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Yesterday, 04:50 PM
Hi Guys
Regardless of what equipment is used to record a performance, there is the basic choice of doing a "room recording" or a multi-track recording. In many cases, both are captured.
Having the room mix as a reference the sound engineer can decide what is weak in the mix or what needs to be emphasised. Having the individual instrument tracks makes those "fixes" possible.
The multi-track capture of the sound reduces the ambient information related to each sound and the subsequent mix can be quite dead and lifeless. AC-DC's albums tend to be mixed this way and they suck the life out of the room. Listening to them live is a completely different experience as the audience is hearing the room mix, which includes the room ambience, echoes and other effects.
Natural sounds always have some ambient sound with them. Even a close conversation with another person has ambient info attached. We rely on that ambience to help decipher who or what we are hearing - it is baked right into our genes.
So, if the recording engineer has a multi-tracked final mix it may inherently lack ambience and be something we do not really want to listen to. How can this be fixed? Quite easily, by adding a small amount of reverb which unifies the instruments without altering their localisation.
Regardless of what equipment is used to record a performance, there is the basic choice of doing a "room recording" or a multi-track recording. In many cases, both are captured.
Having the room mix as a reference the sound engineer can decide what is weak in the mix or what needs to be emphasised. Having the individual instrument tracks makes those "fixes" possible.
The multi-track capture of the sound reduces the ambient information related to each sound and the subsequent mix can be quite dead and lifeless. AC-DC's albums tend to be mixed this way and they suck the life out of the room. Listening to them live is a completely different experience as the audience is hearing the room mix, which includes the room ambience, echoes and other effects.
Natural sounds always have some ambient sound with them. Even a close conversation with another person has ambient info attached. We rely on that ambience to help decipher who or what we are hearing - it is baked right into our genes.
So, if the recording engineer has a multi-tracked final mix it may inherently lack ambience and be something we do not really want to listen to. How can this be fixed? Quite easily, by adding a small amount of reverb which unifies the instruments without altering their localisation.
