Unify Sound, Creation, Recording and Reproduction

[@jayzeman7187]

A master class in perception and live sound production. Thank you Dave!

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@BogdanWeiss]

Calling this a "masterclass" is a bit strange/sarcastic - I would call it "elementary fundamentals 101" - this is by no means implying that there's anything deficient in Dave's sharing of production/sound insights - but this is really lesson 1 out of 999 or so... ;-)

[@DaveRat]

As often as the case, a discussion diverges into nuances in differentials of perceived definitions. A Google of "masterclass" resulted this: What does masterclass mean? /ˈmɑː.stə.klɑːs/ a class taught by someone who has an expert knowledge or skill in a particular area, especially in music: Regardless, my goal was to offer a useful overview and I respect all definitions of masterclass encompassing or not

[@BogdanWeiss]

@@DaveRat We need every bit of help & a prayer to re-birth quality sound reproduction - no matter the genra/style. - Transducer & amplifier technology is at an all time high - Yet I'm surrounded by people who seem to believe, that compressed low-resolution files are "good enough" A Sydney radio station told me that they broadcast in mp3 because of "budget constraints" - What do we do with these intellectual Neanderthals ????? Masquerading as "professionals" who also claim that they "love music" but they Totally Butcher Music reproduction & are Deaf_As_Stumps - Thanks for all you do Dave & may your woofers & tweeters never blow-up 🙂

[@DaveRat]

Good stuff and while I do appreciate fine dining it's important to understand that the bulk of the population are perfectly happy with McDonald's. So it's important not to worry too much about lower resolution audio and the fact that the masses can't tell the difference. And also realize that when the situation is right offering higher quality can be inspirational and is always enjoyable

[@sbroggie]

A superb sermon from Pastor Dave of the Church Of Sound. Preach it Dave!

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙🎛️🎛️

[@VapidVulpes]

Ooommmggg!!! hehehehe I absolutely love this so much! I remember the first time I watched my first mentor walk into the studio and fix my mic placement on a drum set without hearing it from the control room, and just the absolute tightness and clarity of sound that synched together as he did it was wild! It breaks my heart watching some engineers just throw a mic on a thing and not think about how and why and what is contributing to the reproduction of the sound, then grab an EQ and try and fix it there. my favorite sessions i've recorded were stuff like sticking a speaker next to a bathroom and putting a blumlein pair in the bathroom to get it's reverb, or when i recorded a whole jazz trio's record in a barn with mics all over the barn (probably one of my favorite uses of a physical space's reverb I've ever done), or spending hours to set up 10 mics all over the studio and it's different rooms and a couple in the empty warehouse next to it and recorded a crazy old acoustic with a pickup (acoustically in an iso room), but fed the pickup signal to an old beat up tube amp and cranked it to get this haunting sound of an empty studio and played with the balance from section to section in the track). I once spent months with an artist developing a thematic texture across a very varied song selection for an album, (by using room mics and really focusing on tonal cohesion and mic selection and placement and all this cool stuff!) then got the mixes back from the mix engineer he went with and all the character mics had been muted. The life was gone, it felt two dimensional and static, like looking at a polaroid of a beautiful scene. It broke my heart, but, you can't win them all lol (and the artist was happy with it so, all's well that ends well). I got to see Al Schmidt's 2020 at NAMM talk, then meet him afterwards (hilarious story but this comment is 258923892398 times too long already lol) and to hear him discuss understanding and using your tools to capture what's there and not get in the way was truly inspiring :-), him and Tchad Blake (who i also met at NAMM that year lol) and his use of reamping and developing texture are just the friggin best (along with a laundry list of others of course)! And exactly!! Texture and depth and dimension and all that good stuff is phase interference! Phase isn't the enemy, it's something to learn and be aware of sure, but uuuseee!!! :-D! It's happening everywhere all the time in a myriad of ways. Our brain and ears use it to give us waaaayyy more information than we consciously realize, and learning about that and having fun with it opens the door to so much subtly in a mix it's overwhelming! Our ears are wildly temperamental but insanely sensitive tools right?! lol i love it! The calculous and trig and fourier mathematics that goes into all this stuff is just absolutely fascinating! Thinking of the mix field as a three dimensional environment that you're evoking in the listener, or how location information and the material properties of objects and surfaces affects the perception of a reflection is just the friggin coolest stuff and even more fun, how to use it during mic placement, or recreate it in crazy ways in a mix is just the best! Then on top of that you add in artistic interpretation and sound design and the psychology of artist handling (in sessions or on stage) to help them achieve not only what they've told you they wanna do, but what you all collectively come together to capture/reproduce. Like, the spirit of the music you know? It's hard not to obsess over and revel in all this stuff, on every level of the process. I think for me right now, it's become more about emotional conveyance and a kind of sense memory of people's experience with sound and music and performance (Steve Albini has a cool video that discusses some of this kinda stuff too). I've started to try and create more with less (with my own personal stuff at least). It's about getting things to translate to shitty speakers and earbuds and car speakers, it's about making sure the spirit of the intent of the artist is captured and made available to anyone who wants to listen with whatever playback devices they have on hand! I've taken a step back from extreme nuance lol, partially out of burnout, partially because there's not a lot of money for that kind of project out here lol, and partially to scratch the itch of a kinda... weird/new york/punk style production perspective to keep the music sounding honest (at least for some of my more recent projects). But there's the confidence I've kinda gained I always wanted. Where I can place a mic, or make a weird decision or create a very "seemingly" obtuse choice, because I'm aware of how it can (hopefully lol) have an effect we want in the listener. I would have never developed that if I hadn't dived as deep into subtly as I possibly could (and still do!), or really stretched myself and worked in different roles and environments and jobs. Like, knowing the rules to know how breaking them effects the art. I also like trying to think like a tape era producer these days. Make all my decisions up front, so the mix itself is just barely riding busses to make the music flow and evolve throughout the song. I wanna listen to what the song wants from me! It helps to compartmentalize a lot of the overwhelming complexity that can come from doing a lot of stuff, or taking a project from start to finish, from pre-pro to mastering. Sometimes it drives you insane right? No... just me? Eyooo!! When I was mixing live events a lot I also loved walking the room and trying to tailor the mix to make every area sound real, whether I had access to a huge PA or just a couple mains and a pan knob, fixed EQ and faders for each channel. Not just good, or balanced or whatever, but like, making it sound authentic? I guess might be the word? I always liked trying my best to take what I seemed more like studio techniques (at least for the industry here, stuff that live cats never seem to think about or talk about), out into the field. I also loved the emotional feedback from the performers and audience in a live setting and worked at taking that back into the studio too. Or the sense of space and environment in a live show, how to bring that to bear in appropriate ways in a mix? Cats i know who stayed in the studio their whole careers don't seem to talk about that kinda stuff (at least out here). It's amazing how many barriers there are between the disciplines (or between genres!), and how fun it is to find a new use for a technique you never thought could apply to a situation. thanks so much for your videos as always man! I don't expect anyone to really read this whole thing lol, but, it's been a while since I got to engage with this side of things outside of pouring it into the work so, thanks again for being the best!

[@DaveRat]

Awesome and thank you!

[@artysanmobile]

You are speaking my language, Dave. It all starts at the musician, and ends at the music lover. My records have a similar signature in that they continue to be my vision as a player and writer, from analog tape in the 70s thru to today, with nary a tape recorder in sight. Technical rules are ephemeral, if they even exist at all. Our art is one of deception far more often than one of accuracy.

[@DaveRat]

Yes!!🤙👍

[@little-alien]

I gave up on hifi decades ago after understanding the recording chain, preferring to listen on small PA gear at home. However, in recent times I’ve spent up on a low end hifi system and I’m loving the excitement it can add to music. I now listen to music more. There is a joy to listening to recordings that are made to be played on a stereo system.

[@little-alien]

BTW I loved the video and it has given me plenty of ideas to think about and experiment with.

[@DaveRat]

Awesome and yes, I went through a Hi-Fi phase and appreciate the beauty. Live sound is like astronomy, large scale and based on real and r sultan. Audiophile is like astrology, based on emotion and questionable pseudo sciences mixed with real world

[@duncan-rmi]

wonderful. I note that the part about the listener's brain being more engaged by chaos than perfection aligns with the unconscious preference in many for analogue repro systems over digital; I've mentioned in other comments my hypothesis of 'digital fingerprinting', whereby the part of memory associated with hearing triggers a dulling of the listening when it begins to recognise identical sounds. the 'flaws' of analogue repro re-introduce some of the chaos by adding their own nuances, & the brain wakes up again, starts paying attention. this is all mostly subconscious, I reckon.

[@DaveRat]

Great summary and yes I think I'm mind gets bored with repetition and the chaos is beauty

[@tomehCanada]

Brilliant observations on an asymmetric world and infinite combinations. Thanks Dave

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@peniku8]

Toole's "circle of confusion" explanation sums up nicely why we aim to have the 'perfect' sound system. There is a difference between music production and music reproduction. On the production side we can be as creative as we want, which includes the musicians and the mixing engineer. Do whatever sounds good and throw that in there. On the side of reproduction, the idea is to hear the "artist's intent" and not further mess with the creation. Looking forward to the next videos and wishing your wrist a good recovery, Dave!

[@myaccount9745]

This whole topic gets absolutely wild when you not only consider live PA but -- recording live bands/orchestras. Very interesting to compare recordings of Swing big bands over the decades. Between the 30s and the 40s you also get an impact on the music itself -- bass and drum amplification etc. That changed how drummers and bass players played etc. Or look at the Ellington Newport recordings of Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue -- one has less audience, the other more.

[@DaveRat]

Agreed and thank you!

[@hydorah]

That mic placement info around adding room mics as a fill is gold. I'm planning on recording my band ensemble style, like the old days and mic placement will certainly be a challenge

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@clicks59]

Fantastic, Dave. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience.

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙🤙

[@davidmbugua9184]

I have a dream, that this knowledge will one day reach the most remote places in the world.

[@sqcaraudio]

Reminds me of being in and around live music performances and how the vibe of rehearsal was sometimes the goal of an ensemble. Doing it for others kind of became a compromise lol.

[@laureanosamuelolmoromero5756]

a good friend of me told me yesterday he was listening to a podcast about philosophy or something... he said he heard one of the coolest things ever, the guy apparently said something along the lines of, the most beautiful thing in life is that nothing in the universe has to make sense.

[@DaveRat]

Interesting. What comes to mind is that the universe naturally and by default make sense, we just don't have to understand it

[@WesHampson]

Thank you Dave, I love this perspective on sound reproduction; it's very natural and intuitive. Sounds like the Graphophone needs a speed adjustment!

[@DaveRat]

Yeah graphophone needs a new belt

[@johncostigan6160]

Fascinating exploration of a complex subject. Thanks Dave.

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@richardkotowski2268]

Laughter comes from many sources per Dave Rat... Thanks Dave

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@brandonlaws6636]

Love the road Dave has been taking lately. Sound philosophy. Science meets emotion. 👍😎

[@simonbezek6382]

Such a cool video, and in the end you shoot out a beautiful fact I didn't realise: Horns are acoustic transformers :)

[@chrisnewton8418]

Talk about a different perspective. Thanks Dave, another fascinating and thought provoking session.

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@edmund2j]

Thank for this enlightenment. I'll never "look" at sound the same way again.

[@DaveRat]

Fun!

[@diegomonteirobatera]

I remember seeing Steve Vais rig rundown, and he had a cutom guitar cab in front of him, with three guitar speakers mirroring the three guitar cabs on stage. This is more like the monitoring system you are sugesting. It makes so much sense!

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@jimmyjames7809]

I love your work Dave, thank you so much! ✌️

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@pvanb291]

Awesome Dave! I've been a keen HiFi enthusiast (on a low-ish budget) for many years and audio engineer. I'm very aware of these conflicting paradigms. My explanation of the craziness, is that yes, striving to capture audio chaos and reproduce it perfectly seems odd, but the aim is to reproduce someone elses interpretation of the audio chaos, without adding any more of our own. Much like photography, if we find beauty or something that speaks to us in front of the lens, then we strive to capture all the details that gave us that experience, so that someone else can be moved by the same thing the photographer is. If another person finds a connection with that work, it's not only to the final image, but also the photographer (or engineer/producer in the audio case) that we form a connection with. As soon as we add our own colouration, distortion or additional perspectives, we are no longer experiencing what was intended.

[@sawiblue]

Pure genius dave, thank you very much

[@DaveRat]

Awesome and thank you!

[@Bobby_Uterus]

Great stuff Dave! I laughed my balls off when you started head banging to the Graphophone tunes.

[@Edwin-van-der-Putten]

Really grat insight, Dave! You made me think abut this stuff... GREAT!, thanks! 🙂

[@bassic6959]

I really like this because the simple message I feel I can take away from this is to buy speakers that you enjoy the sound signature of not something that is a certain way.

[@DaveRat]

That's what I do

[@mvilla36]

Thanks Dave this is some great stuff

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@David.C.Velasquez]

Wow man... well done, your knowledge is always impressive, but this was next level physics and philosophy of sound. There are so many parallels to quantum field theory, string theory etc.

[@DaveRat]

So cool thank you!

[@DavidH2154]

This is a really interesting perspective. 606 McCarthy discusses a similar concept of an orchestra or band being multiple perspectives vs a sound system that is typically a limited number of sources, but you extend that to also being the microphone position also gives a single perspective of a source. I recently saw that demonstrated with a chamber orchestra. We are quite used to hearing them in the concert hall acoustically, and they have several instruments by Stradivarius and Guarneri. On this occasion they were playing along with some Moog synthesisers. The sound design had all of the orchestral instruments close miced (very carefully!) and the Moogs DI'd into a console and mixed to a LCR line array system. The sound frequency and spatial experience was quite different from what we are used to. Overall it worked very well, but I prefer the natural sound of the orchestra in the concert hall.

[@sambaker7255]

this is FASCINATING >>. great thinking about sound... I would LOVE To see a conversation between you and Paul McGowan, from PS Audio between you and he the discussion on Reproduction would be fascinating....

[@ikitat]

Super entertaining exposition. Thank you!

[@DaveRat]

👍👍🤙

[@Gongtopia]

This was brilliant! You certainly addressed a lot of issues most people don't think about. Thanks!

[@guyjohnson16-44.1]

Yay... sanity and humour. Reality. Love the lessons - GoViral!

[@DaveRat]

Awesome thank you Guy!!

[@MaxoticsTV]

Or "My Love Affair With Audio" She ignores me, treats me badly, shows no thanks for all the work I put in, to make her happy. But I love her. I can't live without her. Because when she sings tears come out of my eyes. And then it's worth it, one thousand times over.

[@ecoutezpourentendre]

Awesome video discussion!!! Heal quickly. PEACE

[@mvwoon]

"I don't think they got signed. Must have been a demo." Oh my goodness. 😂😂

[@DaveRat]

😄👍😄

[@Xtn1Insecticide]

Love it! Just started to try learn recording for myself and friends this year and this makes me happy to hear

[@fredygump5578]

I came here immediately after trying to explain to someone that he shouldn't be so worried about picking the absolute best speaker in his price range. We forget that our minds are part of the signal path, and we subconsciously adjust for irregularities in sound we hear, the way our eyes adjust for color temperature of light...

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@disklamer]

Once when I was young and unhampered by the limits of reality, in a time before before surround sound and ambience processors, I envisioned a sound system with many different speakers, each reproducing an instrument(...group) in a mulitchannel cluster system instead of frequency channels. Alternatively and perhaps more attainable (with today’s processing capability), another part of the sound. EG. transients vs. overtones vs. dynamic leads, with different configurations like W bins for ambient bass pressure, organ pipes and resonators for the harmonics, horn drivers and passive woofers, electrostatic panels for that sweet reverb, each doing a separate job of reproducing parts of the sound (instead of just by cutoff frquency).

[@DaveRat]

Fun!

[@disklamer]

@@DaveRat And probably impossible to make :D

[@DaveRat]

But if you put a handle on it it will be portable

[@Arthur-ke9vz]

Always impressed by your vast knowledge. Thank you ❤

[@DaveRat]

Awesome thank you Arthur!

[@michaeldavid6973]

Sound. Life. Thank you Dave✨

[@DaveRat]

Thank you Michael!

[@alishatruman]

Sorry you broke your wrist snowboarding. Hope it heals fast! What did you say you don't use horns in your systems was? Not wide enough frequency response? Would you mind to elaborate if you find the time? Thank you. Awesome video by the way :)

[@DaveRat]

Horns increase the coupling efficiency of frequencies in the range of the horn design. The wider the freq range, the less effective the horn tends to be. Overall, horns make some frequencies louder but nat all frequencies. And the frequencies that are made louder are not all made louder by the same amount, so invariably, horns alter the freq response and the more effective the horn, the the more it messes up the response. Speakers can be very flat and linear without horns but struggle to get loud. Horns make it loud but struggle to be flat and linear. So the question is: Do you prefer to spend time and energy making a good sounding non horn loaded speaker louder or making a louder horn loaded speaker sound better? There is no right answer, but that is the designers quandary when choosing between horn loaded or not

[@alishatruman]

@@DaveRat Thanks for finding the time to answer my question Dave! I was not considering decibles vs frequency response and often see many older western electric systems with horns and their owners rave about them. Have fun snowboarding this season!

[@bowievanling8010]

there are indeed only certain compositions or sources that perform so much better over hi fi systems. The hi fi system can be an instrument itself, but only when the artist knows what the instrument is capable of.

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@318ishonk]

Interesting that the average sound quality of young folks' mobile devices (roaming through the streets on Friday night with the music turned up to eleven) is quite similar to that device from the 18 hundreds. Only a smaller form factor these days.

[@DaveRat]

Funny and portable music pans the ages

[@duroxkilo]

since 'perfection' is out of the question, like really really out :), we've been trying to compromise to the best of our means and even find tricks to fool our hearing... this approach in itself dictates that there are multiple ways to approach realism and each time we get 'stuck' on a singular method (like mr Dave talked about the 'super fidelity' realm) we're limiting ourselves a bit, or a bit more... i listened and use numerous speakers and systems as a hobby and i'll be honest: i very much prefer to listen to old school paper cone radio speakers when it comes to enjoying my evening, than let's say, a pair of studio monitors. if i feel like it, i'll crank up some large towers and an 18" sub.. in the end it's all subjective and it's about feeling the experience, more than measuring it.. :)

[@DaveRat]

Agreed and realistic and comforting and desirable and enjoyable are rarely the same things. Each offers an aspect that may or may not fit the occasion.

[@richnorris1061]

Sounds exist in a “space “ there is some element of reflection and absorption that places in that “space”, they don’t sound natural in a space with full absorption , the room or reverb is part of the sound of the instrument

[@DaveRat]

True and if those reflections are all from a single sound, like a conventional speaker tries to radiate, the reflections and direct sound are all versions of the same sound, which is unnatural. An instrument radiates diff sounds in diff directions so all the reflections are also from diff sounds. This is what sounds realistic

[@billwallace1177]

Hot dog, this was so beautifully expressed. So comprehensive. So elegant. GO DAVE! YES!

[@DaveRat]

Awesome thank you Bill!

[@vasilisnalbantis]

Very eloquently said! Thank you very much for the video!

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@dreammix9430]

Thank you Dave!!! This was awesome!!!!

[@DaveRat]

Thank you!

[@andreasolander2325]

DAVE you have done it again!! thank you.

[@DaveRat]

Ful!!

[@Joshualbm]

This is great. It's as if the ideal playback system would be a speaker setup that mimics the microphone placements or track placements. But that would only be possible if every point of the speaker radiation contained a full bandwidth radiating pattern. So the idea of a multiple driver array would only work if the recording could correspond with an amp and driver right at the microphone locations. So you'd need a wall of drivers and 1000 channels or so, to align with the otherwise infinite arrangement of tracks and channels on the recordings. Not possible. What is possible, however, is the playback of the ambient, out of phase information that arrives on nearly all recordings. It's especially good when the recording is live, in one space. The out-of-phase info will be payable off the left and right positive speaker terminals. You can run a speaker or two behind you that play this stuff and create an ambient realism that's quite amazing. Since I run dual monaural amplifiers, I run another stereo amp off of the preamp out and connect the 2 positive leads to 2 dipole speakers on the opposite side of the room. The stereo amp has level controls, so I turn it down just to the point where I don't hear anything behind me. Try that out. The fuller rance the better, actually. But it's easier to use small, 2 way speakers that play full range, from 60Hz up. But the lower the better too.

[@DaveRat]

To come up with a reproduction method that is extremely complex and then state that it's not usable because it's so complex, may not be clear vision. Home Hi-Fi speakers radiate one signal in one direction, natural sound sources radiator multitude of sounds in a multitude of directions. To recreate natural sounds perfectly perhaps extreme sophistication may be needed but home Hi-Fi is the worst case scenario and getting even slightly closer to the way natural sound is radiated by radiating two or more sounds in two or more directions is significantly more realistic and easily tested. Amazingly this works even if the sound sources are not full range they can be limited in frequency response or different in the responses they present and still do a better job of certainly realistic. I've done several videos on the subject and I recommend doing some testing

[@Joshualbm]

@@DaveRat Bipolar, dipole and open baffle designs have very lifelike sound reproduction.

[@DaveRat]

Hmmm, presenting the same signal and the polarity reversed version of the same signal insures maximum comb filtering and cancellations. With a single signal (and or the polarity reversed version of that signal) all reflections off the floor, ceiling, walls and other surfaces are time offset versions of an identical signal. Combining a signal with a time offset version or polarity reversed version of itself insures maximum cancellations and interference issues will occur in a most unnatural way. Whereas with real world sound sources which radiate differing sounds in differing directions, the refections of all those differing sounds combine with the direct and reflected sound in less or non destructive ways. So, yes, trying to fake multiple signals by radiating some out of polarity signal to increase the sonic complexity can sound better than the worst case scenario, an omni speaker, it is still a far cry from the sonic realism that can be achieved with 2 or more sources radiating 2 or mose sounds in 2 or more directions.

[@Joshualbm]

@@DaveRat Dipole, bipole, of a planar, electrostatic and open baffle speakers plus many traditional dynamic speaker manufacturers have successfully dealt with comb filtering for decades. Driver design, proximity, baffle design, wave guides and crossover designs can get stunning results.

[@DaveRat]

Perhaps in the forward field but... Any design that allows both the front and rear of the speaker to enter the same acoustic space will have a null region when the listener is equidistant from the front and rear radiating areas (90 degrees off axis) and... The sound from the front will be the reverse polarity from the sound from the rear and... There will be significant cancellations at various distance related frequencies as you move from the front to the rear. All the speakers you mentioned have a figure 8 coverage patterns which is all good and can sound wonderful. There are instruments that have somewhat of a figure 8 pattern, such as open back drums and open back electric guitar amps But unlike actual instruments where one instrument will radiate perhaps a bright sound to the front and dull sound to the rear or perhaps a bright sound to both the front and rear, the speakers you mention have predetermined forward and rear frequency responses. Take two speakers, maybe your home hi-fi left and home hi-fi right and reverse the wires on one of them, put them back to back, now you have the equivalent radiation pattern of a dipole, open back or planar. Walk around, listen. Hear the null, hear the cancellations. Learn through experimentation

[@sendjaniadhiakhsa9740]

this maybe stupid question,how about we change that horn? with now tech audio things...its posible?

[@DaveRat]

Totally could put a mic there and amplify. Will ponder doing it

[@RAILWAY_FILMS]

if you think about it, there's really no such thing as a point source. Technically even one of those bullet tweeters still fires in on direction and has a back-side where it mounts and does not project.. I definitely agree with your close-mic message. there are some of these local bands who get so mad that I want to mic up all the drums, they immediately think I am doing it to make them louder. NO, that's not why, I am trying to isolate each drum.. and it MAY be for recording purposes.. I know you know that but .. which reminds me of a recording I did and the drummer was hell bent on making me use "recorder man" technique because he had read all about it. that's all well and good but the microphones I had were entry level and not omni so .. just let me do what I can now or go somewhere else, thanks. nothing personal either... but yeah its mind-boggling how some of the guitar tones are wildly distorted.. but you know.. I mean just look at pre-amps.. or tubes or guitar pickups..its all about which distortion is favorable... but nobody wants a "clean" tone.. in that case, maybe any mix can be rammed through some kind of high voltage amp, then re-captured with the greatest microphones, the greatest preamps, and eq'ed with the greatest eq's and use super high-dollar crossovers to separate bands to use the very best compressors on each band separately and I don't know.. maybe somehow you can polish a turd

[@DaveRat]

🤙

[@AdamGotheridge]

Awesome!

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@bassblom]

I ❤ your out of the box thinking!

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@il_moe]

Thanks, Dave! Have you ever dived into the dead wall of sound and how you approached the peppers rig and what we can learn from that? I feel like separating amplified sources into different pa clusters is somewhat an in between a traditional sound system and your realistic speaker. What do you think?

[@DaveRat]

Here's a link to one post but there's a bunch more on the wall of sound and how I actually did a wall of sound for Black Flag tour and the double hung VA as a modern version that's more feasible ratsound.com/cblog/archives/333-Heart-Wrench.html

[@il_moe]

@@DaveRat Do you think manufacturers will ever build multi channel single enclosure systems? Like a dual pa in one enclosure?

[@DaveRat]

Hmmm, systems like Holoplot and the new L-Acoustics L2 system have amps for each speaker and the ability to sends multiple signals to any combo of amps. So the capability is here and increasing. Also, with EAW Anya I did some work on multiple signals sent to differing speakers such that each signal had differing coverage. Also system configs like L-Isa ar exploiting versions of de-correlated sounds sent to multiple speakers. So yes, sort of.

[@FreeAssRecords]

Dave. David Abbruzzese here... Man. This really opened my mind to a very useful way of thinking about sound. I appreciate you taking the time to share your mind. I want you to know that this train of thought will be used by me...for better or worse it of course, remains to be heard. Thank you! "I don't think they got signed." 😂😅😂

[@DaveRat]

Hell yes and hello Dave! So cool to see ya here and thank you Also we finally made some eat sweats . Let's get some swag to ya

[@markq23]

Great video dave!😊👍thanks! Was wondering if you have ever tuned a pa system using target curves? Engineers that use a specific target curve to get the pa sounding a certain way on every speaker to get the same sound everywhere. Wouldnt they be setting themselves up for more problems with comb filtering? More work! Would a better approach be to just get the speakers sounding good but not the exact same?

[@DaveRat]

Target curves are frequency response tuning. Not sending the same signal is a different adventure. You could play one CD on the left in a completely different CD on the right and have them both EQ'd to the same target curve and there'd be no interaction And yes, I tune and mix to a target curve and also have the mix sound different in diff parts of the venue

[@robertmaune8557]

You are correct

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@catherineescol7852]

Dave Rat is one of those Teacher, Reviewer Combo Guy, better than other Delusional Golden Ear all talk Golden ear Audiophiles, this guy is knowledgeable, experienced and Speak the Truth, Some Fake Audiophile steal stuff to say from a Writer.

[@madrx2]

So true Catherine. Those Delusional flogs annoy me beyond comprehension.

[@modularsynthguy6694]

Best Video, Thanks Dave!

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@How_much_where_and_When]

Top good ! You know, to wish, to get and to assess according to compare where, when and how much.

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@BlAcKpHrAcK]

The artists are credited and I can now mix my own digitised vinyls. 64-Bit VINYL Van Halen - Spanish Fly kzbin.info/www/bejne/g4OzqaCwiapqe5Y 64-Bit VINYL Van Halen - D O A kzbin.info/www/bejne/iqSalJp-i7WEhKs 64-Bit VINYL Sly And The Family Stone - Dance To The Music kzbin.info/www/bejne/ml6ohnp4iritjZY I think this is the actual LP that my mother told me never to play ..I was serious apparently, the second-hand preamp I had at the time, I noticed it now sells for $500.00. Thank you Ma (handling the record prior to 2001, RIP) and Dean for being able to transfer these in 2007. Good luck buying the preamp today ..it might also need to have it's capacitors and aging components replaced. Sounded great then, the preamp specifications in the manual state better than 40 kcps frequency response. Sly and the Family Stone sang about "CynthIA on the throne ..the horn's blown." Ma's vinyl ..now I understand who CynthIA is.

[@DaveRat]

Interesting and cool

[@radomirblazik]

The old musician's saying about high end HiFi purists, they listen to their system using your music as a means, instead of using their system as a means to listen to your music.

[@DaveRat]

So too and well said

[@cajonosaurus]

Hey dave, u r an enigma, I think I've probably said that before but it bares repeating, an impecible delivery, u r a true master of ur craft, a one off, I'm also concerned what the dickens uv done to ur arm?,

[@DaveRat]

Thank you and broke wrist on snowboard jumps

[@janm2510]

bruce Edgar did the maths on the horn. allowing for friction keeps the wave front parallel. one of his horns for vlf would be interesting?

[@kabirdasananda108]

legend 👨🏻‍🚀

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@bayshorepark1231239]

Great video, thank you so much for this information Rat man!

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@ThePlagueGameing]

We're looking for perfection which won't be accomplished on this planet;!❤

[@jamesdouglaswhite]

Depending on how far away the sounds are coming from, I could see the sounds becoming a point source. For instance, if a game is being played at a stadium, and I live a mile away from the stadium, would the noise of the stadium not become a point source the farther away I get from the stadium?

[@teddine7366]

What happened to your arm man? I broke my wrist about a year ago. I was riding one of those electric scooters doing about 40 mph and wrecked it and hit the road like a rag doll. Had to have surgery and some metal put in it man. I like your vids by the way. I've been watching them for atleast a few years now. Every show I go to I always check out the soundboard and PA's if I can get a peek.

[@sambaker7255]

Portable, wireless.. NO BATTERY to wear out... perfect personal listening device.

[@DaveRat]

When the airline tells you to shut off all the electronic devices but no we keep rocking as we whip out the old school music player

[@sambaker7255]

@@DaveRat Yep !!!!! and your cart full of cylinders ... LOL !

[@HazeAnderson]

@@DaveRat 🤘😆🤟

[@WorshipShed]

Wisdom!

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@WorshipShed]

My hero

[@DaveRat]

Honored!

[@miffy126]

I’m not sure wax cylinders would do well at the beach with the hot sun. 😮

[@DaveRat]

Yeah, umbrella!

[@simccaffrey]

"Cow's don't look like cows on film. You gotta use horses."

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@pearldrumsets]

What about a lapel mic especially when the person dosent speak loud enough? I pick up alot of room noise because his transmitter gain is so high. What would you do to cut down room noise

[@DaveRat]

Get the mic closer to the sound source mouth

[@pearldrumsets]

@DaveRat I wish I can send u a picture of how close I got it now

[@nathe7538]

interesting!

[@DaveRat]

👍🤙👍

[@wilcandou]

What firmware version is on that "skwark box"? 😂

[@DaveRat]

I believe the firmware is oak.brass

[@HazeAnderson]

12:00 Offering the exact same perspective, or group of perspectives ... and then offering that exact same perspective to TWO groups of perspectives ... and those two groups of perspectives offer that exact same perspective to two MORE groups of perspectives ... and so on ... and so on ... and so on ... this does not happen in nature ... but it DOES in shampoo commercials 😆

[@DaveRat]

Funny!

[@anikoboros2887]

❤ The backbone of the new Bible. Bible for sound engineer. I can just fully agree!

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@pirateradioFPV]

I laugh at the people trying to replicate the sound the recording had in the studio because that's not the sound they want to hear - daft punk used a ghettoblaster to master one of their albums 😂I also speak strongly against the use of room effects when you don't need them; using a reverb for example can cause the final mix to sound really cacophonic with the room effect of the room it is played in. This becomes especially true with the bigger PA system, which the regular home sound engineers don't mix for. Personally I master with speakers that are source dependent. If the source is bad, the speakers sound bad. Most of the hifi-systems don't thrive for this kind of behaviour, they just want to sound good - and that's a good thing. If you pay a lot of money for a set of speakers that's technically good, you want it to sound good regardless of the detail level it produces. If you want to enjoy the character of the vinyl or the tube amps, you can, too. They're likely not the most technically capable solutions for audio reproduction but if it's the sound you grew up loving, there's nothing wrong with loving it still - even if it's a gramophone from the 1890s. And I think that's something a lot of the "audiophiles" forget in their quest for that last 0.00001% of THD or SINAD. They still can't enjoy their system if there's a device that can give you that 0.00001% difference which you can't hear, but you're still aware of. How miserable of a life is that?

[@DaveRat]

I love the wide variety of sound reproduction systems and devices. All good!!

[@EdEditz]

I think you need to put new firmware in that there edison machine ^___^

[@DaveRat]

Yes I do need a new belt update.

[@hoobsgroove]

It' needs a service that grandma phone you can still buy new cylinders there's a few people making them. how did you break your arm?

[@DaveRat]

Wrist broke snowboarding. And yeah, needs a belt. Maybe do a vid on the fix

[@hoobsgroove]

You Still got snow. Yeah check out the cylinders have some modern material not just old. I'm not sure about the diaphragm I thought maybe it's a bit stiff, the rubbers go hard on those you can make new ones out of silicon it will Increases the bass

[@squizsquires6247]

This entire sement rules !Top fun !! No good re wrist bruv. Ha DeathBiter !!!

[@WorshipShed]

Wait, what happened to your arm?

[@DaveRat]

Broke my wrist snowboarding. I am 60 years old and boarding like teenage. I fly well but don't bounce like I used to when I fall

[@zambotv8150]

You got carasma

[@DaveRat]

Honored and thank you!

[@edmx]

This is why I laugh at hi-fi addicts, because I know how the records are made!

[@DaveRat]

Right!!

[@HazeAnderson]

Aging audiophiles love moving cartridges because they implicitly boost the high end which aging audiophiles are slowly losing the ability to hear. 😏

[@RapturesDelight]

Summation issues suck!

[@DaveRat]

Yes and they make our gig not boring! Complex challenges weed out the week ones

[@StringBeanWoodworking]

Hard to appreciate a Picasso or Rembrandt if your glasses are dirty.

[@DelmaRaySmithJr]

flaws in the ointment

[@DaveRat]

🤙👍🤙

[@weareallbeingwatched4602]

We will probably be able to chuck some AI at this and make the speaker forest

[@DelmaRaySmithJr]

Early Peppers

[@benfarneyjr8854]

Likes are at 666 I can't break that....me like lots

[@DaveRat]

🔧🎛️🔧

[@marshpw]

Put these videos in the Smithsonian.

[@DaveRat]

Honored!

[@flamindigo]

I'm really glad I'm not taking a class from this guy. He took 27 minutes to say absolutely nothing.

[@DaveRat]

Ahh, yes, perhaps you, door knob and house plant all share similar comprehension levels? Good stuff!

[@weareallbeingwatched4602]

Akh no Mr Rat... different bits of the instrument do *not* make a discrete difference to the overall sound, they are not voices in a choir, because the instrument makes basically one sound everywhere - it has one wiggle - one vibration- it is mechanically coupled. Glued together tight. One impulse click is what we want - not a "bag of bolts". The physical directivity of a violin is compromised some, but at 30ft off, you should not see a lot of directivity off most instruments, even something like a trumpet. The complexity of the geometry creates the *tone* or the *performance* - it supplies the wiggle - and lots of instruments have complexities to the design to *even out the response* . Getting precision and efficient transfer in an instrument is about DC and low end - expensive instruments have more power and more bass. They are a "stronger engine", and have much stiffer materials fitted together with more precision. There is non linearity and localisation *but* the voice of the instrument is singular - the character is encoded as timbre. More mics is more averaging, and less localised or extraneous stuff, it's required for some stuff, but I'd rather use one clean omni mic if possible. The coupled nature of the instrument components makes *one* sound - a tom tom has two skins and an air column but works as *one* thing. The geometry of the eigenvectors and eigenmodes of the disotortion characteristic is what we are hearing. We are hearing *distortion* in an acoustic instrument. It is the complexity of that distortion characteristic which the mono fourier model is less useful for comprehending or deconstructing, and the current computational approach to multiphysics means that we can now get a proper handle on the distortion characteristic of most materials, and get ever closer to creating a linear reproducing device which can render any instrument's voice arbitrarily - just like a screen can display a picture. "Clean" is synthetic, and it is the product of a surreal and unnatural level of calibrated neutrality. The closer to a "click" we get when tapping the speaker box, or speaker cone, the better the system will sound. You can validate designs fairly easily using impulses - ie a hard beater - B&W would use a sapphire ball on a special non resonant gantry. We don't want our loudspeaker cabinet and diaphragm working like a kick drum, ideally. Sealed cabinets are a good way to go, in this respect. A loudspeaker should store no energy, and have no group delay either. Theoretically. By the same virtue, the surface of an image rendering device such as a screen, it needs to be uniform, opaque, and non-reflective. Matte black is the look of nothing, a screen is - optically speaking - a product of darkness as well as light emission. The unnatural darkness of a screen is equivalent to a lack of distortion or directivity issues in a loudspeaker. Vantablack type black ink is likely very applicable to LED tile performance, and we like graphene in A/V for all sorts of things. It has weird mechanical, electronic and optical properties which can be useful. Low distortion and linearity is not found in venues, but it should be. I have heard fully acoustically treated places - the venue sized studio room iron maiden had built as a showcase suite in olympia was amazing, purple horn turbosound and midas heritage in a basically non-reflective "armadillo shape" room sounded way better than any venue I have worked in. Way better. Like night and day better. Held about 400 people at a push.

[@DaveRat]

I never said discrete Perhaps the video needs a better watch 😉 I said differing sounds in differing directions. And Different mics grab different perspectives

[@stephenstange4194]

Would love to hear you discuss this with your daughter. With her training she would have a great perspective!

[@weareallbeingwatched4602]

@@DaveRat antiresonance features are often included in instruments to tune out the standing waves inherent to a resonating body. Some instrument bodies are "mono-pitch", such as drums. Other instrument bodies are designed with a much wider Q, and have non-circular geometries. The reason why speakers are circular is because of stress risers, and structural integrity, not because we want it to sound like a tom tom. Certainly speakers are ideally suited to reproducing drums, and have much more trouble sounding authentic for instrument such as the human voice. The ideal is to be able to have enormous power and precision control, so the advances to be had are in the magnetics domain. Digital motors and arrays will afford many new possibilities.

[@HazeAnderson]

@@weareallbeingwatched4602 "it has one wiggle - one vibration- it is mechanically coupled" wrong. I'll let you chew on that a while before I tell you why. 😉

[@weareallbeingwatched4602]

@@HazeAnderson I have invested time and effort into making sure my concert guitar sounds the same every time - I have two identical ones, the first one is ex napalm death. You can put it in a case, fly it, and get it out of the case, and it'll still be in tune. That's engineering. It sounds great, and has magnificent performance - but there is a video on youtube of a geezer using a machinehead and a string on a *girder* in his apartment, and comparing that to a guitar, and it sounds amazing. Usual guitar type sound, just more of it, and basically fuller and burlier sounding. 99.9% of the sound is in the string - the body is where it gets lost if you don't have a high performance material. You could use stone, glass, plate steel, solid oak, or solid bronze, and it'll sound good and much the same with a string and a magnetic pickup. It'll sound the same the better you get the material, and the more "zero" it provides the string terminals. We want *no movement* of the bridge and nut/fret foundation, just the string. The neck and neck joints are a usual point of failure, making the decay very short and meaning the instrument doesn't stay in tune. If you measure the string with a laser or the lightwave pickup it'll sound exactly like what I am collecting with the various pickups, give or take some nodes and impedance stuff, whether the guitar's solidness is decent or not. The resonance profile may not have equal phase and directivity in every place on the resonating body, but it's *one wiggle*, and the musical sound is in the resonance - ie the regularised and non-lossy material distortion characteristic. You can contact mic the body, the headstock, or mic it up at a distance. Same guitar. My cymbals, drums, or a piano, it's all the same engineering to produce resonance, and good performance is pretty specific in terms of low friction - low damping ratio. The piano with no dampers will make reverb, right... we don't want the speaker doing that. "Matte black" for acoustics is no resonance. No energy storage, no group delay. It's soundproof, really. Not easily obtainable. Easiest way to make your speakers sound amazing is soundproof the room so you get upwards of 80dB dynamic range, and eliminate most of the hard surfaces - remove any mirror-like surfaces from the space, so we get diffuse reverb, not comb filtering and harsh car park 10 second RT60. Same is true for acoustic instruments, really. Whatever would make a great electric guitar body is exactly what we don't want to make the room out of. Inch thick plate steel... not ideal for a control room or venue. I worked in a venue that was an ex bank vault and it was always a problem. Really loud.

[@MrPeeBeeDeeBee]

A wagon full hahahaha..... This is v e r y interesting - the concept of musical instruments/combos etc and how we capture that messy and asymmetrical sound. And then using essentially distortion free symmetrical gear to mix and master for audiophiles to listen to on symmetrical sound systems, symmetrically placed in symmetrical rooms, in order to try and recapture the mix/masterer's perception of how it should sound. A good many audiophiles do this because they are fanatical about imaging as if they themselves are sitting at the console. And yeah, if you're into that then wear headphones. Personally I get good listening from setting up a sound system slightly, or sometimes a bit more, asymmetrically and then placing that setup asymmetrically in relation to the room. Then, rather that imaging, timbre and tonal balance become king. It also promotes listening from a different room or having a beer on the verandah and presto! the band in in the house.