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Does it bother you?

I'm a recording engineer who has worked in some of the world's top facilities. Let me walk you though an example signal path that you might find in a place like, say, Henson Studio A:

1. Microphone: Old. Probably a PCB inside. Copper wiring.
2. Mic cable: Constructed in house with $1/ft Canare Star Quad, solder, and a connector that might have been in the bottom of a box in the back.
3. Wall jack: Just a regular old Neutrik XLR connector on the wall.
4. Cable snake: Bundles of mic cables going to the control room.
5. Another XLR jack.
6. Another cheap mic cable.
7. Mic preamp: Old and lovely sounding. Audio going through 50 year old pots.
8. Patchbay: Another cheap copper cable is soldered into a patchbay where hundreds of connectors practically touch.
9. TT Cable: Goes from one patch to the next in the patch bay. Copper. No brand preference.
10. DB25 connector: Yes, the same connector you used to connect a modem to your computer in 1986. This is the heart and soul of studio audio transfer.
11. DB25 cable to the console: 25 strands of razor-thin copper wire, 8 channels of audio, sharing a ride.
12. The mixing console: PCB after PCB of tiny copper paths carry the audio through countless op amp chips.
13. DB25 cable to the recording device: time to travel through two more DB25 connectors as we make our way to the AD converters or tape machine.
14. AD conversion: More op amp chips.
15. Digital cable: nothing fancy, just whatever works. USB and Firewire cables are just stock.

...and this is just getting the audio into the recorder.

Also:

None of this equipment has vibration reducing rubber feet, it's just stacked haphazardly in racks. Touching.

No fancy power cables are used, just regular ol' IEC cables.

Acoustic treatment is done using scientific measurements.

Words like "soundstage" and "pace" are never uttered.

Does it bother you? Do you find it strange that the people who record the music that you listen to aren't interested in "tweaks," and expensive cables, and alarm clocks with a sticker on them? If we're not using any of this stuff to record the albums, then what are you hearing when you do use it?
trentpancakes
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
Trent: EXCELLENT thread, thanks for starting it! I have often wondered the same thing as I am an amateur hobbyist recording engineer in my home studio plus I spent time in a Montreal studio a few years ago learning recording, mixing, engineering, etc.
One of the paradoxes I've wondered about is, though it seems to be not so much an equipment limitation to get the music onto the media (witness Count Basie three-channel recordings from tube gear on Roulette from the late 50s) it does seem that the hardest part has ususally been achieving hi-fidelity playback representative of what was captured in the studio. That's not to say that some, well, ok, many, recordings weren't simply tracked poorly to begin with, based on poor decisions made by the recording engineer, or poor set ups to begin with. Believe me a little infomation can be dangerous; if I could go back and have my hand on the "handle" (you know the one that Charlie stole), I would gave recorded some of the finest and most classic of all recordings with a different set up and mixed them quite differently, but this is all Monday Morning QB'ing.
So becasue we're stuck with what we got, we try our best to undo as much of the damage as was done in the first place.
Ag insider logo xs@2x
drubin
3,275 posts
 
I'll take the bait. It would be great if the studios followed more audiophile-approved practices. But because they don't, or may not, doesn't negate the value of doing all you can to make the playback as good and true as possible. Otherwise you're compounding the problem. Or to put it another way, two wrongs don't make a right.
jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
Does it bother me that the folks who record music do not care about sound quality? Yeah, I suppose it does a little bit, but I realize that this behavior is not abnormal.

I suspect that the folks who manufactured my automobile don't give a rat's ass about driving performance either. Many folks who squash grapes for a living are not wine connoisseurs. That's just the way of the world.
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
Because I am a fan of time and phase coherent speakers, I once asked Jim Thiel if he knew of any recording studios that used his speakers as monitors and he told me he knew of one that was locally based but of no others. From my experience in a large pro studio the monitoring systems alone seemed to be an afterthought and the choices were driven by so-called "industry standards," or, worse, were custom installations. Yikes, can you imagine the phase incoherence of some of these designs? No wonder we have speaker manufactures inverting the phase of the midrange drivers relative to the tweeter and woofer. Plus 4th order crossovers with high phase angles at the transition points. No wonder playback has continued to be the pursuit of the holy grail for so many.
hifiharv
351 posts
 
Yes, it bothers me. Always has. Nothing you say surprised me, but to sit and think about all that wire and crappy connections, I'm surprised anything gets out sounding as good as it does. I hear good recordings occasionally and it makes me wonder what exactly it is that those guys are doing different. I've always thought it criminal the way the industry ignores good sound. Like an artist painting poorly, or a chef dismissing good flavor, etc., etc. For gods sake, they are selling MUSIC! They are required to present it properly. Too often it is not an honest product.
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