Topic by Jake Johnson

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  • Jake Johnson
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Topic: 3 Recordings of piano and viola using tape and digital equipment

The performance was recorded by David Pinnegar using 3 different setups: tape and a Zoom H4 digital recorder and directly to computer using specific mics. Clearly a large difference using the analog and digital equipment , yes? I would not call one better than the other, necessarily?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lbNdHBtbvw

Note that, below the video, he lists the time at which each mic set changes. He's asking for responses about how the sound differs, and has other recordings, at http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthre...14/17.html  (post number 2104641)

David Pinnegar owns the Hammerwood music center. I posted some links earlier to some of his solo recordings, which use older pianos and his variation of one of the Werkmeister well temperaments. Those links now point to the wrong part of his site. Here's the one that brought his work to my attention--Alfredo Barabino playing Chopin on an oldish Bechstein:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zxNrQuxfNY

Many, many other videos using this temperament are here, but one must scroll down to find the piano recordings:

http://www.youtube.com/user/latribe/videos

Last edited by Jake Johnson (21-06-2013 05:47)

Reply by Klemperer

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Re: 3 Recordings of piano and viola using tape and digital equipment

Terrific, thank you so much! As a Bechstein-Fan I'm more than happy to watch this (again maybe - we currently have such a horrible heat in attic flats in Germany that about 3/4 of my brains are on holidays^^). And will check the first one, listening carefully.

Reply by Luc Henrion

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Re: 3 Recordings of piano and viola using tape and digital equipment

uh... comparing a Tascam reel-to-reel to a Zoom H4 is pure non-sense. You should at least use a good preamp, good mics and a "real" digital recorder, not a toy (sorry Zoom).

Luc Henrion's Website

Reply by Beto-Music

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Re: 3 Recordings of piano and viola using tape and digital equipment

Some people used to say that a excelente K7 tapedeck could record almost so well as a CD, if you ignore the very low noise, noticeable in segments with nearly silence.

But I always imagined why some tape recorders, from the 60's or even early 70's, even the ones used by reporters, needed so much speed, consume so much tape (much more than K7), using large rools. 
Why was that much needed?


PunBB bbcode test



The digital marketing of today tends to try to demonize any analogic system.
It's like the 3 blade razors... In few years people will think that one blade razor wasn't able to shave.

Last edited by Beto-Music (21-06-2013 01:37)

Reply by skip

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Re: 3 Recordings of piano and viola using tape and digital equipment

Beto-Music wrote:

It's like the 3 blade razors... In few years people will think that one blade razor wasn't able to shave.

3 blades is considered passe now - they're up to at least 5 blades. Absolute nuts.  (and yes, I use just ONE blade, and it's a cut-throat, and it shaves VERY smoothly thankyou, albeit usually with at least a little bit of bleeding ;^)

The recordings all sound very good to me, except that I can hear some hiss on the tape version. Not much between them IMHO.

Greg.

Reply by Beto-Music

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Re: 3 Recordings of piano and viola using tape and digital equipment

About 10 years ago I saw a episode of Saturday Night Live, a joke about  multi blades,and they used a CGI of a 7 blades razor, making fun about .  Looked like a absurd at the time, but now you spoke about a real 5 blades on market...

Reality became so much o even more absurd than fiction.We could make fun of that with a guillotine of 3 blades. "For extra killing..."



The Bechstein it's good, well recorded, but the piano itself sound a bit "over-woodness."


I imagined once why the hiss could never be soved in analogic recorders...  Why they did never got two tracks, one from low intensity sounds, and one for hight intensiy sounds?? This would extend the dynamics range of the recorder and make the low sounds nearly hissless, since the low intensiies sounds would be recorded  with more gain, but combined in small scale with the high intensity sounds.


skip wrote:
Beto-Music wrote:

It's like the 3 blade razors... In few years people will think that one blade razor wasn't able to shave.

3 blades is considered passe now - they're up to at least 5 blades. Absolute nuts.  (and yes, I use just ONE blade, and it's a cut-throat, and it shaves VERY smoothly thankyou, albeit usually with at least a little bit of bleeding ;^)

The recordings all sound very good to me, except that I can hear some hiss on the tape version. Not much between them IMHO.

Greg.