Bolero:why can't my system reproduce snare well?
as I write this, listening to "something else" by cannonball Adderley (with Miles), and the hi-hats sound faint and muted as well. Elegal, great music, but not a good reference to test your system. Back in the day the engineers used a minimal amount of microphones to record a session. There was a mic for the piano, a couple over the drum kit and a room mic; I'm just giving an example of mic techniques back then. Today, each drum and the high-hat would have their own mic plus 2 overhead for the cymbals, each player would have their own mic resulting in a clear, crisp sound; a very different sound. (the trumpet most likely will have a "raspy" sound rather than the more pleasant open sound. That's why you should use a reference CD or as I suggested, a modern studio jazz recording. BTW, I love the open sound from that era. |
Frogman makes an excellent point and I agree with him except for one caveat; that most modern day performances of "Bolero" would be close-mic'd. The overall sound is determined by the record label producers (many classical labels have a 'house sound"), in conjunction with the engineers. The top conductors can also be involved in how their orchestra should sound. Here's an example of Bolero with a well defined percussion section. The snare does start as pianissimo and builds to forte, but it is very prominent in the mix. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK23BhEQVyU So the question is which recording are you listening to? A good suggestion by Frogman is to also listen to the string pizzicato and the woodwinds. |
That's a good find, Frogman, Muti with the Philadelphia playing Bolero as it was intended to be. And it is a modern-day recording. Yes, the snare is very well defined in that clip, but it is unlike anything one is likely to hear at a performance. I haven't seen Bolero live, but in the case of the Vienna performance, it's true that when seated in the audience, the piece would sound completely different than the recording. (do to the fact that no mic's are used in the concert hall when played live; they are only being fed to the audio recorders). Having said that, I'll bet that Elegal's recording is similar to the Muti performance. Even the sound from the woodwinds is from a distance and evenly mixed with the snare. I don't know how over the years the engineering took priority over keeping the integrity of the performance. Since the mid 1970s the mic's were getting placed closer to the instruments and then progressed to adding even more mic's. I would much rather hear classical music recordings sound natural and open rather than unbalanced and up close. With today's technology, it is possible to use minimal miking and still have good detail. I just realized I'm ranting, so the bottom line in this thread is to use a reference recording and not Ravel's Bolero. |
