Old new sound: Opinions of the engineer and music lover

Yuri Fomin and Bookshelf speakers Arslab Old School Superb 90 / Photo magazine «Stereo & Video», in partnership with our thematic edition " World Hi-Fi access "

in the 26th edition of the podcast "Sound" to communicate with us: Yuri Fomin, a design engineer of acoustic systems and the founder of the company "F-Lab" and Andrey Kompaneyets, an expert in the field of PR and marketing.

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Dmitry: We continue to discuss topics that interest our audience. One of these topics is the “ sameness ” of modern music compared to what we had 10-20 years ago. It will be about radio format, about what we cannot hear on our reproducing systems. Let's talk about a myth that gives reason to believe that recording studios intentionally make music monotonous.

Yuri: You have to understand that the possibilities of thirty, forty years ago are incomparably more modest than modern ones.

Dmitry: Now many musicians are saving and “speeding up” the recording of their albums using exclusively digital instruments.

Yuri:That's right. Now digital instruments have reached a very high level of reliability of the sound of the signal. I am talking about a musical image that they are trying to repeat. This was not even 20 years ago.

Sequencers did not have the reliability that the sample now has in computers. It is important which product you end up with. I attended the record of the “Dynamics” group 30 years ago. This entry was made on a residual basis.

We had only two tape recorders, stage equipment and an impromptu studio-hall. We had to make a phonogram, which we would then listen to, which would evaluate our music. And we had only two keyboards, guitars and our voices.

A vinyl album has now been released. I listened. Naive, out of date, "holey" record. There were few instruments, but this music has not lost its relevance. I see what was good with us and what was bad. But to say that it was very bad, I can’t.

Dmitry: Many musicians are chasing this, imitating digital filters and instruments, for example, the noise of film tape.

Yuri: Now you can record music in a way that was impossible before. You can record a guitar by plugging it directly into the console, simulating a sequencer - a computer. You can make an acoustic track, record multichannel, you can decompose the sound into several sounds, decompose it in stereo, create an artificial scene with a guitar or add sounds that do not exist in a living instrument. All this will be interesting, touching.

Dmitry: And what about the "plot" of the studios?

Yuri: Classical record schools are not much different from what they used to be. The opportunities to learn how to use have increased. The requirements for phonograms for listening on weak equipment remained the same. As for the elite compositions, sound engineers want to embrace the impossible: the maximum dynamic range and beauty of the instrument, a reverent attitude to musical material when recording classical or ethnic music.

Dmitry: Studios and those who record music now have the opportunity to “decompose” and “improve” any instrument.

Yuri:Let's step back. We know seven notes. If you disassemble the music from the moment when people began to create it, to this day it turns out that any work is a repetition of the previous one.

The sound engineer or composer has the opportunity to give his sound to the material. They have to seriously work with those "chips" that we talked about. And this is the only way to give your music its sound. The sound engineer must look for new sounds.

Dmitry: Let's talk about radio versions. For example, in your time records of the album "Dynamics" existed in a radio version?

Yuri:Let’s take, for example, the school for recording at the State Academic Theater of Music - this is our state-owned company that wrote beautifully symphonic music. These albums and records are still considered recording standards. They represent the Golden Fund of sound engineering.

Our team needed to record music so that it would play well when dubbed from tape to tape. People listening to cassette recorders were supposed to get sound material.

Of course, we have not done a master tape for centuries. We made the music that could be heard in the kitchen, on the beach. I have friends sound engineers, I visit them. They write well, they have well-equipped studios, and they have every opportunity. Nevertheless, releasing radio versions or versions “for the people”, they put the most primitive equipment that everyone can buy for themselves, and begin to twist and edit the phonogram so that it sounds effectively and correctly on this equipment.

Dmitry: We are talking about equipment that reproduces. Not for the record, of course.

Yuri:Of course. In fact, a new phonogram is created, which is transmitted through the equipment on which it will be played. It is necessary that the material is correctly reflected, that it is beneficial, that the material is bought, and people enjoy.

Dmitry: This is such an aspect of the recording, when we want to get the author’s handwriting, variety and even “pull out” old instruments?

Yuri: We are pulling out old instruments to occupy a new niche in the recording world. The available resource, I’m not saying that it’s completely exhausted, but the gap exists.

If before rock music was everything to us, now we are critical of even the number of rock musicians. It’s hard for them to surprise us, because we consume high-quality rock records and consume a lot. If earlier for us the name itself was an occasion to go listen or buy a phonogram, now everything is different.

Dmitry: The same tools are “pulled out” not just to distinguish themselves, they initially contain artifacts that are not on digital recordings.

Yuri: Absolutely. Sometimes one instrument can imitate a quartet or sextet, creating the illusion of a great sound. At the current level of recording, this sounds interesting.

Let me give you an example from ethnic music. What is there in the bagpipe that people listen with reverence? We often turn to our ethnic music, we have beautiful balalaika players who give the balalaika a modern sound. It touches us.

Maybe we would not even listen to a simple balalaika, but with an unusual sounding - with pleasure! This is a way to dive into our history. Our great-grandfathers listened to the balalaika. I do not want to draw a line between the times. We live as we live.

Dmitry: The mass culture of music consumption has become more intense: listening more - easier to find records.

Yuri:Today we can listen to anything. Previously, you had to buy a specialized playback device and recording. Now we can listen to music on the Internet, make ratings and even promote material. Youtube and analogues have resolved all the issues of promotion. This should not be evaluated in terms of criticism of modern music or recording formats.

Dmitry: By the way, we talked about formats in one of the previous issues.

Yuri: Yes, musical material should be treated in the format of the time in which we live.

Dmitry: You can draw an analogy with food. Eat fast food, eat more refined and healthy food.

Yuri:There are several studios writing elite music. They make samples of recorded material, which are then sold in small runs. This material may only be used by specialists. For ordinary people, it is too expensive. It is used to demonstrate or evaluate a particular reproducing device.

Dmitry: Maybe there is even some kind of special recording philosophy when certain things become known due to their shortcomings and artifacts.

Yuri: There are many philosophical questions in our industry that do not require the participation of an engineer. An engineer should simply observe this, look for the need for certain devices. So are musicians who are constantly looking for new things. They begin, for example, with one style of performance, with one sound, and this develops into something else.

Dmitry: On the other hand, the audience itself is also developing.

Yuri: And puts forward his requests.

Dmitry: It happens when you know that at a certain place in the recording you hear a small artifact or an error that you may never find on the radio.

Yuri: I noticed that we don’t even know why we are nostalgic. For some distortions that were previously in the tape recorder "Spring"? Or due to the lack of distortion, which we do not have now and which we are chasing?

We make perfect equipment, listen to it, and it turns out to be uninteresting, too perfect. I have already given an example that a person who has recorded his voice on a tape recorder and listened to it will be disappointed. He will be disappointed not only because he does not like him, but he does not hear his voice - he will understand that his voice is faceless. Makeup is the same: we come to television, we are powdery, tinted ... This dissatisfaction pushes people to work on themselves.

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Alina: There is an opinion that modern vocalists, performers in groups and solo do not really like to record the same things over and over again, to rewrite couplets. They do not always know their voice well enough as an instrument. Therefore, sometimes, to simplify the process, the voice is slightly adjusted with the help of modern technologies, in order to make it sound more saturated, to be more colorful.

On the one hand, this is good, on the other hand, the minus is that the voices begin to sound the same, because technology does not give such a variety that gives a real performance. Do you think the voices have changed, is there a contrast between modern concert performance and the performance of old-school musicians?

Andrew:“Pops,” in my opinion, can only be listened to in the background for a specific case and mood. I admit, I am not a fan of the concerts of ordinary non-classical groups. The last concert I attended was a performance by the leader of the Roots group, who is now performing solo. I was amazed at how he sang.

Most of all I appreciate the vocal data of the performers. What is performed on instruments, to one degree or another, in pop music goes without significant differences. Many may disagree with me, but, as an ordinary consumer of pop music content, I transmit my experience. I do not distinguish, for example, the nuances of bass.

Alina: Of course, you need to listen to the bass guitar in live performance. Only then resonance is heard and “waves” run through the body.

Andrew:I always want nuances. Frank Sinatra, who had been playing the song “My way” for half his life, began to hate it by the end, which he spoke openly about. If you compare the manner in which he performed this song throughout his life, the difference will be noticeable. This is interesting to us, consumers of music content. Nuances are always interesting. And for me, music is interesting exclusively to them. I think it's great to include live recordings on the radio.

Alina: But the sound there is not so clear and adjusted, as, for example, in studio recordings. It seems to me that, along with the nuances, there is an opposite trend, when people hear one pattern, and they want to repeat it.

This is very pronounced in young children, when they need to read the same tale, so that they perceive it well. This pattern of recognizing a friend is sometimes very important for people. Why am I saying this? I recalled the active discussion of the Russian folk rock band Mill.

This group loves concert performance. At their concerts, they record their songs, which are performed in different contexts. They often say that they overwrite their tracks, because the performance is different all the time.

Listeners say: “How so? We remembered the song in a certain way, and you replay it, it changes again. What is happening? ”It turns out that there are two different types of listeners: one wants constancy, the other wants constant novelty.

Andrew:These are absolutely fair words. I belong to the audience who, as a child, having loved a song by Tsoi in a particular performance, in another version simply refuses to listen to it. I understand the group, which as a creative team refuses to stop there.

I’ll tell you about one performance. It was held recently in the Bauman Garden, on the occasion of Luxembourg's presidency of the European Council. The famous Luxembourg cellist performed . He did not play Bach in the form we are used to.

What was it? There was a cello connected to an amplifier and a recording device. He took the first pizzicato chords, recorded them, turned on the background, recorded the second part against this background, turned on the background of the second part, started playing the first part, third, fourth and so on and filled the stage with an orchestra.

Alina: Napoleon Cake.

Andrew: In appearance, these were professional improvisations. It is clear that they were deeply prepared improvisations, variations. These were variations on some famous tunes. I recognized Bach, in particular, Ave Maria, but something else was interesting.

The audience, recognizing a familiar tune, began to applaud. I made a helpless gesture, not understanding why they clap. But when I heard Bach, it caught fire. This Bach sounds! And no one patted or paid attention.

The process of recognizing a hidden melody closed in a new form caused delight. An interesting packaging of old and new.

Alina: How interesting we have gone from modern technologies, which, it would seem, “spoil” the sound, to modern approaches that only enrich it.

Andrew: Yes, I agree. Let's return to the topic of pop music, to the topic of high-quality recordings. Despite the fact that I am a big fan of the concert performance of classical music, I like analog recordings, relish the nuances, I, as a consumer, listen to Vkontakte music. I am not ashamed to admit it.

I read a lot about the fact that it is of poor quality, compressed. I'm sure vinyl or good studio CDs will sound completely different. But for me this is a solution to some problem. This convenience is your own playlist, which is available always and everywhere, while the memory of the phone or computer does not load. This is the case when music does not sound like a backdrop, and I am satisfied with its quality, because it helps me at work. That is why Vkontakte music has become popular in Russia.

I recently listened to Joachkino Rossini's overture for the opera William Tell three times in a row. The end of this overture is very famous. I had to distract from the workflow [so I chose Vkontakte as the source of the recording].

Of course, I still pay more attention to quality music than the one that Vkontakte sounds, because I understand that there are so many nuances that are imperceptible when listening to music on social networks. I'm interested in feeling the size of the room. The last thing I listened to was choral performances. Since I also sang in the choir and I know how the choir sounds in a particular room, I was curious to dream up in which room the choir was recorded based on the length of the echo.

Alina: It turns out that professional high-quality recording and professional equipment, as a music lover, give you more space for analytics, thoughts during listening. When listening to a professional, serious recording that is well kept on the appropriate equipment, you should pay more attention to it.

Can you listen to her as background music while doing other things? How characteristic is this for you, how much attention does this well-recorded music take or redirect from you?

Andrei: I don’t know what other people have, but when I listen to music at work, my efficiency goes down. I can’t divert attention to music in such a way as to perform the quality work that I do. For me, music is an opportunity to be inspired, distracted, but not a background conducive to work. Some of my colleagues cannot work without background.

Alina: For you, any listening to music is “immersion” in the process anyway?

Andrew:Yes, I’m interested in getting into music, listening to it from a new perspective. Listening to music in the background and working, you distract from the music, try to concentrate, but you no longer get pleasure. I listened to “William Tell” many times, then concentrated and realized that I missed my favorite moment in this overture, I was very sad. I realized that I had to either work or listen to music. Each person is individual. If someone in the office turns on the music in the background, I’m not always comfortable.

Alina:I understand you very much about this, it’s also hard for me to listen to music and do something in parallel. For you, music from Vkontakte, if you draw a food parallel, is considered a light snack, and listening to more serious recordings with more serious equipment, for example, FLAC, can be compared to meditative eating, tea drinking or something else?

Andrew: Yes, the comparison is excellent. Vkontakte music is just a snack on the run. A few weeks ago with the whole family we went to listen to pianists for the second round of the P.I. Tchaikovsky, listened to in their performance of Mozart. I caught myself thinking that it sounds like in a showroom. It was an unusual sensation. The orchestra played as if there were speakers on the stage. I noted for myself that the columns sound like an orchestra, the orchestra - like good speakers. Here is my experience.

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