What is "Sound Stage?"

[microstrip]

Micro, you didn't follow the discussion in the thread in the key area! That is not a mirage, that is precisely how this now infamous Chesky LEDR track was constructed: it's a real working "mechanism", which a lot of members on this forum have experienced the effect of -- a musical sound can be made to totally arbitrarily move to any point in the room, vertically, to the side of the speakers, behind you; just by playing around with virtually created echoes in a very sophisticated way. For those who missed it, this was in my post:

Frank,

There is a fundamental difference between what I tried to describe and the LEDR track. The device addressed by the patent wants to use the existing information of the recording - captured during the sound taking - and the LEDR was a deliberate manipulation by a sound engineer, and add on.

The second one is trivial, as described by a few professionals in this forum, the first one, as far as I know was never done with success.

 

[fas42]

Frank,

There is a fundamental difference between what I tried to describe and the LEDR track. The device addressed by the patent wants to use the existing information of the recording - captured during the sound taking - and the LEDR was a deliberate manipulation by a sound engineer, and add on.

The second one is trivial, as described by a few professionals in this forum, the first one, as far as I know was never done with success.

Sorry, this is not correct, micro, unless Bob Katz is lying. From Stereophile's, "Take Me to Your LEDR!" article, http://www.stereophile.com/features/772/index.html:

Who's behind our LEDR?
The LEDR signals were generated by Northwestern University's Spatial Reverberator, a software program running on an RISC mainframe computer. The spatial reverberator was designed by researchers Gary Kendall and Bill Martens of the Computer Music Department, while the trademarked LEDR test signal is the brainchild of acoustician Doug Jones. These psychoacousticians have been researching what are called "pinna transforms," the way in which the shape of the head and outer ear permit us to hear signal direction. By programming the filter characteristics of the pinna transforms into the spatial reverberator, the Chicagoans can literally move sound around the room, even behind the listener, using only a single pair of loudspeakers placed in front of the listener (footnote 4).

Frank

 

[microstrip]

Sorry, this is not correct, micro, unless Bob Katz is lying. From Stereophile's, "Take Me to Your LEDR!" article, http://www.stereophile.com/features/772/index.html:

Frank

Sorry, what is exactly not correct ? I can read in this article :

LEDR consists of a series of computer-generated sounds that are intended to move in a predefined way between a pair of loudspeakers. A sampled cabasa (a percussion instrument often used in Latin music) is electronically manipulated to move through three different paths.

Only later:

Who's behind our LEDR?
The LEDR signals were generated by Northwestern University's Spatial Reverberator, a software program running on an RISC mainframe computer. The spatial reverberator was designed by researchers Gary Kendall and Bill Martens of the Computer Music Department, while the trademarked LEDR test signal is the brainchild of acoustician Doug Jones. These psychoacousticians have been researching what are called "pinna transforms," the way in which the shape of the head and outer ear permit us to hear signal direction. By programming the filter characteristics of the pinna transforms into the spatial reverberator, the Chicagoans can literally move sound around the room, even behind the listener, using only a single pair of loudspeakers placed in front of the listener

Thanks for a very interesting article on a fantastic technique - the clear reference to the pinna transforms was great! Pure psychoacoustics application!

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Someone in this thread referred me to a recording, a female singer, I believe. I can't find the post. Help.
Tim

 

[fas42]

Sorry, what is exactly not correct ? I can read in this article :

LEDR consists of a series of computer-generated sounds that are intended to move in a predefined way between a pair of loudspeakers. A sampled cabasa (a percussion instrument often used in Latin music) is electronically manipulated to move through three different paths.

Yes, his wording is not the best choice: what he means is that it was programmatically manipulated, electronically was used to emphasise that the instrument was not physically moved in any way with respect to microphones, nor the other way round; it was a created, virtual world in which the instrument appeared to move. I'm a programmer, and note how the parameters of dimensions of room, position of object and movement are fed in to get an end result. This is exactly how CG movies are done in the visual arena: if well done your eyes are totally convinced that the camera moved through a real space.

So what that highlights is that researchers knew exactly how to manipulate sound to convince a listener of vertical positioning, movement, using artificial echoes, reverb, over 2 channel playback nearly 15 years ago. Why it didn't catch on is that it required a lot of computing horsepower to do it. Translation: too expensive!

I've looked at the waveforms of that bit of the Chesky track: there's nothing obviously weird in it. The L and R channels track each other perfectly generally, just volume differences equivalent to panning. But there are subtle, "harmonic" variations between the L and R, which come and go: these would be influences of the added echo information -- just right to "fool" the ear!

Frank

 

[fas42]

Someone in this thread referred me to a recording, a female singer, I believe. I can't find the post. Help.
Tim

Tim, that would be by Jack: http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...Sound-Stage-quot&p=95139&viewfull=1#post95139.

Frank

 

[NorthStar]

Someone in this thread referred me to a recording, a female singer, I believe. I can't find the post. Help.
Tim

Patricia Barber?

Do you remember what genre (Jazz, Pop, Opera, ...)?

EDIT: Seems like Frank found it (Jack's suggestion). :b

 

[JackD201]

Someone in this thread referred me to a recording, a female singer, I believe. I can't find the post. Help.
Tim

Actually forget the soundstage thing and just enjoy it first. It's a really entertaining song. Well, maybe comment on the changes in soundstage dimensions later but only if you feel like it. There's a cute gimmick at the start meant to put you in a wistful/sentimental mood that goes for a few bars then it's transitioned. I hope you enjoy it anyway. I think this album wasn't as strong as her first one but this is one of the better tracks on it.

 

[fas42]

For those who want to pursue the concepts of, and research into spatial audio further, found this: Spatial Audio Literature, https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~malcolm/SpatialAudioLiterature.html, which gives a rundown of the workers and their research in the field in the 80's and 90's. Quite a few mentions of the spatial reverberation technique in various publications ...

Frank

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Actually forget the soundstage thing and just enjoy it first. It's a really entertaining song. Well, maybe comment on the changes in soundstage dimensions later but only if you feel like it. There's a cute gimmick at the start meant to put you in a wistful/sentimental mood that goes for a few bars then it's transitioned. I hope you enjoy it anyway. I think this album wasn't as strong as her first one but this is one of the better tracks on it.

Well, I Googled Renee Olstead...I'm sure I'll get around to her music at some point...

Tim

 

[JackD201]

For those who want to pursue the concepts of, and research into spatial audio further, found this: Spatial Audio Literature, https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~malcolm/SpatialAudioLiterature.html, which gives a rundown of the workers and their research in the field in the 80's and 90's. Quite a few mentions of the spatial reverberation technique in various publications ...

Frank

Clearly a lot of study has been done after Blauert

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim,

Check out this track

Stars Fell On Alabama - Renee Olstead's Skylark album

Please let me know what you observed about the soundstage's overall dimensions.

Thanks.

Faux vinyl surface noise. Tiny little phantom center image opens up into an image deliberately panned far left and right. Vocals remain centered, everything else is pushed out toward the edges. Even the stuff that is playing out of both speakers (the strings) seems to be playing at the outer edges, leaving lots of room for the vocals. Overall dimensions? What you'd expect from that: Wide, but a bit odd.

Bear in mind I listened to it on Spotify, so it was 320kbps at best.

Second listen, a bit more volume. The walking bass is in the center with her. The sax solo comes in a bit left of the right speaker. Still, not the greatest use of stereo I've heard.

Third time -- lacks depth. And I don't hear any height. The way my speakers are set up, I very commonly hear stuff above level of my cabinets. Not here. And last but not least, the vocals seem a bit pinched or processed, even after it gets past the faux "old recording" stuff at the beginning. Not a very good recording, for that type of music.

For contrast, go listen to "God Must Be A Boogie Man" or just about anything from Joni Mitchell's "Travelogue." Or alternatively, listen to "Lonesome Road" from Madeline Peroux' "Careless Love." It's a bit narrower, but manages to create more depth, texture and, well, muiscality with a handful of instruments than this Olstead track does with an orchestra. Not my cup of tea.

Tim

PS - Oh, and by the way, have you Googled Renee Olstead lately? A bit hard to concentrate on the audio...

 

[JackD201]

I have a DECCA fetish so the greatest use of stereo for me usually comes from that label. While I find the track I mentioned very entertaining I do find it over produced. It is a David Foster album after all LOL.

When the debate was raging, it's actually why I singled this one out. It is an example of extremes in soundstage size manipulation contained in a single song for an overall emotional effect on the listener that has nothing to do with soundstage size at all. So extreme that it is audible even from just the speakers of a MacBook Pro but obvious when using a system that gets to 70Hz, cavernous when true full range 20kHz to 20Hz where the very low frequency elements of reverb and bass decay trails also triggers a sense of more space. If you listen closely to the transition from faux gramophone to the stereo presentation, that actually changes again a minute or so after that first transition, you'll notice that panning was done in stages, element by element. You'll also notice that some elements remain futz'ed (TV/Film term for simulating say what you might here on a telephone handset or in this case a Gramophone via heavy EQ/ Comp/Limiting) while others open up. This points out that the futz settings were not on the stereo bus but rather on sub groups and undone by subgroups. The overall size grows as panning goes wider and the rest of the frequencies are restored.

Since we now agree that we do perceive height and that height is an integral part of perceived size, since we agree that there is no DISCREET height information in stereo or mono recording, with patents granted for processors like 3DO, can we now agree that the cues that trigger size and therefor height can be in the recording. Not discreet mind you, cues.

I don't want to hammer on how common any of this is. If we are objective about this, knowing how all this is done is no more important in the enjoyment of a song than it is to know how our favorite whiskies were made. It's nice to know but really non-essential. Suffice it to say that equipment and acoustic environment being constant, soundstage size is determined by the recording. Now if you can switch your focus away from the production, there's a lot of good musicianship in that track. Perhaps it won't transport you to the recording space but it might make you wish you were transported to a warm evening summer dance with a pretty lady with shooting stars overhead which was really what this song was about.

 

[JackD201]

Faux vinyl surface noise. Tiny little phantom center image opens up into an image deliberately panned far left and right. Vocals remain centered, everything else is pushed out toward the edges. Even the stuff that is playing out of both speakers (the strings) seems to be playing at the outer edges, leaving lots of room for the vocals. Overall dimensions? What you'd expect from that: Wide, but a bit odd.

Bear in mind I listened to it on Spotify, so it was 320kbps at best.

Second listen, a bit more volume. The walking bass is in the center with her. The sax solo comes in a bit left of the right speaker. Still, not the greatest use of stereo I've heard.

Third time -- lacks depth. And I don't hear any height. The way my speakers are set up, I very commonly hear stuff above level of my cabinets. Not here. And last but not least, the vocals seem a bit pinched or processed, even after it gets past the faux "old recording" stuff at the beginning. Not a very good recording, for that type of music.

For contrast, go listen to "God Must Be A Boogie Man" or just about anything from Joni Mitchell's "Travelogue." Or alternatively, listen to "Lonesome Road" from Madeline Peroux' "Careless Love." It's a bit narrower, but manages to create more depth, texture and, well, muiscality with a handful of instruments than this Olstead track does with an orchestra. Not my cup of tea.

Tim

PS - Oh, and by the way, have you Googled Renee Olstead lately? A bit hard to concentrate on the audio...

Always on the hunt for new stuff to listen to and I don't have the tips you gave yet. Thanks!

Yeah she's a real cutie. There's something about redheads I tell ya.......

Oh I have the MP CD just haven't listened to it in years. I shall acquire Travelogue.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

It's all in the recording. The best a good system can do is get out of the way.

Tim

 

[NorthStar]

- Oh, and by the way, have you Googled Renee Olstead lately? A bit hard to concentrate on the audio...

Is she the girl you guys are referring to?

* She's very pretty.

 

[JackD201]

It's all in the recording. The best a good system can do is get out of the way.

Tim

There we agree 100%

 

[JackD201]

Bob, yes she is. What big.........pictures you have!

Shhhh. Gary has a thing for her too.

 

[RogerD]

Listening to Bruce Springsteen's Apollo concert tonight,if anybody learned anything,I hope they noticed how much ambient information was captured. That's what makes a recording and sound stage stunning and others unremarkable.

 

[treitz3]

Gentlemen, recent posts on this thread have been removed. If you are interested in Renee Olstead, you are more than welcome to Google her. Some may wish to "Goggle" her, though . Let's try our best to keep posts on this thread on topic.