Audio Engineering Society UK

Title: ‘Reality is Not a Recording / A Recording is Not Reality’
Location: Royal Academy of Engineering
Description: Jim Anderson of Jim Anderson Sounds
Start Time: 19:00 for 19:00
Date: May 12th 2009

Abstract

The former New York Times film critic Vincent Canby wrote: “all of us have different thresholds at which we suspend disbelief, and then gladly follow fictions to conclusions that we find logical.” Any recording is a ‘fiction’, a falsity, even in its most pure form. It is the responsibility, if not the duty, of the recording engineer, and producer, to create a universe so compelling and transparent that the listener isn’t aware of any manipulation. Using basic recording techniques, and standard manipulation of audio, a recording is made, giving the listener an experience that is not merely logical but better than reality. How does this occur? What techniques can be applied? How does an engineer create a convincing loudspeaker illusion that a listener will perceive as a plausible reality?

Meeting Report

Jim Anderson: Professor of Recorded Music, Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, New York University

Jim started his lecture with the attention-grabbing statement that audio recording is trickery, a devious deception – then expanded the point to explain that the aim is to make you, the listener, believe you’re hearing the truth: but actually it’s sleight of hand. He set about illustrating that by playing back a diverse range of audio recordings over the course of the lecture and discussing them, casting some light onto the techniques and tricks he’d used to exercise that devious deception: and without exception, create musical listening experiences of quite exceptional quality.

Jim started by playing the commercial release of J. J. Johnson’s “The Brass Orchestra” – it was extremely punchy, dynamic, and live-sounding. He then played another track: while obviously the same piece, and possibly the same very performance, it had much less impact, drums were much quieter, the soloist was clearly off-mic – this was from a simple stereo pair of mics to capture the “air” of the room, and illustrated the striking difference between the somewhat artificial, yet highly-appealing experience created by the commercial release, and the fly-on-the wall experience of the performance – which is arguably the “real” experience. Jim then discussed some of the details of this performance and the techniques he’d used to create the “false”, yet plausible and appealing final product: it was captured live-performance-style in a single take with no overdubbing; microphone selection was key in realising tonal and dynamic differences within the group; the studio had a “good” acoustic for performance, but this was enhanced with artificial concert-hall reverb. The artist wanted to mix first without the solos, in order to get all the internal balances right: then add the solos later – so the whole thing was mixed twice.

Jim expanded on the microphone selection points by playing “High Noon – The Jazz Soul of Frankie Laine” featuring Gary Smulyan, baritone sax player. Jim used ribbon microphones, with their smooth, easy sound, on all the nine-piece backing group; but used condensers to bring the baritone sax and French horn into sharp dynamic focus. It allows the backing to be up-front in the mix, yet keeping the sax solo sounding appropriately prominent.

To illustrate another interesting technique, Jime played drummer Marvin “Smitty” Smith tracking “The Road Less Travelled”: Marvin had requested “more depth, more breadth” in the kick drum. Jim met this requirement by using a Beyer Opus 51, a boundary effect mic designed for piano, under a sheet of wood to isolate it from the rest of the kit. He used two Opus 51s and an M88 in the middle, to create a mid/side array. In stereo, it creates perfect image of the kit: in mono, it collapses and provides a remarkably leakage-free kick drum.

Among other recordings Jim discussed, he played a track by Patricia Barber, recorded in Chicago. It had an extraordinarily huge, deep, broad-sounding kick drum, very prominent and snappy drums in general, whereas the female vocal is up-front yet full in the low-mids. He then played another recording, with same trumpeter in the same room, yet smoother-sounding – because it’s a tube mic rather than ribbon. Kick drum is only 18”, but with good tuning and an M/S mic it gives the huge depth and finish.

All recordings played so far had been tracked straight to digital: Jim’s next recording was a modern attempt to recreate the classic 1970s Blue Note sound, for an album called “Hubsound – The Music of Freddie Hubbard” Contrary to direct-to-digital tracking, this was done using a 16-track 2” at 15 inches-per-second with no noise reduction. It’s impossible to make lots of overdubs because 16 tracks is very limited. In this way, it emulates not only the sound, but also the practical constraints and therefore the recording techniques, of the Blue Note vintage.

Next up, we heard Gonzalo Rubelcaba performing “Here’s that Rainy Day” in Criteria Studio A in LA: solo piano in a large live rectangular room. Mics were a U87 above, DPA4007 close, DPA 4006 a little further back: and beyond that, a pair of U87s in a modified polyhymnia configuration, so the room sound was also captured in case a surround mix was subsequently needed.

He then played for us Bebo Valdes, a live recording done in a recording truck at the Village Vanguard nightclub. Mics were just a Sanken CUW180 with pair of ratchet movable capsules, here set up for X/Y. Mic pres with A-D were on stage, plus an audience microphone, and optical links connected the A/Ds to the truck. The recording setup was triple-redundant with Tascam DA98s, but the primary recorder was ProTools HD. Jim created a rough mix on Yamaha DM2000, for the performers to check each performance immediately afterwards. Mics were a combination of omnis and cardioids on piano, the Sanken X/Y on bass, and omnis on audience. The worth of the latter was shown when the audience start singing along – precise capture of the audience really added atmosphere to the final product.

Jim concluded by playing us his first ever jazz recording – Ella Fitzgerald at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage festival 1977, knew Stevie Wonder was in the audience, so called him up to join in! The encore was the duet “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life”. It was a pretty magical moment to capture for a first jazz recording: particularly as immediately after the end of the song, the tape ran out, right then! A close-run thing.

Jim wrapped up this interesting talk – and listening session – by maintaining he’s the liar! Thanks to PMC and Arcam for the superlative audio reproduction system kindly lent to us for the evening.

Meeting report by Michael Page