I work with somebody (jazzers mostly) who’s recordings have a great sounding and prominent kick drum, and they insist that no drum mics be used…uh…OK…or after the sound check the bass player completely changes their amp settings causing the whole mix to change…I get paid anyway, but I won’t run up to the stage to tell a bass player to turn down as I don’t want to Harsh Their Mellow so to speak...
inna
7,296 posts
 
Followers of the 'school of dreamers' will argue that it doesn't matter how it sounded when it was recorded, they want it to sound the way they like most. The concept of coloration will have a completely different meaning to them.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,816 posts
 

Commercial recording engineers are endeavoring to make a "good" sounding recording, sure, but what good means to them may be very different from what an audiophile means by good. In all the studios I’ve been recorded in, the engineers have mics they have come to prefer for specific applications. A lot of them like the Shure SM57, for instance---a PA vocal mic, for snare drum. The mic has a presence peak deliberately engineered into the mic’s frequency response, to make vocals coming through a PA more audible. Used as a recording mic, it adds the same presence region boost to snare drums, making them "pop" and "cut" in a mix better than does a mic with a flatter frequency response. Those engineers are not in the least concerned with capturing the inherent, true timbre of the drum, but rather to get a "good" snare sound, one that will suit the sound he is after in the entire mix.

I have recordings of the same snare drum, a Ludwig Supraphonic 400 (the snare preferred by John Bonham, Alex Van Halen, Roger Hawkins, and many others, myself included. John and Alex in the 6.5" deep version, Roger and myself the 5"), made in different studios by different engineers, and though the drum in all the recordings is obviously a Supraphonic, the same drum sounds very different in some of them.

Listening to a commercial Pop recording, the listener has absolutely no idea what the recording "should" sound like---what an accurate reproduction of the recording actually is. The idea of using exquisitely engineered High End components to reproduce the trash on most commercial products is actually comical. Who can blame a music-loving consumer for being more interested in a "good" sounding system than in an "accurate", uncolored one? Of what value is an uncolored system if the recordings are colored to begin with? Then there is the problem of audiophile loudspeakers being very different sounding than studio monitors (Oy. You wanna talk about colored?!), a subject too complicated to go into here.

There is the old argument that the more transparent a system, the more it will reveal the excellent sound of good recordings, but also the poor sound of bad ones. I believe most audiophiles try to assemble a system that balances the ability to faithfully reproduce good recordings with the ability to make average or poor recordings sound as tolerable as possible. That’s a tricky balancing act! Good "enough", but not "too" good.

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,834 posts
 
In all the studios I’ve been recorded in, the engineers have mics they have come to prefer for specific applications. A lot of them like the Shure SM57, for instance---a PA vocal mic, for snare drum. The mic has a presence peak deliberately engineered into the mic’s frequency response, to make vocals coming through a PA more audible. Used as a recording mic, it adds the same presence region boost to snare drums, making them "pop" and "cut" in a mix better than does a mic with a flatter frequency response. Those engineers are not in the least concerned with capturing the inherent, true timbre of the drum, but rather to get a "good" snare sound, one that will suit the sound he is after in the entire mix.
I hear you loud and clear on that one- I've run into the same thing myself. With such recordings the idea of reproducing it in an uncolored way gets pretty weak...
inna
7,296 posts
 
Yeah. If you want to really enjoy your music played at home, never go to live concerts. Unamplified music. Amplified - that’s different.
Recording engineers have their own f...... ideas, we have ours.
In any event, as I advocated before, the reproduction system should try and correct the recording without making things worse. That’s not coloring the sound, it’s an effort to uncolor it.
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