     
Lucid's Philosophy on Acoustic Musical Recordings
To put it in a nutshell, Lucid's passion is to make
recordings that sound so real, so lifelike, that you almost don't realize you're
listening to a recording. However, these recordings must also be very
musical, enjoyable, and involving. We want listeners to be able to close
their eyes while listening on a good sound system, and almost feel that they are
'palpably present' at the venue where the recording took place. We
want them to be pulled into the music; into the sound of the music as it floats
around them. In order to sound 'real' the recording must provide the
listener not only with the clear sound of the performers, but with the ambience
and 'sense of place' of the recording venue.
Musicality and accuracy/realism are the competing
factors in our philosophy. We utilize carefully selected equipment and
recording methodologies to balance these two, often opposing, goals. The
results speak for themselves.
Achieving the Goal: Musical Virtual Reality
Musical Virtual Reality is the real goal. We want
to take a real, live acoustic musical event, and transport that musical event,
or an 'idealized' version of it, to the ears of a listener. The goal is
for that 'virtual' reproduction of the live event to be as musical and realistic
sounding as possible. But how do you get there?
Following the Chain
How do you take the sound in a performance hall, and
transport that sound into a user's ears in a listening room (or with
headphones)? The path from the original 'performance' of a musical
event to the 'virtual reality' of that event being played back to a listener
goes through many steps. There are many 'links' in that musical
chain. Every step along the way is another link in the chain that will
effect both the musicality and the accuracy of what the listener will
hear. The original musical event must pass from the original
instrument/voice to the air and acoustics of the venue where its being
performed, to the microphones, into the recording electronics, through all of
the post-production processes, onto the CD, into the listener's stereo, into the
listener's room via the speakers, and finally into the listener's ears.
Whew! That's a lot of steps! And each of those steps is often broken
down into a lot more steps. As you can see, there are many links in the
chain.
The Chain - From the Performers
to the Listener at Home
The level
of 'realism' the listener hears is only as good as the weakest link from the
instrument/voice all the way to the listener's ears. At each link in the
chain, the sound is modified in some way. Each link can damage and/or
enhance the sound and
as a result, can damage or enhance the level of accuracy and/or musicality.
How Does Lucid create 'Realistic' Sounding Recordings?
At Lucid, we do everything within our power to ensure the
best possible 'musical virtual reality'. We use excellent studio/audiophile quality
equipment that has been selected for the right balance of accuracy and
musicality. We use our experience and knowledge to set up the equipment
to capture the most realistic and musical version of the performance
possible. We carefully choose microphones and their positions to clearly
capture the performance, but also to capture the ambience of the performance
acoustic space. And in post-production, we perform any necessary processing to ensure the musicality of the final
master recording without sacrificing accuracy.
Without getting into a lot of detail as to 'why' these
things make recordings sound realistic, here are many of the factors that Lucid
employs to ensure that our master recordings will sound as real as possible,
while still sounding very musical. Of course, we don't always have
control of all of these factors. Sometimes, compromises are
required. But this is the list that we strive for.
- Use a Purist Philosophy - The purist philosophy
applies to many things; not just to sound. Another
common term for this philosophy is KISS: Keep it Simple,
Stupid. As
mentioned above, the end sound that the listener hears is only as good as
the weakest link. So step number 1 is to keep the recording chain
simple and pure, with as few 'links' in the chain as possible. Keep it simple and pure. Ask any good chef, and
they'll agree.
- Record in acoustically excellent venues. What
a 'good venue' is varies depending upon the music and the performers, but
for most acoustic music, the best venues do not require amplification of the
performers (or perhaps only the soloists). The venue should have a 'live' ambient character
that is not too dark or too bright with a moderate amount of natural reverb. It should allow the performers to
easily hear each other. And it should allow the audience (and the
recording microphones) to hear an open and clear presentation of the performance while
adding the venue's ambience and environment as a major contributor to the beauty of the
sound.
- Whenever possible (for stereo recordings), use a
single matched pair of microphones as the main sound recording source to capture the sound of the
performers. Use ORTF, XY, MS, spaced omnis, and Jecklin disc
microphone arrangements, so that the listener will be presented with a
realistic 'spread' of sound from speaker to speaker that provides a virtual sonic
soundstage 'image' of the live recording.
- Consider adding additional microphones into the mix
at reduced levels to improve the ambience and spread of the sound, to make
it more lively and enveloping. This typically involves use of
'outrigger' mic on the outer edges of the stage and 'ambience' mics further
back in the hall.
- If necessary, consider the use of additional microphones to pick
up soloists, quiet instruments, etc. This can
result in enhanced recordings that adds to the perceived realism and
musicality rather than
detracting. Mix these sources into the stereo mix using
appropriate level, timing-based panning, and 'matching reverb' that lets
these instruments sound natural in the mix, as if they weren't separately
miked.
- Choose microphones that are clean and transparent
and that match the character you are
trying to achieve. Small diaphragm omnis and ribbons are
the most accurate and are typically preferred for natural acoustic music; however large diaphragm condensers
are also used at times to provide extra sparkle and solo instrument/voice
presence.
- When possible, arrange the performers the way you want the listener
to hear them. Set up the microphones to capture a good balance of the
performers and the ambience of the hall. Adjust positions of
performers and/or microphones until a balance is achieved that provides a
proper and natural 'sense of place' for the listener.
- Use only the highest quality equipment known for
musicality, clarity, transparency, and neutrality. Each piece of equipment is a
'link' in the chain, and all of this equipment must achieve a high level of
accuracy and musicality. Ideally, each piece of equipment doesn't
alter the sound, or if it does, the modification enhances the perception of
reality and musicality.
- Use the best wire you can find, and keep it as short
as possible. We use WireWorld Atlantis Microphone cables, Canare
StarQuad cable, and Mogami cables and snakes. These cables are known
for their clarity and transparency. They let the music
through.
- Once a signal is converted from Analog to Digital,
do NOT convert it back to analog until you get to the listener's audio playback
system. Every Analog to Digital or Digital to Analog conversion adds
noise, jitter, and distortion. Lucid performs all post-production work entirely in the
digital domain at 32 or 64 bit floating point resolution using very high quality
post-production digital tools and plugins.
- Use little to no compression. Lucid uses no compression during
the recordings. However, high quality
compression, limiting, or gain adjustments are sometimes needed on the loudest passages
so that the quiet parts are not 'too quiet', or so that applause between
songs doesn't sound too loud (depending upon microphone
positions, clapping is often much louder
than the performance). In post-production, Lucid
uses the smallest amount of compression possible while still using
enough to achieve the desired results. Often, we use no compression at
all. This maximizes the "Dynamic Range" of the recorded
music so that it matches the dynamics that were present when the music was
performed live. One result of this is that often the 'average' sound
levels are a little lower than on most CDs, so that there's room for the
dynamic peaks to occur above the average level. As a result of this
lower average level, the listener simply needs to 'turn it up' to be able to
enjoy the recording as it was meant to sound. For more information on
this, see our page on Dynamic Range and the
Loudness Wars.
- Avoid amplified instruments/voices whenever
possible. House PA systems are notoriously unmusical and artificial
sounding. If house sound must be used, try to record the
instruments/voices up-close, so that the recording microphones capture the original
'live' acoustic sound of the performer/instrument - not the sound of the loudspeakers. Then create an
'artificial' hall ambience without the sound of the PA system in
post-production using quality digital reverbs. This is definitely an
'idealized' version of the original event. The recording will most
likely sound significantly better than the live event.
- Similarly to amplified performances, if a performance is taking place in a
hall with poor acoustics, try to record the artists/musicians 'up close' to avoid
picking up the sound of the hall. Then, at post-production, add in
artificial hall ambience to provide an idealized recording in a better
'artificial' hall than the original real hall. The recording will
sound better than it did live while still retaining the characteristic
of sounding legitimately 'real'. Use only the best digital modeling
reverbs. Lucid has many excellent digital reverbs that produce very
realistic hall acoustics.
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