"I’d like to share something with you that I find absolutely fascinating!
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We have also Soundhouses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds, and their generations.
We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter sounds, and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have; together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent
small sounds as great and deep; likewise great sounds as extenuate and sharp; we make divers tremblings and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds.
We have certain helps which set to the ear do further the hearing greatly. We have also divers, strange and artificial echos, reflecting the voice many times...and some that give back the voice louder than it came...
We have also the means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances.
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Interesting isn't it?
This is a quotation from Sir Francis Bacon’s‘New Atlantis’ . He wrote and published this work in 1624. The‘New Atlantis’ was an original work by Sir Francis Bacon predicting what life would be like in a “Utopian” world of the future.
I think that we, in the age of modern music making, have a tendency to think that we, and we alone, are responsible for the original thought and the creation of modern music.
I think this fascinating little quote shows both how much music has developed over the past 350 years and perhaps more interestingly, how little.
How does this line of thinking effect us as Music Recording People?
In much the same way as a painter mixes colors on his palette, a synthesizer has the potential to reproduce nearly any audible sound by combining different sonic elements.
Replication of the sounds of traditional instruments is the most academic application of the synthesizer; it is also the safest and most boring ground for the artist; I think the sythesizer holds far greater fascination for those of us who see it as a means for departing from the traditional, into new and unexplored areas of music and sound.
For the electronic music conceptualist, the synthesizer has the potential for creating thousands of timbres and orchestral combinations never heard before.
To me, in recording the synthesizer, I have found that the direct, virtual sound of a sythesizer plugged directly into a tape recorder, is not very interesting. In fact, I find it more than just a little drab and lifeless. In my work, the synthesizer is frequently used to represent the orchestra, either in part, or the whole orchestral sound. I have found that by adding the drama of acoustical support to the sonic image of the synthesizer, the result is far more satisfying.
I send the sound of the synthesizer out into the studio through loudspeakers, and then mike the room with my B & K omni’s, or similar, in a classic X/Y microphone set-up. Then I combine the resultant acoustical support with the direct outputs of the synthes. By miking the studio, in this manner, I add the early reflections that are present in the acoustics of the room to the sound-field of the synthesizer. These first, or early relections are not generated, in a high-quality manner by any reverb or effects device. These extremely short acoustical reflections make the synthesizers sound much warmer and more musical.
This use of co-incident mics in a classic X/Y configuaration, in an application such as this, gives us a sound-field with the direct sound of the early relections being almost totally phase coherent. The indirect sound is, of course, phase incoherent, giving that beautiful stereo spread. This technique, to my ear, adds a great amount of detail to the texture of a synthesized sound source."
Bruce Swedien
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