PlayClassics TRT v2.0 master file giveaway for WBF members

[Mario Martinez]

Mario, I only had the chance to listen to about 30 seconds of both titles, but I already know that this is a project I'll be watching very closely. More when I listen more on my proper system.

Meanwhile, I'd love to hear the experimental samples too if you wouldn't mind. I'd also love to hear about your time studying with Earl Wild, but maybe that's for a different thread. Thanks again!

Hi Simon, yes, that was a long time ago, but it really did have a lot to do with everything that has happened since.

 

[Mario Martinez]

Right now I am listening to the three Drum demo tracks. Right from the bat I have to tell you that you'll have to turn your master level up to fully appreciate the capture from the mics. And your speakers will reveal exactly what's on the recording technique...the distance, the dynamics, the punch of your woofers (Pure Audio mode), and your tweeters (cymbals).

This is not a close-up recording with mics right to the drums and cymbals. As Mario earlier posted a diagram of where the mics are in relation behind the drum kit and drummer.

Thank you NorthStar for you very detailed feedback. All that information you provided about your system is really useful to us.

Yes, the drums and rock both have less volume than usual. The peaks on the drums are so high this is the highest volume you can get if you want to keep the full dynamic range of the performance. It might be a little lower than usual but you do not have any of the drawbacks of dynamic range compression.

 

[Believe High Fidelity]

Thank you for the downloads. Right off the bat the quality of the recording is excellent.

I mirror the thoughts of my peers and will be following this with great interest especially for Jazz

 

[Mario Martinez]

Thank you for the downloads. Right off the bat the quality of the recording is excellent.

I mirror the thoughts of my peers and will be following this with great interest especially for Jazz

Thanks Joshua

I will let you know as soon as we have something on those lines. In the meantime, I am sending you the experimental samples in case you want to hear that guitar and drums

 

[NorthStar]

Thank you NorthStar for you very detailed feedback. All that information you provided about your system is really useful to us.

Yes, the drums and rock both have less volume than usual. The peaks on the drums are so high this is the highest volume you can get if you want to keep the full dynamic range of the performance. It might be a little lower than usual but you do not have any of the drawbacks of dynamic range compression.

Yes, you are correct Mario. Those transparent music recordings are not the usual compression music recordings that 99% of music listeners are used to.
This is a new experience...and it requires new listening processing in our brain. It's the same with all higher planes in life.
We have to abandon the music compression that we are so used to and embark on a new odyssey of full swing transparency, with all the natural dynamic elements of the recordings.

I believe that you are on a right path.

By the way Mario, some of my favorite music recording labels are from...ECM, Channel Classics and Reference Recordings.
I also like very much some SACD and DVD-Audio music mediums...stereo and multichannel.
As for bit depth and sample rate...anything @ 20-bit/88.2kHz and/or above, when properlyl utilized, is fine. So 24/96 is good.

? My favorite musical instrument is . . . the piano.

 

[Mario Martinez]

I would like to explain something about the Drums samples. This might only affect people who are using large stereo setups to reproduce these recordings (by large I mean the distance from the listening point to the speakers)

You might find that when you playback the Drums samples on your systems, the image of the Drums set is bigger than it should be in relation to the playback image of the piano.

I have taken the time to draw some more pictures see if I could explain why this is happening


Here is a sketch of how all our piano recordings are made. The picture on the left corresponds to the recording setup. The picture on the right would be the image produced on your systems:

As you can see, the recording setup is built so that we can achieve a realistic size image during playback.


Now, here is a sketch of how we should have recorded the drums:

Had we done it this way, the playback image of the drums would have had a realistic size too (at least compared to the playback image on the piano recordings)


But this is what we did:

We were lazy enough not to move the piano out of the stage (guess we should have) so we ended up recording the drums closer to the mic than they should have been. That is the reason for the playback image of the Drums samples being a little bigger than it should (specially if you compare it to the piano recordings)

I hope this makes sense

 

[Folsom]

I don't believe it's possible to shrink the drums with the size of a stereo unless we're talking about computer desktop speakers. Even using monitors that are 6 feet apart the drum set is bigger than life.

 

[keantoken]

Hi Mario. I listened to some of the demos on your site and it reminds me a lot of the Boganyi Piano demo tracks. Maybe he used a similar recording technique because he wanted to demonstrate his piano's sound from the audience position? On that note I'm curious what is your perspective on new pianos like the Boganyi and the Stuart and Sons pianos?

I'd really like to have the Cabrera-Debussy and Iberia albums. I'm also eager to hear the drum and rock test tracks, although my listening setup is pretty oddball.

 

[Mario Martinez]

Here is some more useful information about the image of both, the piano and the drums:

There is nothing wrong with the images other than the fact that they are out of scale with each other. If you wanted to "see" a playback image of real size all you would have to do is move the speakers to match the scale of the recording setup.

Here is a sketch of the piano setup. To reproduce a real size image of the piano the speakers should be placed 11,365' apart. (If you played the drums here then the drums image would be too big)



Here is a sketch of the drums setup. To reproduce a real size image of the drums the speakers should be placed 7,456' apart. (If you played the piano here then the piano image would be too small)



We could have easily kept the same scale in both recordings by placing the drums in the same place as the piano. That way both images would have been "in sync" with each other no matter what the size of your system was.

 

[Mario Martinez]

Hi Mario. I listened to some of the demos on your site and it reminds me a lot of the Boganyi Piano demo tracks. Maybe he used a similar recording technique because he wanted to demonstrate his piano's sound from the audience position? On that note I'm curious what is your perspective on new pianos like the Boganyi and the Stuart and Sons pianos?

I'd really like to have the Cabrera-Debussy and Iberia albums. I'm also eager to hear the drum and rock test tracks, although my listening setup is pretty oddball.

Hi keantoken,

I just sent you a PM with the codes to download both albums and the flamenco, drums and rock experimental samples.

I have never had a chance to try any of those pianos, so I really could not state a formed opinion on them. Sorry

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Mario Martinez]

I would like to explain something about the rock sample (I do not know if anybody has listened to that yet)

Please keep in mind that this kind of experiment has never been done before. Yes, there might be some rock recordings that have been made without the use of close miking, but even if they were recorded using only two microphones, they were mixed/mastered to try to achieve the particular rock sound that the engineer/producer had in mind. This mixing/mastering process is not a choice, it is a must. When you record any instrument on any room, hall or studio, the sound of the take is always deformed by the acoustics of that particular venue. You need to mix/master it to make it sound "good". Plus you also have to take into account the fact that, if they were recording an album, the musicians probably spent countless hours trying different settings in their instruments to get the best possible sound out of them.

Here we have something different. We are not mixing or mastering anything. What you are hearing is just the "true" sound of the instruments. Getting our setup to produce that "true" sound is what has taken us 8 years of research. The hall has been worked during years of trail and error to try to minimize all the acoustic problems and the calibration has been developed specifically for that hall to take care of whatever acoustic problems were left. That way, when you record any instruments in this setup, you know that what you are hearing on the recording is the "true" sound of the instrument without any coloration or deformation. This does not mean that the sound on the recording is going to be "pretty" it just means that it is the sound that the musicians produced (by themselves without the intervention of any engineer, producer…) That should justify the fact that this particular sample is never going to sound like the "rock" we all have in mind.

I also have to say that the musicians actually did a great job. They are not recording artists. They do live gigs. They are used to having an engineer construct their sound at the mixing table. When I told them we were going to record this way (that means that they were going to be completely exposed without the help of any touch up) they had the courage to do it and I am really grateful for that.

 

[Believe High Fidelity]

So had a go with the sample tracks.

The flamenco tracks when she blew boy did that sound remarkable! So much dynamic range and compression free treble.

The drums did give off a larger than life stage and while transparent was missing weight and impact to the bass.

The rock track was a total miss for me. Unlike most I am big on rock of various genres so this is not a knock on the type of music. The treble was very crisp and fierce which seems to be the M.O across this type of recording style. However the low end/midbass is very polite in comparison and doesnt quite blend to the rest fo the frequency spectrum. As other have commented it may just be adjusting my ears to this type delivery, but I didnt have the emotional connection.

Of course this is splitting hairs since most recorded music is not on the same level but since you are looking for feedback you now have my .02 cents

Thanks again Mario

 

[NorthStar]

Mario, you know some more Flamenco dancers and music friends? You like Tango and accordion music players? ...Cuban music?

Those are great ? avenues too, among the piano players. ...Classical and World/International music.

 

[Mario Martinez]

So had a go with the sample tracks.

The flamenco tracks when she blew boy did that sound remarkable! So much dynamic range and compression free treble.

The drums did give off a larger than life stage and while transparent was missing weight and impact to the bass.

The rock track was a total miss for me. Unlike most I am big on rock of various genres so this is not a knock on the type of music. The treble was very crisp and fierce which seems to be the M.O across this type of recording style. However the low end/midbass is very polite in comparison and doesnt quite blend to the rest fo the frequency spectrum. As other have commented it may just be adjusting my ears to this type delivery, but I didnt have the emotional connection.

Of course this is splitting hairs since most recorded music is not on the same level but since you are looking for feedback you now have my .02 cents

Thanks again Mario

Hi Joshua,

Thank you very much for the feedback

I had just posted something that had a lot to do with what you just brought up: We built this setup to record classical music. We know it can also be used for other things like flamenco, jazz, blues, etc. But we wanted to try and see what would happen if we used it with something like rock. We thought it would be a very interesting experiment:

I would like to explain something about the rock sample (I do not know if anybody has listened to that yet)

Please keep in mind that this kind of experiment has never been done before. Yes, there might be some rock recordings that have been made without the use of close miking, but even if they were recorded using only two microphones, they were mixed/mastered to try to achieve the particular rock sound that the engineer/producer had in mind. This mixing/mastering process is not a choice, it is a must. When you record any instrument on any room, hall or studio, the sound of the take is always deformed by the acoustics of that particular venue. You need to mix/master it to make it sound "good". Plus you also have to take into account the fact that, if they were recording an album, the musicians probably spent countless hours trying different settings in their instruments to get the best possible sound out of them.

Here we have something different. We are not mixing or mastering anything. What you are hearing is just the "true" sound of the instruments. Getting our setup to produce that "true" sound is what has taken us 8 years of research. The hall has been worked during years of trail and error to try to minimize all the acoustic problems and the calibration has been developed specifically for that hall to take care of whatever acoustic problems were left. That way, when you record any instruments in this setup, you know that what you are hearing on the recording is the "true" sound of the instrument without any coloration or deformation. This does not mean that the sound on the recording is going to be "pretty" it just means that it is the sound that the musicians produced (by themselves without the intervention of any engineer, producer…) That should justify the fact that this particular sample is never going to sound like the "rock" we all have in mind.

I also have to say that the musicians actually did a great job. They are not recording artists. They do live gigs. They are used to having an engineer construct their sound at the mixing table. When I told them we were going to record this way (that means that they were going to be completely exposed without the help of any touch up) they had the courage to do it and I am really grateful for that.

 

[Mario Martinez]

Mario, you know some more Flamenco dancers and music friends? You like Tango and accordion music players? ...Cuban music?

Those are great ? avenues too, among the piano players. ...Classical and World/International music.

Yes, those would all be great if recorded in this manner. I certainly would love to do that.

We have been in the cave for so long trying to develop this technology... but now that it is done, is time for us to come out and look for artists that would be willing to explore its possibilities

 

[Believe High Fidelity]

Hi Joshua,

Thank you very much for the feedback

I had just posted something that had a lot to do with what you just brought up: We built this setup to record classical music. We know it can also be used for other things like flamenco, jazz, blues, etc. But we wanted to try and see what would happen if we used it with something like rock. We thought it would be a very interesting experiment:

Missed that before replying my apologies.

 

[cyclopse]

I played the rock recording to an audiophile friend last night. He said that something doesn't sound quite right. There is the imaging, depth and detail but the recording level appears low giving a sense of lack of dynamics.

Hope this is helpful.

 

[Mario Martinez]

Did you explain to him how that was made? #51

Yes, the levels are very low. That recording does not have any dynamic range compression. You really have to turn your master volume up to compensate for that. But, even if you do that, it will never sound like the rock we are all used to hearing.

Rock is always recorded using a fantasy approach. Each source is recorded separately so that you can eq, compress and transform the sound of each instrument as much as you like to get it to sound a particular way. The purpose is not to make it sound truthful to the source but "good" to the hear.

Now this is totally the opposite approach to what we are doing.

We built our setup to record classical music on a documentary manner. Classical music does benefit a lot from this approach because there is nothing you can do in the studio that will sound better than the real instruments. So all you can do is try to get as close to that "true" sound as possible.

My impression is that making a rock recording with this technique really puts all the pressure on the performers and their instruments. Specially the instruments. Take the guitar for example. You can literally play with the settings on the head amp to get it to sound a million different ways but it is just one guitar. Just choosing the right tone for the recording would be a project of its own. So you end up doing what is always done, you record first and worry about the sound latter when you cook the mix. That is the part that we did not do here.

 

[Mario Martinez]

We have had some more reports of people having problems with the downloads.

I have reported this issues to our hosting service to see if they could fix it.

As a backup plan, I have uploaded the Albeniz Album to Dropbox.

If anybody else is having trouble with the download please tell me and I will send you a direct link to download the Dropbox file.

I am really sorry for the inconvenience this is causing.

 

[Folsom]

Do you use devices prior to the actual recording to calibrate, or is it all digital?

I know what the others are talking about. I could go a little more in depth on it but honestly it's easier to start a diagnosis.