 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: wjk
Date: 2003-04-19 21:36
Maybe its just me, but I have noticed on several recording by different artists played on different stereo sytems the presence of "clicks" when a note is sounded by the clarinet. Could I be hearing the sound of pads opening and closing, or keys moving?
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Author: Nick Angiolillo
Date: 2003-04-20 00:13
Probably the clicking is the key moving.. you tend to hear this in small ensemble recordings more than big concerto works, but it mostly depends on the clarinet. My personal clarinet has very loud keywork and despite my efforts to soften it down it's still present.
I kind of like the sound of the clicking sometimes, though :-)
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2003-04-20 02:36
mostly the keys. The pads MAY be audible, but mostly clicks. I have a CD of a clarinet quartet in which the key clicks for the bass clarinet actually produce a "percussion" line which soudns great with the song. Also, it helps me to realize that this is a real person playing and makes me appreciate the recording that much more cause I close my eyes and picture the person banging down those keys.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: HAT
Date: 2003-04-20 16:14
What you are hearing is likely the noise of the clarinet mechanism. With close miking, it's pretty hard to hide.
An interesting aside to this. . .what also should be audible in close miking is the breathing of the performer (not necessarily loud but if you listen closely you should be able to hear it). That goes for circular breathing as well. . .the best, most seamless circular breathing I have ever heard is Alessandro Carbonare, but on a closely miked recording it is still very audible.
If one hears no breathing sounds at all, even upon close inspection, it is likely that the recording is so heavily edited that the 'takes' are shorter than one breath each!!
This practice of recording only a bar or two at a time is relatively recent, but now quite common. Listen to some of your recordings again and see. If you don't hear ANY breathing or circular breathing snorts, you probably aren't hearing anything near a 'live' performance.t
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2003-04-20 16:44
HAT wrote:
> An interesting aside to this. . .what also should be audible in
> close miking is the breathing of the performer (not necessarily
> loud but if you listen closely you should be able to hear it).
One of my favorite recordings, and one where there's more of this "ambience" of live recordings, is the "Blues for Sabine" recording of Eddie Daniels, Sabine Meyers, Wolfgang Meyer, Reiner Wehle, and Peter Handsworth. Listen with good headphones - you'll feel you're "there"; even the chair noises are very faintly audible.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2003-04-20 17:51
I've heard an number of recordings of oboe with orchestra or chamber groups in which the key clacking of the oboe was unbearably prominent; also some recordings with bass clarinet in which I wished the player had had his horn gone over by a good technician prior to making the recording! Such noises are NOT inevitable --- they can mostly be silenced, although it may not be possible to completely remove pad noise (especially the closing of cork pads) and a certain amount of mechanism noise, especially on the larger instruments.
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Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2003-04-20 21:04
"Chair" noises?
High or low notes?
As to instruments in lesser repair, some players won't let anyone touch their stick... and take out their mojo.
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Author: PJ
Date: 2003-04-21 02:33
I have cork pads on the upper joint of both my Bb and A and I've not found them to be noisy at all. Its all in the way you finger the keys...slapping will make them pop, but if I just genlty close the tone holes there is little, if any, noise at all even on fast passages. I guess all those lessons where I was told to relax and play followed up by Bonade's legato fingering excercises paid off, huh?!
I'm like HAT and Mark, I like to listen with good headphones (while I'm reading the BB posts...HA!) and hear body movements creaking the chairs and breath noises. Is is live or is it MEMOREX? Hmmm...
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Author: msloss
Date: 2003-04-21 12:22
I think it is a somewhat rare occurance that professional recording artists come to the session with their instruments in ill repair. Even the best-adjusted instruments played by the most fluid performers are going to generate some mechanical noise. As HAT said, close-mic recordings are going to give you a perspective on the performer that no listener in a live situation has -- sitting 1 meter in front of or over the head of the player. I'd be willing to bet very few of you can suppress key clacks, finger pops, and other noises to inaudibility when scrutinized that closely. If you can, can I have a lesson?
Ah, but what if the mics are flown at a distance, say 30 feet back over the audience seats, you ask? Well, how many of you have performed in a completely empty hall with all the climate control and plumbing systems turned off? It is so quiet you could hear a flea scratch its hind quarters, particularly with great mics. But, if a clarinet plays in an empty hall and no one is there to hear it, does the mechanism make a sound? Again, it is a rare thing to hear somebody play in that set of circumstances. In the "real" world, the ambient noise of the air conditioning and hundreds of people shifting in their seats and breathing and opening candy wrappers masks the noise of the instrument. Your brain is very good at filtering out that kind of noise, but the little noises from the performer go with it.
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Author: HAT
Date: 2003-04-21 12:42
Mark Sloss is very correct. In any case, he has engineered and produced several recordings (including mine) and thus has experienced this phenomenon.
The complete absence of background noise from the recording media itself (there will almost always be ambient background noise. .. in the case of my cd the subway and some traffic on 43rd street) insures that you'll hear whatever can't be edited out.
As PJ said, Bonade (and my teacher Mr. Marcellus of course) believed in handling the clarinet to minimize key clacking and such. But sometimes the music is so demanding that you just do what you can to get the notes out (Jettel Concert Etudes come to mind). Slow movement of the MOzart quintet or concerto one could hopefully supress almost all mechanical sounds using refined technique alone.
Recording is good for you as a player and as a musician. No one wants to really listen to himself or herself with out some degree of rose-colored glasses on. But listening to a playback to decide whether to do another take or go on is serious business. Time is money.
Then you hear something on the playback that you know will take a long time to fix (something about your playing itself, not the work you're recording). This REALLY sucks, but it's worth the price if you fix it.
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