Comments on On An Overgrown Path: Digital technology builds a virtual concert hall

Dear Roger,My apologies - I didn’t mean to imply t...

2006-07-20T22:44:00.000+01:00

Dear Roger,
My apologies - I didn’t mean to imply that your company or your recording was trying to disguise a second-rate recording. Pliable made it very clear that you were in no way using the second CD as a sales gimmick, besides which, I’m sorry to say that I haven’t even heard your recording. My comments were intended only as a response to the more usual, less well-considered application of artificial reverb. I was I suppose, addressing the question of the appropriateness of technology just as you had hoped.
I hope that your disc proves a successful release although [judging by your description of the Charters version] I fear that the immediate impressiveness of the artificially enhanced sound of the bonus disc will persuade many listeners that it is in fact superior to the original recording. Stylised homogeneity is, after all, what we are becoming accustomed to these days.
Nevertheless, all credit to you and your colleagues for drawing attention to the intangible and underrated importance of acoustics. I look forward to hearing the disc and to reading your essay.

Seth and Guthry, I think you have mis-understood t...

2006-07-20T18:26:00.000+01:00

Seth and Guthry, I think you have mis-understood the CD and the reason we included the second CD (without charge). This is a recording that is first and foremost about the music, and the type of organs and acoustical environments on which it was composed and played. Loft Recordings has never produced a CD with any kind of digital processing - no compression, no EQ, no panning, no reverb. We generally get the effects we are looking for with microphone selection and palcement, along with carefully selected cables and electronics. If we were interested in reverb for its own sake, there would have been only one CD in the box.

The purpose of the second CD was to raise questions about technology and the appropriateness of its use. This is a case where the organ is about as authentic as one can find in the US, but where the acoustics are more like those of an English "Town Hall". The music was written and performed at Ste Clotilde in Paris, a neo-Gothic church with reverberant acoustics. The question is whether the music is better served by the drier acoustics that the organ was recorded in, or the wetter acoustics of a real French cathedral.

Some of the beneficial musical effects of the Chartres cathedral include:

1. Rolling off of the treble, which gives the organ a tonal balance more like the original Cavaille-Coll organs.
2. Increased strength in the bass, most notable in the pedal reeds, which "roar" and "thunder" more, and "buzz" less.
3. Increased cresecendos and decrescendos, due to the buildup and die down of the reverberation. This is a biggie...
4. Wider variety of touches are possible (you can play with shorter notes, and the room puts it together).

As you might surmise by this post, I am not entirely convinced this is a good thing to do for a classical recording---but I am not convinced otherwsie either! In the CD booklet, I wrote an essay on the philosphical aspects of these choices.

Guthrie - I agree with your statement about classical music CDs in general, but that is not what THIS CD is about...

Roger Sherman, Executive Producer

Seth, I understand where you are coming from, but ...

2006-06-01T21:51:00.000+01:00

Seth, I understand where you are coming from, but Loft Recordings have most definitely not used the second 'virtual acoustics' CD as a sales gimmick.

The front of the CD sleeve makes no mention at all of the second CD, and the rear only carries one small paragraph about it. The 'virtual acoustics' CD is presented as a scholarly appendix to the 'vanilla' recording made in Finney Chapel, Oberlin College.

Any undue emphasis on the 'virtual acoustics' CD is mine, and mine only. I took an editorial decision that it was a worthwhile project that deserved highlighting. The highlighting is mine, not Loft Recording's.

Hmm... sure sounds like a sales gimmick to me.This...

2006-06-01T21:29:00.000+01:00

Hmm... sure sounds like a sales gimmick to me.

This isn't really anything that new, though perhaps it's new to the "classical" world, where things like digital effects and such aren't too commonplace. It'll sound like something new and exciting to those who've never been behind the boards of a recording studio - even a home makeshift one. Admittedly, that's most of the world - but to those of us who have, this is kind of a "Huh? So?"

I guess to someone who's familiar with studio effects, this news is a bit like hearing that a 2CD set is being released - one disc played normal, the second through a distortion pedal or a spring reverb tank.

In studio production they call it "impulse modeling" and it's been around for awhile - the first IM program I played around with was in, like, '98 or '99 or so. I've got a few concrete pieces that make extensive use of them (shameless plug: various parts of my piece "Sanctuary" involved running material through a series of different impulses taken at the Todaiji Temple in Kyoto...)

One of the fun things about the technology is that you can use the same setup to make "impulses" of not just rooms, but vintage effects pedals, amplifiers, and other studio gear. A plate reverb unit costs thousands of dollars - but you can get multiple impulses of them online for free by poking around.

On my system I've got probably close to 200 impulses from churches, temples, empty silos, caverns, bathtubs, swimming pools (empty and underwater) and all sorts of funny-sounding places around the world - some I've taken myself, some came from others. People trade them online. There are programs from which you can create virtual impulses by designing a room in a CAD-like environment, telling the computer what the walls are made of, placing the source speaker and mics in your virtual room and voila. Some of these programs even use impulses taken from specific amplifiers and microphones, so you can not only hear what your guitar would sound like in in some "impossible" Escher-inspired room, but what it would sound like in that room, played through a '65 Fender Champ turned up to 8, and recorded with a vintage Neumann U87. Impulse upon impulse upon impulse.

Anyway, the only reason I can see for this CD release is the gimmick. A gimmick the producers are pretty sure most listeners won't know has been around for a long time.

Dear Pliable,Artificial reverb is one of the few s...

2006-06-01T21:23:00.000+01:00

Dear Pliable,
Artificial reverb is one of the few special effects to have been wholeheartedly (if tacitly) embraced by the perennially conservative classical music industry. Unfortunately though, by using it to disguise second-rate acoustics rather than as a creative effect, its implementation usually achieves little more than precipitating the trend toward bland, stylised mediocrity in classical music recording. Notwithstanding the mind-and CPU-boggling complexity of Convolution reverb, it's proving to be no different. Click here to discover it - buy it - and turn your broom cupboard into the Concertegebouw.