How do you judge your system's neutrality?

Hi Bryon - good reply. I grant your point that 4) does not necessarily follow from 3) ( truthfulness of types of recordings cannot validly be inferred from the repeatability of types of performances).

However, I completely disagree with you about 4) itself. 4) to me is an obviously true statement (that's why I didn't mention it), and I am a little puzzled as to why you think it is false. Any recording engineer will tell you that electronic instruments are MUCH easier to record than acoustic instruments or voices. Despite the more complex wave forms today's digital systems are capable of creating, these wave forms are still far less complex than those created by acoustic instruments and voices (they still haven't even come close, despite the theoretical potential). The simpler the timbre, the easier it is to reproduce, and the easier it is to tell whether or not the reproduction is "truthful." Electronically produced sounds are also much less affected by room acoustics, at least when we are considering timbre, especially if the room in question is a recording studio. Electronically produced tones can be 100% controlled, regardless of environment, making them much easier to record. You brought up the point that we are less familiar with electronic timbres. This may be true, but I think that this is actually irrelevant, especially since as you said we are speaking of recordings, not the live event. A recording engineer can know EXACTLY how an electronically produced tone is going to sound. This is NEVER true of acoustic instruments or voices, even the same exact player of the same exact instrument in the same exact environment from one day to another. This is a big reason why engineers want to make sure that a recording of any given song or movement of a multi-movement work is finished in one session - it is simply too difficult to reproduce the exact same pitch level on a different session (which is why many engineers/orchestra conductors still forgo patch sessions when making a "live" recording). This is of course no problem for electronic instruments.

Based on the above, then, it follows that one can be much more of an objectivist about electronically produced music. The standard for judging "truthfulness" can be much more, not less exact than with acoustic instruments.

Learsfool – I believe that you and I are talking about two different kinds of electronic music recordings. In my last post, I was talking about:

(1) A recording in which electronic sounds are produced by a device, performed in a real acoustical space, and recorded with a microphone to a recording medium.

I believe that you are talking about:

(2) A recording in which electronic sounds are produced by a device and recorded DIRECTLY TO THE RECORDING MEDIUM.

In (1), the recording is just like a recording of an acoustical musical event, except that the sounds are produced from electronic “instruments,” rather than acoustical ones.

In (2), there is no performance, no real acoustical space, and no microphone. There is just the device that creates the sound and the recording medium.

I agree with you that recordings as described in (2) are more likely to be ACCURATE representations of the original electronic sounds. You may be right that this is partly attributable to the fact that electronic sounds are less complex than vocal or acoustical ones. But it is also attributable to the fact that MORE THAN HALF THE RECORDING PROCESS HAS BEEN ELIMINATED. The performance has been eliminated. The acoustical space has been eliminated. The microphone has been eliminated. And in some cases, the need for a “field” recording format (distinct from the subsequent “storage” recording format) has been eliminated. It is no wonder, then, that the resulting recording is MORE INHERENTLY ACCURATE, as you suggested.

However, the kind of accuracy just described is not the same as the concept of “truthfulness” I used in my post on 1/18, which was rather: TRANSPARENCY TO THE MUSICAL PERFORMANCE. In the case of music recordings as described in (2), there quite literally IS NO PERFORMANCE. Therefore, the question of the recording’s truthfulness, in the sense in which I’ve been using the term, does not apply.

But all of this seems like a peripheral matter, since the real goal of my post on 1/18 was not to highlight the difference between acoustical and electronic recordings, but rather to highlight the difference between recordings of REAL events and recordings of VIRTUAL events. I only brought up electronically produced sounds as one example of what, in my view, contributes to making a recording “virtual.” Among the other things that make a recording virtual: Multiple microphones with different perspectives, music editing, and the liberal use of creative mixing techniques.

Perhaps the simplest illustration of what makes a musical event virtual is music editing, that is, editing together segments from multiple takes to create the illusion of a single, continuous “performance.” This is done all the time in popular music, and when it is, the performance that is on the recording is, at least partially, VIRTUAL, in the sense that IT NEVER EXISTED IN REALITY. To use an analogy…

Consider a painting of a landscape that never existed, but is a composite of various landscapes drawn from the memory of the painter. In other words, it is a virtual landscape, in the sense that it never existed in reality. As such, the painting cannot be evaluated in terms of its truthfulness, i.e. its correspondence to reality, simply because there is no real landscape for the painting to correspond to. So the question of the truthfulness of the painting does not apply. Hence the attitude of Objectivism about the painting is unwarranted.

As I see it, the case is almost exactly the same with music recordings. Consider a “performance” edited together from many segments of multiple takes recorded over different days. In other words, it is a virtual performance, in the sense that it never existed in reality. As such, it is difficult or perhaps impossible to evaluate the recording in terms of its truthfulness, i.e. its correspondence to reality, because there is no real performance for the recording to correspond to. So the question of the truthfulness of the recording does not apply. Or more precisely, it applies less and less as recordings are more and more edited (since I understand the distinction between real and virtual events as being on a continuum). Hence the more virtual the event a recording represents, the less the attitude of Objectivism is warranted.

Learsfool - I am aware of the extent to which recording, editing, and mixing techniques are employed in music recording, particularly popular music recording. I am also aware of the fact that many of these techniques are standard practice in classical and jazz recordings. But I do not see that these realities eliminate the possibility of evaluating a recording's truthfulness, i.e., its transparency to a real musical event, so long as transparency is understood as being an APPROXIMATION. The transparency of a recording is an approximation TO THE EXTENT THAT:

(1) The recording is incomplete or imperfect.
(2) The event is not real.

RE: (1). Of course, all recordings are incomplete and imperfect, but they are not all EQUALLY incomplete or imperfect. Some are much more incomplete or imperfect than others. Recordings delivered on low resolution formats like MP3, for example, are much more incomplete than recordings delivered on high resolution formats like SACD. Recordings that inadvertently encode gross distortions (e.g., overmodulation distortion, jitter, phase errors) into the signal during the recording process, for example, are much more imperfect than those that do not.

RE: (2). As you point out, very few (or perhaps no) recordings are FULLY real, since nearly all recordings involve at least some editing and mixing techniques. So nearly all (or possibly all) recordings are, to some extent, virtual. But they are not all EQUALLY virtual. Some are much more virtual than others. Recordings that make liberal use of recording, editing, and mixing techniques are more virtual than recordings that use those techniques sparingly. This is a common difference between popular music and some audiophile classical recordings, for example. I freely admit that even audiophile classical recordings are, to some extent, virtual. But they seem to me to be, on average, considerably less virtual than most popular music.

The point I am making is that, even if we agree that ALL recordings are to some extent virtual, it does not follow, and it is not true, that all recordings are EQUALLY virtual. In other words, some recordings are more real than others, even if no recording is COMPLETELY real. I made this point in a slightly different way in my post on 1/18:

Music recordings can be thought of on a continuum according to how REAL or VIRTUAL the event is that the recording represents...At one end of the continuum is a music recording that represents a musical event that is MAXIMALLY REAL...At the other end of the continuum is a music recording that represents a musical event that is MAXIMALLY VIRTUAL...In the middle of the continuum is where the vast majority of music lies...

By locating recordings on a CONTINUUM between the (admittedly idealized) extremes of representing fully real and fully virtual musical events, I tried to highlight the fact that important differences exist in the degree to which a recording can be evaluated in terms of its truthfulness, that is, its transparency to a real musical event. And if that is true, I believe, then the attitude of Objectivism is more warranted the more a recording represents a REAL-ISH event, while the attitude of Subjectivism is more warranted the more a recording represents a VIRTUAL-ISH event.

As soon as anyone else listens to it, it does technically become a performance.

Actually, technically, that's a playback of a performance unless the listening is in real time. In that case you have to make the distinction between recording the sound coming out of a speaker (a live event) and recording the data produced by the device (a virtual event). For an electronic device sending a signal directly to the recording medium, the Objectivist viewpoint is impossible because there is nothing to compare the playback to. There was never a "sound" that was recorded. It would be like running a random section of a computer's hard drive through a DAC and asking how it compared to the live event. What live event?

As for the rest of your post, I'll let Bryon respond, but he's talking about a continuum that runs from live and acoustic to virtual and electronic, not about placing every recording into one of two categories. As you move across that continuum the Objectivist approach is either more or less valid, not simply valid or invalid.