Orchestral "Presence"

[peterbas]

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[bloke]

OK..

That's fine. I'll remind you that I'm just a blue collar tuba player and not some audiophile.

The finest amplifiers and speakers always still sound like recordings to me, so I'm never that picky when listening to recordings. The download seemed to boost the highs and lows and add front to audio events, which is fine, and makes it easier to discern things, but to me it didn't sound more realistic. I know that the amount of money that one can spend on playing back recorded sounds involved as much money as someone has. Rather than getting closer and closer to sounding like live performances for $XX,XXX or more, I'd probably just as soon replace some of these old cars around here or pay somebody to push some of this forest brush off in ravines, etc.

I listen to recorded music to learn pieces of music prior to playing them, or to listen to a recording someone made of me to ascertain whether I sucked or not. Otherwise, about the only music I listen to is during rehearsals and concerts. I do own a couple of German microphones that some might consider quite nice, but using those and plugging them into really nice sampling equipment still sounds like a recording to me.

[peterbas]

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[bloke]

I made some pretty nice acoustic recordings with some $50 (adjusted for inflation: maybe $800 for the pair) Shure microphones back in the 1970s with a Kenwood cassette deck, as well as an Akai (their nicest 1/4") reel-to-reel.
Later, I learned how to make really nice recordings on video tape without bothering to record videos to go with them, because the old VCR tape nicest cameras had some darn good heads in them for audio, particular when I used the Neumann mics that I had bought at that time. Later, I got into the DAT tape thing. As technology continued to change, I grew weary of learning new technologies/media/platforms/etc. and weary of making recordings. I know a little bit more about mic placement, levels, EQ, and mic pickup patterns than you might think I do, but as you always enjoy lecturing me (whereby I might return the favor with some trolling, but not today) that's fine. It has the same effect as always.

What I'm saying is that >>>>
audiophiles spend an awful lot of money to listen to or make recordings that still don't sound like live music. Those who claim that they do sound like live music apparently can't hear very well.

[dp]

...I'm playing with a community orchestra again after a few years off....the group has grown to 90 musicians since I last played with them

...I'm feeling like my King 2341 doesn't have the same "presence" it did the last time I played with them.

...I feel like I really have to push to be heard. they really liked it when I brought a Yamaha YCB-822 I was helping a friend sell.

1) How many basses are in the ensemble? 2 or 3? I'd expect close to 8 in an orchestra of 90 people.

2) The King and Yamaha are different scope instruments. bores .687 -v- .776, and the 822' a scootch bigger yet again after after the valve block

3) If your ensemble (assuming back row/conductor) liked the 822, that sounds like your answer

4) in the meanwhile if you have to "work it" with the King, what is the sound concept in your head? e.g. I don't think you can get "howitzer" with it especially with 8 basses, but if you find yourself working to get effective balance with 8 basses and maybe a dozen celli, I'd suggest getting away from overthinking and keep it fun! (ps if the 822 hasn't sold you should get it)

[peterbas]

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[bloke]

I even warned you that I was trolling you, but you still didn't catch on.



but even so, I can see golfers who win serious money every year spending money on crazy expensive clubs, because they're actually hitting real balls and winning real money and probably having real fun... and the same goes for bowed stringed instrument players playing music, but the money that audiophiles spend on their equipment.. and it still doesn't sound like real people playing music...
... and a huge percentage of what they are listening to has been pasted together in possibly no more than ten to thirty second second snippets of artificial sublimity.

I was part of an orchestra hired to accompany a really high profile horn player who recorded three concerti with us - all in one weekend, in between our other rehearsals. Each of those concerti featured literally hundreds of punches. Why spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on equipment to listen to "recordings" of some fake crap like that?

I don't believe there are that many more virtuosi today than there were a half century ago. There may be a few more (via the population doubling, but there are probably only just a few more than there were back then who can play straight through a piece and have the entire performance be worthy of recording. Again, and even if performances are perfect, the audio fidelity of a live performance will never be equalled by any recording. Recordings can achieve larger than life sounds, but not equal to live.

[dp]

-snip-
...just me trying to get some meaningful discussion started...

[bloke]

Gold tinted lacquer projects much more than silver, and particularly on top of yellow brass, but the slide tubing should be nickel brass, and even though gold lacquer doesn't look good on nickel brass, a slightly larger throat should make up for that, as long as a condenser microphone is used with a late version Zoom recorder.

[Tubajug]

...I'm playing with a community orchestra again after a few years off....the group has grown to 90 musicians since I last played with them

...I'm feeling like my King 2341 doesn't have the same "presence" it did the last time I played with them.

...I feel like I really have to push to be heard. they really liked it when I brought a Yamaha YCB-822 I was helping a friend sell.

1) How many basses are in the ensemble? 2 or 3? I'd expect close to 8 in an orchestra of 90 people.

2) The King and Yamaha are different scope instruments. bores .687 -v- .776, and the 822' a scootch bigger yet again after after the valve block

3) If your ensemble (assuming back row/conductor) liked the 822, that sounds like your answer

4) in the meanwhile if you have to "work it" with the King, what is the sound concept in your head? e.g. I don't think you can get "howitzer" with it especially with 8 basses, but if you find yourself working to get effective balance with 8 basses and maybe a dozen celli, I'd suggest getting away from overthinking and keep it fun! (ps if the 822 hasn't sold you should get it)

We've got about 5-6 basses and about a dozen celli.

I was selling the Yamaha for a friend, and I didn't have the money anyway, but it is in the hands of its happy new owner.

In my head, I'm thinking of a thicker, broader sound. The King definitely has the "punch" when I push it, but not the "ooh, there's the tuba" sound. We'll see what next year brings! I certainly enjoy playing with the group. There are lots of great people in there and we play some good music.

[bloke]

I've been involved in two or three quiet conversations with tuba players who are paid a lot more than I am and are a lot busier than I am who readily admit that a tuba that's the size of a King is easier to discern - out of the corporate sound - than most any American-style 6/4 instrument, and also understand why the smokestack belled central European tubas are used, because they offer both a larger sound as well as the type of impact that a tuba of the size of a King offers. That having been said, I don't see them laying down their yorkophones.

Even I - the blue collar tuba player who walked away from C instruments - am still clinging to a model which is a crossover between a European kaiser and an American style 6/4, because it features a yorkophone-shaped bell. I think it's fun for us to play a tuba that makes that type of sound, but we need to be aware that that type of sound doesn't really carry as well, so - if you move over to something like that - expect to put out more effort (rather than less) in order to be heard/distinguished as an individual sound.

Moreover, 6/4 yorkophones will rattle the walls in our homes, but not so much in concert halls, as concert halls are designed to not have their walls rattled.

[dp]

We've got about 5-6 basses and about a dozen celli.

I was selling the Yamaha for a friend, and I didn't have the money anyway, but it is in the hands of its happy new owner.

In my head, I'm thinking of a thicker, broader sound. The King definitely has the "punch" when I push it, but not the "ooh, there's the tuba" sound. We'll see what next year brings! I certainly enjoy playing with the group. There are lots of great people in there and we play some good music.

Keep thinking that, try not to think of scads other stuff except blending with the basses (and a lesser extent the celli)

Oh, and if, while doin' that, you can't hear the basses, try to back off a notch or two til you can hear them and see how that works for you

[bloke]

re: basses
This region is inundated with really fine bassists. It's probably because of some really fine teachers who have been in the area. They play well enough so as when I realize that we are playing the same line, I make a particular effort to listen to their style. Overwhelmingly, we are already matching styles, which I consider a feather in my cap - considering how fine they are regarding their musicianship. I also consider it a feather in my cap when I hear that I'm in tune with them, due to the same reasons.
I have a really talented tenor/alto trombone player friend to whom I sort of taught the bass trombone excerpts on-the-fly (me: having been lucky enough to have sat with some really fine bass trombonists, them really not having had much bass trombone orchestral experience at all, and - several years ago - them suddenly having been thrown into the chair). Astonishingly, they have accepted a good bit of the advice I whispered in their ear when their first run through an excerpt perhaps (through well played) didn't sound quite "like the record", so to speak. I've also taught them to listen to the basses for style, since the bass trombone also sometimes is assigned those same lines.
...Since I'm pontificating, one thing that (some) bass trombone players don't seem to get is that bass line that they were so generously given by Tchaikovsky in the Waltz of the Flowers. They take the soft dynamic marking way too literally and timidly squeak out that line with just about no front in the sound and as if apologizing for playing along with the basses. In that particular instance, it's really obvious that Tchaikovsky wanted to spotlight the bass trombone, and that bass line needs a good amount of front, some decay, the bass trombonist actually needs to take over conducting the orchestra, and - every time I've sat next to a fine bass trombone player who did that - the maestro followed the bass trombone, as did the rest of the orchestra.

How's that for going off on a wild tangent?