Intrada Soundtrack Forum

Evening, all -

Among engineers and producers as well as listeners, is there a recognized consensus on what a stereo mix of an orchestra should sound like? Specifically, in a perfect world with optimal elements to work with, where should the groups of instruments sound like they're coming from? One predominant school of thought says that one should try to emulate what one would hear from the conductor's podium with violins left, cellos right, and so on. Several Intrada releases have been pulled from elements that had strings on one channel, brass on another, and percussion on another (or some such) making a traditional (classical?) sound field impossible, but a pleasing, widespread sonic spectrum of some sort still attainable.

The reason I ask is that the new release of "One-Eyed Jacks" is presented in such a way that a listener sounds like one is standing in the middle of the orchestra and facing to the side, with all strings coming from one side, the brass from the other, and the woodwinds from between the two. Nothing wrong with this at all, maybe the elements Bruce Kimmel had to work with mandated a treatment like this, and it sounds fantastic, but I wondered if anyone with an opinion would weigh in?

No complaint of any kind triggered this posting, just curiosity about how other film music fanciers felt about this, or if they were even aware of it? I remember reading an article years ago about how Howard Shore experimented with orchestra placement when he recorded his score for "eXistenZ" but I freely admit it all went right over my head at the time. Any thoughts?

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Karl Morton IV

"Enjoy every sandwich."
-- Warren Zevon

Oh, absolutely it sounds good! No criticism intended. I was aware that more often than not the available elements dictated what was done, but in such cases is there an ideal "template" or "format" you guys are aiming for or do you take it case by case and do what the music wants? Feel free to chime in with any wild stories along these lines - they're always great fun to read.

_________________
Karl Morton IV

"Enjoy every sandwich."
-- Warren Zevon

There is no one single right way to record an orchestra, there are many philosophies regarding stereo recordings, and it depends to a large degree on the actual score recorded, on the hall where it's recorded, and on personal tastes.

Even in an ideal world with "ideal" recording conditions everywhere, these "ideal" recording conditions may vary depending on what one finds "ideal", and different recording engineers would still make different recording choices, according to the need of the score, the hall used, and the personal tastes and preferences of those involved in producing the recording.

For example, if you use a lot of microphones and set them up very closely, on the plus side you'll get a lot of detail of individual instruments in the recording, and you can mix individual instruments to your need. On the down side, the orchestra may sound flat and pinched, you'll lose the dynamic and won't get the full orchestral impact. So you have to choose what makes sense for a particular recording. Take the enormous scope of THE LORD OF THE RINGS recorded sound as an example of "recording the hall" for full orchestral impact and the immediate up front sound of Intrada's JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS as an example of recording close-ups. The former recording sounds grand and epic, while the latter sounds close and aggressive. Both recordings sound excellent, it's a matter of what is right for a particular performance of a particular score and what you want to emphasize.

It's probably a basic rule of thumb when presenting a stereo reproduction of the strings in an orchestra to have violins on the left, violas spread towards the center and cellos and basses on the right. It tends to provide the "fullest" sound. Woodwinds generally get center spots and brass are now typically spread with horns on the left, trumpets and trombones center-right, and tuba on the right. Percussion get the entire "back row" and items like piano or harp are typically given spotlighted positions on the left or right as desired.

That said, some composers had other things in mind when presenting their scores for albums. Neal Hefti loved to write with the saxes as his primary voice in the orchestra and relegate the strings frequently to supporting roles. As such, he would sometimes place saxes in the prime left channel position and mix all strings to the right be they high or low. Mancini sometimes did the same thing to his strings when he had a lot of other solo colors spotlighted.

Regarding the three channel tapes that opened this topic... sometimes thought of as stems, these master elements were originally designed simply to be mixed into mono for proper balancing with the film's dialog and effects. Isolating strings, brass and woodwinds into just three channels allowed greater flexibility when making the final mono film mix. As such, these tapes weren't intended to create a stereo sound spread nor could one properly be made from them.

In some cases, these elements aren't very musical when heard in stereo playbacks, such as what survived with MYSTERIOUS ISLAND. In such cases, everything sounds odd because the channels are so discreet, being designed just for ease of storage and mono mixing. Entire passages play out of just one speaker, then bounce to the other. In my opinion, mono makes for a more comfortable experience when this happens.

However, the splendid ONE EYED JACKS is a much better listening experience, in part because the percussion, guitars and other colors are shared through channels as well as there being some spread in the woodwinds and such. The results are a much better stereo image than what usually comes with this particular tape format.
--Doug

That very interesting discussion leads me to another question, why is there not more 5 channels presentations of recent film music since the recordings and the movie mixing are now designed specifically for at least 5 channels ? I know things get worse for the mixing of a CD (do we have to put the listener in the middle of the orchestra ?), but still...
When you listen to 5 channels isolated music on DVD, that's a very different experience from the stereo usual listening. There are very few DTS soundtracks that were released as well (Titanic being the most popular), but they never seemed to take over...

I'm probably a minority of one but I truly enjoyed the original mercury living presence recordings from the 50's. When played through a single 'sweet sixteen' speaker they really sounded nice. the engineer who worked for mercury knew what he was doing. i understand that for some of the recordings he achieved the sound with a single microphone perfectly placed.
Thomas

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"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance...that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
Herbert Spencer

Yeah, sdtom, the professor in an audio class in college took an hour to examine those. Amazing indeed. Not to deliberately sound snarky, but I often wonder if those who sneer at mono releases on the grounds of extreme audiophilia even know what they're hearing. Reminds me of those home theatre buffs back in the day who hated letterboxed movies because it meant they weren't getting full value out of their big TV set.

Can anyone think of any experimentation in mic or instrument placement one might ba able to track down? Bernard Herrmann did it all the time, of course. Seems to me Joel McNeely had loads of fun with echoing brass in his score for "Soldier" some ten years ago. Anybody got any more?

_________________
Karl Morton IV

"Enjoy every sandwich."
-- Warren Zevon