Yikes!

Cite away, but please, please respect the rules of science I have posted in "Rules of Analysis" that I have posted on this site, unless you feel that those, too, may be wrong. If they are, we may all be in a lot of trouble!

Best regards,

Dave

I read a lot about your understanding of sound.

While I appreciate your efforts to get a grip on this complex issue and while your writing is elaborate and detailed I fear you may be wrong. Misguided may be the word. Just about everything you think you understand may be untrue. Thus your writings may be misinforming and doing a disservice. I'm not saying you're wrong but I strongly suspect this is the case in a number of claims you make as being factual (and supposedly based on experiential, measurable evidence).

What specifically may be wrong about your understanding, I may detail later if you're interested.

Continuing with part 2 of the message that I started the last time:

It has been said that this (center channel dialogue) is ideal, or at least good, for "talking heads". Even there, I disagree. Back in the tiny-screen TV days of the 1940's and 1950's, with the single speaker, this may have been true. Most newscasts of that era had a single newscaster, who was usually imaged centered on the screen in tight full-face shots, so that you could see their expressions on the small screens. Today, it is very different. We call the "star" newscaster an "anchor", because he heads up a team of one or more other newscasters. I say "he", because even though it is now common practice for at least one of the newscasters to be female, to this day the anchor is usually male (yes there are a few, still rare, exceptions)...

So, we have a team. Most often, there are two people on-screen at any one time. Both of their voices seem to emanate from someplace in-between them. I get the strange impression that they are both lip-syncing to some very versatile narrator hiding underneath the center of the news desk. This under-the-desk ventriloquist is very adept, as he or she is able to instantly change this mysterious center-voice back-and-forth frequently between male and female. Even in those few instances where there is only one person on-screen, widescreen composition will often position that person to one side of center. So, even there, that person's voice seems to emanate from the potted plant or furniture that happens to be center-screen at the moment.

Earlier, I referred to today's surround sound (a term I still like to use for all flavors of directional sound used today) with the parenthetical [removed]sort of). Yes, it does surround. But not always from the same place the picture would indicate it should be.

Back in the 1950's, several "simulcasts" were made with a kludged-together "stereo" audio system. A television station would broadcast the picture and one sound track, of perhaps, a classical music concert, while their sister FM outlet would broadcast the other audio track. This worked. Sometimes. However, it was common practice then, as it is now, to switch back-and-forth between the audience POV and the musician's POV. Nevertheless, the sound orientation remained the same. This discrepancy made it appear that the first violins had suddenly jumped from the left to the right side of the stage, with absolutely no agreement between the picture and the sound. This jarring visual-and-aural disagreement continues even in the (rare) concert telecasts today. Although, today, with all of our modern digital advancements, it is likely that the sound and the picture will occasionally go out of sync as well. At least the old-tyme simulcasts were always in perfect sync. So much for progress.

Sincerely,

John A. Rupkalvis

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Mr. Moulton ~

Your article in the March 5 issue of TV Technology, was, as usual, excellent. The facts stated were right on.

That said, I should point out that I never have liked the concept of center channel audio for dialog. To me, most often it is very unnatural.

By way of explanation, a (reasonably) brief history of directed sound may be helpful.

The first widespread use of synchronous sound was the motion picture (at least it usually was very well synchronized way back then, as compared to some television sound now). Very early it was recognized that a single sound source for all of the sounds accompanying a picture was not natural. So, most theaters in the 1930's and 1940's, especially the larger ones, attempted to disperse the sound from the single track through an array of loudspeakers placed at a variety of locations behind the screen, that was perforated for that purpose.

Television receivers in the late 1940's had very small screens, 8 inch, 10 inch, and sometimes 12 inch were reasonably common. Rear projection sets existed also, but even their "big screens" were only 16 inch. Most of these television receivers had a single speaker, usually located below the screen. Since the screens were so small, anything in the proximity of the picture produced believable sound.

By the early 1950's, CRTs grew to 16", 17", and even a (reasonably rare at that time) 19". So, projection TV in the home disappeared for several decades. But the sound still emanated from that single speaker.

The movie industry, regarding the growing television population (as well as slightly larger TV screens) as a threat, tried several things to combat this encroachment. 3-D and widescreen became popular at that time. But, widescreen processes presented a problem. Sounds that accompanied the images did not seem right if they did not sound like they were coming from the visual source.

The answer was what was then called "stereophonic sound", a term later applied to dual channel home sound systems. But, in the movies it was more than just two channels. Even CinemaScope boasted four discrete audio channels, and Todd-AO had six, while Cinerama had seven. True surround sound, although it was not called that back then. An actor walked across the screen while delivering his or her lines, and their voice appeared to be coming from wherever they happened to be at the moment. Very effective. Very realistic.

Jump ahead to today. Yes, we still have surround sound (sort of) for music and effects. But, the voices all seem to be coming from the same place, regardless of where the image indicates they should be. With the larger screens of today's "home theater" televisions, in the wider 16:9 aspect ratio, this disparity becomes very obvious. A giant step backward to the 1930's and 1940's in terms of natural sound-and-image association.

(End of part 1, due to the word-limitation. Hopefully, I will be able to finish this in part 2).

Sincerely,

John A. Rupkalvis

Dave,

Let's see. It has been 35 years since you sold me my first EML-101 at Dondisound! I'm retired from the Navy, still writing for Recording, and have just set up a media production company -- CrystaLogic Productions. It's been a while since we chatted. Send me an email address that you actually read:)

John Rossi

Mr. Moulton Golden Ears is exactly what Ive been needing!! This is going to help me in the areas where I was weak. My ears. I'll keep you posted on my progress. Still haven't gotten Total Recording, but I will.

Hi Mike!

It's nice to hear from you, see that you're doing well. Thanks for the kind thoughts. Stop in if you're ever back in Boston metro.

Best,

Dave

Hey Dave, Love the new site, Good to see you are still keeping us on our toes. I was a student of yours at Emerson back in the 90's. You gave me alot of inspiration for which I thank you very much. I am and have been on the road with various touring bands for quite some time now. Toured the world with everyone from Dickey(louder than god) Betts, to Al (nice and acoustic) DiMeiola.
I hope you are well and thank you for everything,
Cheers, Mike

I have thought about it, even tried it. Never been able to make it work, for me or the student. I'm open to suggestions, however.

Thank you Mr. Moulton, Golden Ears is on it's way. I ordered from Parsons. Great price also. Total Recording is next. I am very excited about receiving the drills. I wish I lived in your area to take more courses. Ever thought about correspondence?

Great website!! What's the biggest difference between the Golden Ears & Playback Platinum lectures. I want to purchase a program but am torn. Would both be beneficial? I'm thinking about Total Recording also. Help. I want to learn as much as possible from you and your systems.

I'm sorry you are having this problem.

I think you can correct it pretty easily and quickly by simply "regrooving" or re-calibrating your hearing - go back to some fairly early drills, do them with both headphone sets and memorize the new sounds as well as the old ones. It should come to you fairly quickly.

You have the added advantage, once you've done this, of knowing how the spectrum soundw over both a good and a bad system. Hopefully, you'll be able to carry that in memory and use it for fun and profit!

Good luck, and thanks for writing.

Best,

Dave Moulton

For a long time I use golden ears with a very cheap set of headphones. Recently I bought a very expensive famous headphone set but guess what I can not identify the frequencies anymore. You see is not the same anymore the frequencies sound totally different to me.
Plus I am doing a course called Critical listening through Berklee and when I have to guess which frequencies are I am doing all of the drills wrong.
Should I keep my old cheap and almost dead headphone or I learn to hear bad with the wrong way and now I must learn in a new way?
Do you know that this cheap headphone is the only one who can reproduce 31Hz and 16 KHz? I learn how the frequencies are with this one or I didn’t? huh?

Hi All..

I did a google search on a Shure HTS100se encoder and it brought me here. Does anyone have any info on this neat piece of equipment?

Thanks and MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!!

Kevin in PA.

Dave,

You've got a great website that's full of very very informative and entertaining. A great contribution to musicians...

Rick Landers
Modern Guitars Magazine

Hi Dave!
I was looking up some info on grounding issues, which of course brought up Neil Muncy's name (how could it not?), and then your site. I'm a long way from Fredonia right now - teaching in Kosovo. I had fun reading through your site - keep up the good work. Reminiscent of a coversation we had so long ago - of all the web sites I have looked at, I can honestly say yours is the most recent.

Mr. Moulton,

I am currently reading your book Total Recording (page 117 and going) and i am learning a lot ! I've started a list of questions (so far two) and when i'm finished with the book i would like to e-mail them to you. Is there an e-mail address i can send it to?

I was doing an early saturday morning web crawl and found the following quotation- "Why is American beer served cold? So you can distinguish it from urine."
--David Moulton
I followed by googling the name and found myself here at the lab and was happy to find the plethora of interesting information here, as I do a bit of video production. I think we met breifly at SUNY Fredonia. Anyhow Thanks for having this site and provideing the keen resources to helping the world to be a better sounding place.
Randy Crawford- suny fredonia '81

As a long time BBN and independent acoustical consultant I appreciate your talent for making acoustic concepts understandable to a wide audience. But your recent article on managing SPL in TV Technology has left me a bit uneasy.

You state that in setting up a listening configuration one should set the individual speaker levels for pink noise at 0 VU or -14 dB FS signals to be 85 dBC. Should one turn on all the speakers at one time the SPL could go up anywhere from 8 to 16 dBC, depending on the phase coherence of the speaker signals. That would make it mighty loud.

Listening to music or home theater at these levels could be unpleasant. To be a sound editor or mixer at these levels might lead to hearing damage. SMPTE recommends movie theaters be set up for 85 dBA and Jay Rose recommends mixing at 91 dBC levels (85 dBC @ -20 dBFS).

What do you feel is the proper SPL for mixing and for listening.

Amen to your thoughts and beliefs on the "loudness race". I record, produce, mix and master mainly hip-hop but other genres as well and the squashed, limited dynamic range recordings are simply becoming tragic. Hopefully with enough persistence and individuals like yourself and Bob Katz enough people will be educated to scale it back a bit. Thanks for the great articles.

1 Independent Canadian Label in your corner to help try and end the loudness race.