How Recordings Are Made vs. Concert Hall Realism at Home: Piano Recordings

Orb

New Member
Sep 8, 2010
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You guys have different ideas regarding what's boring. I have plenty of old jazz recordings made with just a few mics, live or in-studio - some stereo, some mono - all upon which the piano is mono without a sense of key imaging. They're not boring. Evan's "Waltz With Debby" is not boring, and it's definitely an audience perspective piano recording. Miles' "Round About Midnight" is a studio recording, but mono, period. Not boring.

With that said, if you're going to do a modern studio recording of a piano, give me that sense of spread and space. Why not? Trying to emulate a concert hall experience from a modern studio recording is futile. Enjoy the art you have, not the reproduction you imagine you could have.

P

Hey P this may interest you, while also still being sort of on topic.
An interesting modern development is that some of the very old jazz pianists are being recreated so that we have new recordings of the older and importantly the poorer quality recordings.

There is a new solution-technology that enables the scanning/analysing of an old recording for various instruments including piano and then this is recreated in a much more advanced way to the Yamaha Disklavier re-performance.
The technology has been recently applied to a great jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, where they are recreating his playing at a large studio room in Abbey Road and importantly still using a Bosendorfer, which will be available later this year or maybe next - will be Treasures From The Estate.

What I find fascinating is that this means any old/previous recording of an incredible musician can be recreated with the same instrument and then have different mic setup applied, including the use of a better recording environment in some/many cases.
So far this technology has been used to release re-performances of Art Tatum, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Glenn Gould.
It is meant to be very impressive, but takes a lot of time and resources to create the re-performance (and ingenuity to modify a Bosendorfer in this case to play digital commands).
Anyway some of those or future works may be of interest to you or others if they love some of the older jazz, and even other genres.

I appreciate some may be skeptical about how close this technology can come to an original, but it does seem this is the best (seems well received for those who have heard the technology in operation) and in some cases only way to do the equivalent of a remaster/mic setup change/etc.
http://www.zenph.com/about.html

Anyway, it could be said this is the ultimate for a live recording in the home - if you could afford the modified instrument and a version of their technology :)

Cheers
Orb
 
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Phelonious Ponk

New Member
Jun 30, 2010
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Orb, I'd be willing to try any technology that might put new life into old recordings. I listen to my Oscar Peterson and Charlie Parker records and love them for what they are. But if there was something that could bring the life and dynamics of good modern recording into them, I'd love them more. Especially the Bird sides. As revered as he is, I think he is actually under appreciated because of the quality of recording in his day.

Once you get past "good," nowhere near "best," fidelity is much more about the recordings than the gear.

P
 

Orb

New Member
Sep 8, 2010
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Well keep an eye on the zenph site, as they have the re-performed CDs for sale or linked (in association with record label in many cases), and the Oscar Peterson done with the assistance of Abbey Road looks like its going to be very good, so hopefully will see it on there in under 6months :)

Cheers
Orb
 

Mario Martinez

Well-Known Member
Aug 17, 2016
59
3
90
www.playclassics.com
As I've mentioned here before, I think that one of the two main obstacles to achieving a reasonable facsimile of concert hall sound at home is how commercial recordings are made. A case in point is recordings of classical or other acoustic (unamplified) music played by solo piano.

Hi Tom,

I think I am a little late for this thread, but I would really appreciate it if you could take the time to listen to this sample:

Albéniz Iberia. El Corpus en Sevilla. Luis Grané, piano. (flac 24bit 96kHz. Zip archive 153mb)
http:www.playclassics.com/direct_download_demo4

What you are hearing is a demo of the Truthful Recording Technology (calibration version 2.0)

This technology is the product of an 8 year research project. The purpose of the Truthful Recording Technology is to achieve transparency (that would be to produce that facsimile image you are talking about).

To go about this, we developed a fixed setup. We only use two mics always placed on the same exact spot of our auditorium (outside of the stage area). We do not use any mixing or mastering. Our technology is all about calibrating the hall and the recording chain to be transparent. The better the calibration, the more transparent the setup will be.

The project started in 2009. We spent the first four years working on the physical side of things (fixing the acoustic problems presented by the relationship between hall, stage and pickup point). We then spent the next three years working on the calibration of the recording chain.

We worked on many different calibrations and developed methods to test and verify the results. By August 1st 2016 we had reached the transparency point. That is what you are hearing on calibration version 2.0

Here is a link to our page where we explain why we did this:
http://www.playclassics.com/about

I hope you find this interesting.

Regards,
Mario.
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
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0
Seattle, WA
Hello Mario. Warm welcome to the forum. I must say, this is the first instance I have read about trying to match the recording with the venue. I downloaded the demo and listened. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of ambiance in there and very enjoyable recording. Found one issue on my laptop that I will PM you about but otherwise, very well done! Seems like some shopping is in my near future from your site! :)
 

Mario Martinez

Well-Known Member
Aug 17, 2016
59
3
90
www.playclassics.com
Hello Mario. Warm welcome to the forum. I must say, this is the first instance I have read about trying to match the recording with the venue. I downloaded the demo and listened. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of ambiance in there and very enjoyable recording. Found one issue on my laptop that I will PM you about but otherwise, very well done! Seems like some shopping is in my near future from your site! :)

Thank you Amir,

Yes, I do not think this has ever been tried before (at least not to my knowledge). This type of project is not commercially viable (we did not know how long it was going to take or if we were ever going to be able to complete our project) so I can see why. The good thing is we did get there, and now that it is done it can be used to record basically anything always with the same results. From a large piano, to a flamenco guitar, a drum set or a rock band.

I can think of many applications for this technology but right know we are just trying to let people know about it.

We are currently holding a master file giveaway at another audiophile forum. I would feel bad if you actually bought the album since we are currently giving them away next door.

If you do not mind me doing so, I will PM you a Gift Code so you can download the complete album.

Actually what I would like to do is open a thread to offer that master file giveaway here at WBF :)
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Thank you Amir,

Yes, I do not think this has ever been tried before (at least not to my knowledge). This type of project is not commercially viable (we did not know how long it was going to take or if we were ever going to be able to complete our project) so I can see why. The good thing is we did get there, and now that it is done it can be used to record basically anything always with the same results. From a large piano, to a flamenco guitar, a drum set or a rock band.

I can think of many applications for this technology but right know we are just trying to let people know about it.

We are currently holding a master file giveaway at another audiophile forum. I would feel bad if you actually bought the album since we are currently giving them away next door.

If you do not mind me doing so, I will PM you a Gift Code so you can download the complete album.

Actually what I would like to do is open a thread to offer that master file giveaway here at WBF :)

Hi Mario and indeed welcome to WBF

Your offer I am certain will be well received by members and thank you for it. Feel free to start the thread
 

Mario Martinez

Well-Known Member
Aug 17, 2016
59
3
90
www.playclassics.com

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