Klarinet Archive - Posting 000633.txt from 2003/06

From: ormondtoby@-----.net (Ormandtoby Montoya)
Subj: [kl] Technology vs "Honesty"? (was Vibrato on the Clarinet)
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 15:27:33 -0400

David Dow wrote:

As to recording sessions. Yes I have done quite a few and saw and
watched a process of several recordings and their subsequent releases. I
know an awful lot of players(solo) and orchestral who wind up doing so
many edits and retakes on something its a miracle the record holds
together. So, the moral is...you may love a given record but the labels
are usually careful not to mention it took 43 takes for 8 bars of music.
Then we go to the concert hall and hear a section muffed by a given
group and say, hmmm strange. =A0 Then, some labels have unnatural
balances with the advent of buttons up say on a give passage in 3rd horn
say....not entirely indicative of how we expect it to sound in a
rehearsal or concert setting!

Live performance is sometimes better than a recording, and sometimes
vice versa.

I'm interested to hear where list members draw the line between
improving a recording by means of engineering and technology vs.
'honesty' (whatever that is). Microphone placement, types of
microphones, mixing microphones that are spaced farther apart than two
human ears can possibly be, etc.

Even the best technology cannot reproduce a live performance exactly as
we hear it. At what point does 'technology' become dishonest when it
attempts to compensate for its own deficits b adding something to the
recording that wasn't really there?

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