Could you make a recording of a human voice anyway you want and play it back on any system you want and make it sound natural? you’re in charge of all decisions and the voice does not go to the bottom octave. Can you make that voice sound natural from a recording?
Natural Sound
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Could you make a recording of a human voice anyway you want and play it back on any system you want and make it sound natural? you’re in charge of all decisions and the voice does not go to the bottom octave. Can you make that voice sound natural from a recording?
I am in full agreement with this post except for your history with Ralph, which I know nothing about. I have heard a gramophone and I was astonished at how it sounded. Shocked actually.
You would be in for another shock if you recorded your own voice direct to disk.
I agree, Peter, that for most music, certainly classical music, you don't need deep bass to give you an idea of "natural" or "realistic" upon reproduction. However, I just listened to the piece Nocturnal from below album of music by Edgard Varese. It features soprano, male choir and orchestral ensemble, with a prominent role for a bass drum. Since the bass drum is really important in Nocturnal, a reproduction of the piece without the deep bass of the bass drum cannot be called "natural".
If you went to Hampstead Heath open air concerts and couldn't get a seat near the stage but heard the wonderful sound from a few hundred yards away, would you say it sounded unnatural?
Bass drum does not need deep bass. This is quite an NL thing to think the frequency of real instrument needs to be reproduced exactly to that point in a stereo system. A stereo system is about extrapolation. You are never going to get the exact size dimensions, frequency, tone, and coherence of a real orchestra outside real.
Also, if frequency was the only thing, have you heard an amateur, not so good orchestra play in the same venue as a good one? They both have the same frequency response, one will make you walk out in minutes.
Bass drums come in different sizes. The heads can be tuned by tightening the skins to control resonance.
Imo reproducing the fundamental of an orchestral bass drum is important but not as important as the harmonics, dynamic range and articulation. Ideally you want to be able to tell what the bass drum is hit with - a large squishy soft mallet or harder mallets (at either end of the many types of mallets) and material (felt, wood, etc.) -- here the harmonics help you know. Also, how hard is the strike. You also want to hear how the bass drum is played eg. wholly unfettered. dampened before the strike or dampened after the strike, etc.
You need not know the technique or material details, in order to hear the differences that result from them. Bass drum adds impact and texture to classical music.
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Or here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhR0UYAB3r8
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Sure but that will also happen for the same good orchestra playing different pieces, they will use different instruments tuned differently.
What is the broad difference between two groups of 40 people, one good, one bad playing the same piece in the same venue? Even with some differences in their instruments, how much difference do you seriously think the frequency response is the reason one sounds better than the other?
Is there really an argument the frequency response of one bass drum Vs another bass drum caused an issue?
That's a bit too bonzo argumentative for me. I provided information about the sonic characteristics of the instrument that a system could reproduce.
Here's the best answer (heh) the world can give you: A ballpark figure for the orchestral bass drum is ~40-120Hz, more typically on the higher side for classical. Unlike the timpani the orchestral bass drum is not scored at a particular pitch and from what I understand bass drums are constructed to not have a specific pitch. If a strike is made at the edge of the skin you will hear a tone however the other skin (the resonant skin) is tightened to a half-step different to avoid a distinct pitch. A strike with a large soft mallet avoids any sense of pitch. (ref)
easy to Google frequency response, but is your argument, taking your figures, that one orchestra could be playing the bass drum at 40 hz and another at 120 hz making you dislike one of the pieces?
I assume not. So, if one is playing at 40 and another a little bit different, is that causing the issues?
I wasn’t doing the argument. I made a clear statement why the frequency response won’t make a difference in choice of the orchestra, OCDed forum philes wanted to show off that bass drums slightly differ. But they don’t want to say that frequency response is causing a difference in the sonic choice. The googling of bass drum differences here is not serving a point
You missed the point by such a large margin and you're being snippy so ta-ta for today.
Of course .. it would be a miracle if they were !
We are talking about SPL here not just fr ..fr without dbspl is silence
It won't change the argument with the SPL. The louder one could belong to either the better sounding orchestra or the worse sounding one. Depends how he integrates with his colleagues.
Of course this won’t affect choices on live or even recorded orchestras but it does impact hifi system choice…why are you bringing up live orchestras when the discussion is over systems being natural?
It was to the point that the stereo does not have to exactly replicate the frequency of the bass drum. It has to get able to allow you to extrapolate the bass drum integrated with the orchestra, neither of which is replicating exact frequencies of real
It has to reproduce the range it is capable of correctly...particularly harmonics and overtones, which is what people hear mostly when they talk about the "texture" and "tone" of the bass. Most drums don't go much below 40Hz anyway...only possibly some really big bass ones but again, you are mostly reacting to the upper frequencies when judging whether or not it sounds like a real drum.
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