THE FOUR STEPS OF THE RECORDING PROCESS
Four situations, each one more sophisticated than the previous one.
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THE FOUR STEPS OF THE RECORDING PROCESS
Four situations, each one more sophisticated than the previous one.
#1 : NO RECORDING
No recording. Supposedly the way music is played.
No processing, no space - at least no particular attention to them.Not always true, though : in certain middle age and baroque European music works, the musician had to play certain parts at particular positions, already introducing space as a musical parameter - with the corresponding timbre alterations.
In classical ( 1760-1800 ) and romantic ( 1800 - 1900 ) music, though, "space" has been exclusively made a servant of timbre - e.g. the horns being behind because they are louder etc. Space as a standalone parameter has been rediscovered somewhere in the XXth century, though it's hard to say when. Probably more in the late 60s or 70s.
Traditional moralists - ex Boucourechliev - have sometimes written against the notion of space as a musical parameter, probably for some "religious" reason.
#2 : "TRANSPARENT"RECORDING
Transparent recording : the main goal here is realism.
( see the false truths page to see what's questionable in this approach)One aims at providing as natural a sound scene as possible, to ensure maximum fidelity with the original performance.
Traditionally, this kind of recordings is made with two mikes only, and as less processed as possible.
#3 : "OPTIMIZED" OR "ENHANCED" RECORDING
To get a better illusion of the original performance, it's possible to add other mikes, eg closer to the musicians, or on the sides etc.
Also, the mikes are mixed together, using EQs etc.The result is certainly further from the original performance, but is more suited to loudspeaker playback.
This is becoming a bit interesting : for the first time, a step is taken towards a really "speaker oriented philosophy".
When doing such a recording, one says : "what can I do to make a preexisting audio scene sound interesting", but without forgetting that at the beginning, you've got musicians who want a result which is similar to what they've actually played.
#4 : "ROTATED" RECORDING
This time, we forget what was actually recorded, to solely focus on the result, and we can do whatever we want or need -and this result will be completely "speaker optimized", or "record optimized".
On the other hand, the original sound scene tend to be forgotten.In this field, there is a whole area to explore and map : designing sound scenes "on top of" music is a very interesting issue, but it is also very delicate.
Sometimes, the music is made just for the purpose of being recorded, sometimes it exists only as a recording... in this case, space and timbre are completely part of the music.
If we deal with music which was existing before it was recorded though, other issues arise.
This is the recording ethics discussion.
Whatever the case, it is usually the job of the producer to decide what to do in the matter.