Aesthetics: is it just that I’m old?

[VJOFan]

https://youtu.be/xIBtf2Dd88Y This student quintet from Germany came up in my YouTube again today.

Is it just that I am old, that I find the aesthetic of a live recording in a nice room, of a group doing the tuning and time keeping to an impeccable level IRL to be so much more interesting and appealing to my ears than the technically perfect material put out by internet famous overdubbing You Tube trombonists?

When I know there is a click track, auto tuning and who knows what done to make the sound, sound the way it does I usually go “Wow” for about 20 seconds then close the video. A recording like the one linked above is like a warm bath for the ears. I sit with it, and let it wash over my aural senses until it’s done.

Is that just an age thing, or is there still an argument that live (or as close to live as possible) is a superior aesthetic?

[BGuttman]

The problem is that in this era of plague avoidance live groups are a liability. When this COVID madness subsides, and we're either vaccinated or dead, real groups can make a comeback.

[VJOFan]

The problem is that in this era of plague avoidance live groups are a liability. When this COVID madness subsides, and we're either vaccinated or dead, real groups can make a comeback.

Christopher Bill and the like were a thing long before Covid. It is a way to make a living in music using modern tools.

If you can arrange, and have the equipment and skills to make recordings, you can do the heavy lifting to make a successful You Tube channel.

I’m just wondering if it is just old fashioned to not enjoy that produced sound?

[Savio]

Have to agree that the sound from some home made trio, quartet videos is kind of strange in my ears. Often sounds like electric organ. Even if the playing can be good, I turn it of quickly because of the unatural sound.

Leif

[hyperbolica]

I paid $35 to hear a local brass quintet live two nights ago. I'll never pay to listen to Christopher Bill. Hyper-engineered music drives me crazy in a lot of ways, but like you said, you can get some enjoyment from it. It's like teenage girls thinking photoshopped images represent reality in any way - that stuff can damage your concept of reality if you OD on it.

[OneTon]

I try to be forgiving up to a point, partly because I am so bad at mixing music. Some of the stuff Rudy van Gelder remixed is meh for me. But I don’t know what he started with. I could always tell when my university housemate was at the mixing board at Fantasy, even though he never got ham fisted. To be honest, I would rather listen to clicks and pops from Proper than some track that sounds as if it has been run hard through a Maytag wringer, whether it is a cd or youtube.

Some of it is age. We probably grew up listening to less post processing or raw feeds. I try to be grateful that my hearing is holding up and that I get to listen to this stuff, regardless. Or in the case of post post processing, irregardless.

[harrisonreed]

I'm sure that the video is real. But, since you asked for it, allow me to sew seeds of doubt:

How do you know this recording is live? It's reasonably easy to chunk something like this with planned break points even with video rolling. Just let the reverb decay out, and cut. Or, forget about that, and just use a 4-point crossfade. Take a breather, then chunk the next section. The reverb trail or crossfade covers up the audio splice, and a camera angle change covers up the splice there as well. This is the oldest trick in the book.

[Bach5G]

It’s all good if it’s good. Live, recorded. Just enjoy. If not, it’s not the sky falling or the end of civilization as we know it.

[Doug Elliott]

In the other direction, I've been extremely disappointed hearing players live after only hearing their processed stuff on YouTube. The illusion disappears quickly.

[Burgerbob]

I'm sure that the video is real. But, since you asked for it, allow me to sew seeds of doubt:

How do you know this recording is live? It's reasonably easy to chunk something like this with planned break points even with video rolling. Just let the reverb decay out, and cut. Or, forget about that, and just use a 4-point crossfade. Take a breather, then chunk the next section. The reverb trail or crossfade covers up the audio splice, and a camera angle change covers up the splice there as well. This is the oldest trick in the book.

Even if it's chunked, it hasn't been processed to death like a Matonizz or Chris Bill multitrack. They're still playing it on stage, in tune with each other.

[robcat2075]

Is it just that I am old...

I recall sitting with my friends in our tree fort when we were about eight or nine years old and one of them tossed out, "Am I getting older... or are cartoons getting worse?"

After some discussion we agreed he was getting older and yet no offense was taken.

Although the OP does seem to indeed be old I'm not sure that age is the reason for the refined discernment at work.

There are many analogies to this live-is-better-than-memorex phenomenon. I have been to stage plays that had nothing more than a few chairs as props but they were more compelling than a highly produced movie where everything looks authentic.

The risk of live performance is is very interesting... unless the performance is bad and then we start preferring what has been more carefully put together.

There is probably a curve we could draw, like the "uncanny valley" curve for animation.

[boneagain]

I am SO glad I was not born with "golden ears," because even without them I find some symphony recordings almost repellent while others are compelling.

TLDR; for my non-golden ears the best recordings play the room, while the others mic and balance the players.

In the first category I have a couple boxes of the Mercury Living Presence collections. The secret sauce was microphone placement, and a deep understanding of WHY to place a microphone in any specific where. The Fines used a pretty minimal set of microphones. This in turn avoided introducing phase differences in sound arrivals from the different players AND the room sound. And THIS in turn made a cohesive sound that would be hard to replicate digitally.

I say hard because, with an acoustic equivalent of ray-tracing, it would surely be feasible.

But, at this point, I have NOT heard a synthesized room full of sound where the echoes had the overtone addition/subtraction and phase information that allows such amazing color and location information to go into the old minimalist mic'd recordings.

SO, I do NOT think preferring GOOD live versus processed is just a factor of being old.

But what do I know... I'm getting old and cranky too

[CharlieB]

It can be very gratifying to admire the beauty of an impeccably made-up woman, but the real beauty lies in the honesty of character that lies behind the makeup .

[harrisonreed]

I am SO glad I was not born with "golden ears," because even without them I find some symphony recordings almost repellent while others are compelling.

TLDR; for my non-golden ears the best recordings play the room, while the others mic and balance the players.

In the first category I have a couple boxes of the Mercury Living Presence collections. The secret sauce was microphone placement, and a deep understanding of WHY to place a microphone in any specific where. The Fines used a pretty minimal set of microphones. This in turn avoided introducing phase differences in sound arrivals from the different players AND the room sound. And THIS in turn made a cohesive sound that would be hard to replicate digitally.

I say hard because, with an acoustic equivalent of ray-tracing, it would surely be feasible.

But, at this point, I have NOT heard a synthesized room full of sound where the echoes had the overtone addition/subtraction and phase information that allows such amazing color and location information to go into the old minimalist mic'd recordings.

SO, I do NOT think preferring GOOD live versus processed is just a factor of being old.

But what do I know... I'm getting old and cranky too

Many many recording engineers WITH golden ears would disagree with you that fake reverb sounds worse than real reverb. They might even argue the opposite. But they don't, in their line of work, just throw a reverb onto a track. They EQ the reverb so the overtones in the trail match or beat the space it was recorded in, and they stress over just how long the tail is, and how far the decay should be.

[OneTon]

It can be very gratifying to admire the beauty of an impeccably made-up woman, but the real beauty lies in the honesty of character that lies behind the makeup .

Dolly Parton is plenty honest enough for me. To quote Ms. Parton, “You have no idea how expensive it is to look this cheap.”

[CharlieB]

Dolly Parton is plenty honest enough for me. To quote Ms. Parton, “You have no idea how expensive it is to look this cheap.”
[/quote]

During a live TV interview, a wise-guy interviewer asked her, "Are those real?"
Without hesitation, she looked him in the eye and said,"They're real big and real expensive."
That totally shot down his attempt to embarrass her.
Behind all the glitz, there is a very smart woman.

[GabrielRice]

Behind all the glitz, there is a very smart woman.

And a GREAT singer.

[Bach5G]

And a GREAT songwriter.

One of her song titles that I quote frequently these days is “You can’t make old friends”. A bit of a tearjerker for those of us who have grown up with Dolly and Kenny.

[Kbiggs]

Dolly’s “A Coat of Many Colors” is a beautiful song, and a beautiful story.

[OneTon]

Behind all the glitz, there is a very smart woman.

And a GREAT singer.

Dolly sang an acapella song in the empty Ryman
Theater on an NPR country music documentary and just nailed it. She is talented and works very hard.