Imaging: Causes, Detriments, and Fixes

[DonH50]

I'll toss this out for the dart-throwers...

To me, the sound stage I equate to e.g. a theater stage. Like the extent of a theater stage, the sound stage is the extent of the perceived sound field, left to right, front to back, top to bottom.

The image is how well individual instruments, voices, etc. are placed in the sound stage. This means first putting them in the right place spatially (which includes a time element, of course), and then having them stay there and not "move around" as frequency and dynamics change. That is, once a cello is placed, it should not appear to move in the sound stage as the volume changes or as the player goes from lowest to highest notes.

Both these can be heavily influenced by the mix, so it probably takes a dedicated test album (CD, whatever) to determine the sound stage and imaging potential of your own system. And, room acoustics and interactions with other instruments' (voices', whatever) sounds can cause shifts in sound stage and imaging, both during the recording and playback.

All IMO - Don

p.s. Jack beat me to it, and much more concisely!

 

[DWR]

Well Don, right, wrong, or indifferent, that is exactly how I would define both sound stage and imaging.

Dan

 

[rsbeck]

Your listening room also has an effect on imaging. Harder to get good imaging in a room with problems, which describes most all untreated rooms, unless you go to more of a near-field set-up.

 

[MylesBAstor]

I'll toss this out for the dart-throwers...

To me, the sound stage I equate to e.g. a theater stage. Like the extent of a theater stage, the sound stage is the extent of the perceived sound field, left to right, front to back, top to bottom.

The image is how well individual instruments, voices, etc. are placed in the sound stage. This means first putting them in the right place spatially (which includes a time element, of course), and then having them stay there and not "move around" as frequency and dynamics change. That is, once a cello is placed, it should not appear to move in the sound stage as the volume changes or as the player goes from lowest to highest notes.

Both these can be heavily influenced by the mix, so it probably takes a dedicated test album (CD, whatever) to determine the sound stage and imaging potential of your own system. And, room acoustics and interactions with other instruments' (voices', whatever) sounds can cause shifts in sound stage and imaging, both during the recording and playback.

All IMO - Don

p.s. Jack beat me to it, and much more concisely!

How do you know the wander you're noting is not in the actually recording and traceable to the microphoning technique? Or how much of the wander is due to how much of the mike (s) on the cymbal or drums are mixed into each channel? Hall, studio and miking are everything. No miking set-up is perfect; they all have their pros and cons--but I think we can all agree, all things being equal, the simpler the better.

And what happens to imaging when a cellist or violinist moves while playing? After all, they're not in a vise. Same goes for a sax, trumpet player, etc. So some of the movement is actually real. Listen to Starker on Mercury and you can hear him moving as he plays

 

[DonH50]

Well, I play trumpet, and have recorded a lot of groups, so I am very familiar with the concept of musicians moving, and I fully agree with you. I was using the cello as an example to define the term, at least the way I use it, not to imply that is what actually happens in the real world. Don't get me started on the sound engineers who decide to start moving things around to "improve" the sound or make it more "interesting" by having the violins fly across the stage... Besides, most low strings don't move around much (especially section players, not enough room on stage, and those long stringed things are just too big; good luck trying to close-mic our oboist! )

Bottom line: that is why I said you need a known test source to really determine your imaging.

Cool? - Don

 

[MylesBAstor]

Well, I play trumpet, and have recorded a lot of groups, so I am very familiar with the concept of musicians moving, and I fully agree with you. I was using the cello as an example to define the term, at least the way I use it, not to imply that is what actually happens in the real world. Don't get me started on the sound engineers who decide to start moving things around to "improve" the sound or make it more "interesting" by having the violins fly across the stage... Besides, most low strings don't move around much (especially section players, not enough room on stage, and those long stringed things are just too big; good luck trying to close-mic our oboist! )

Bottom line: that is why I said you need a known test source to really determine your imaging.

Cool? - Don

I was just trying to point the differences between hypothetical and reality.

Actually in contrast to Ethan, I don't know anybody who doesn't understand the concept of imaging. First time my GF heard my system, she immediately grasped the concept (of course she's a trained soprano )

 

[DonH50]

Shoot, if you're going to bring "reality" into this discussion, I'm outa' here!

I was gonna' insert a soprano joke or two here, but (a) I am sure y'all have heard them all already, and (b) I couldn't get through the "sort" function quick enough... - Don

 

[RBFC]

Perhaps it would be an interesting idea if we were to arrive at a consensus about a few CDs that we would use as "references" for imaging when talking among the members here. In this manner, we could compare notes on the same recording. Might make for some interesting discussion!

Lee

 

[JackD201]

I don't think localization need be related to the subject being stationary, just that you know where he is when he's singing or playing.

Kind of like in those test CDs...

I'm now walking to the right of the stage... clunk... clunk.... clunk......

 

[Bruce B]

When we do location recording, I always draw a diagram of where the musicians are placed relative to their surroundings and try to maintain that "soundstage" when I edit the material back in the studio. It's really saved me in a few situations.

 

[JackD201]

I was OC that way in school Bruce. Drums except kick on tracks 1-8 and the rest laid out like they were on stage so I could lay the panning out like a fan. Then kick, bass and lead vocals beside each other in the middle.