Richard BF

Sound is a wonderous thing, and contrary to the popular choice, is the most
important of all my senses. Without sight, I could sense the world
through sound, but without hearing, I would be blinded by a cacophony of
inner voices, never again to perceive the physics of the 3 dimensional
world in which we live.

Sound is a frequency band of air pressure waves, travelling through the
air between 20Hz and 22KHz. Slow moving waves, the 20Hz and bass end of
the spectrum, can travel through and around objects, an omnidirectional
flood of sound into and out of a space. These waves cause objects to
rumble and vibrate as they pass through, hence their tendency to at
times induce bowel movements. Fast moving waves, at the 20KHz upper
treble end of the band, are more directional waves, picking up partial
reflections and refractions as they bounce off objects of varying shape,
size, density and position, recombining and layering into the sound that
we ultimately hear. These subtle perceptive changes present a moving
snapshot or fingerprint for any space and the location of the sound
source and listener.

We all hear differently, we all have different ranges of hearing,
+/-20Hz at the low end, and +/- 2KHz at the top end, and we all perceive
sound based upon our experiences and emotional state. But still, they’re
just air pressure waves.

When we record sound, we don’t record a voice, an instrument or a single
sound effect, we record an impression of the space at the location of
the microphone’s diaphragm. Microphones work by using a movable
diaphragm or plate, much like a flag blowing in the wind, to transform air pressure waves into electrical
signals. At this point, the original sound will never again be
referenced, meaning that this is the most critical phase in the
recording of sound. Like with statistics, errors in the raw data, will
be amplified in the later output. A good sound card or speaker is nothing without
good raw data.

The quality and type of microphone will determine what it records at the
diaphragm. The material in the diaphragm, the material in the springs
which hold and release the diaphragm, the built in filters which
optionally remove or amplify certain frequency bands, all of these
components affect the sound in subtle ways, moments after it arrives at the diaphragm. Some are built intentionally into the microphone and others aren’t, but they all
manipulate the original sound so that it may never be restored once it
begins that arduous journey down the electrical signal path.

But before the microphone, there is an even more critical instrument in
the recording of sound. The space.

While a microphone will colour or embellish sound as it is recorded, it
is only as good as the raw sound which it is given as input. If that
sound is a human voice, dictated into a microphone, at a desk, in front
of a computer screen, in a four walled square office, what you have
recorded will be, specifically, a human voice bouncing off a glass
reflective computer screen, bass sounds dispersing as they travel
through the four square 90 degree angled walls, while the treble sounds,
the main frequency bands in the human voice, bounce off these now
vibrating and rumbling walls, with sound adding (amplification of
certain bands) and subtracting (phase cancellation of certain bands),
and the biggest problem of all, reverb. Reverb is those small yet
slightly delayed waves which bounce off the back wall of the office and
into the microphone, slightly delayed behind the original copies of
themselves, which give a perceptive depth to a 3 dimensional space.

In short, you have recorded “a guy in an office, talking into a
microphone”, not “a voice”. This is much like a web site which distracts
a user’s attention from the actual content, and makes them consciously
aware of the glaring yet inconsequential graphic design and layout.

This is why all professional recording is done in a specially, not just
sound proofed, but sound neutralised, studio. Limit the errors entering
into the microphone, and the range and quality of the output sound will
be exponentially greater. Want it to sound like you’re in an office, for
example the audio track for a drama series? Sure, at the final step, we
add a few delayed reverberations to make it sound like it is in an
office. Why not then actually record it in an office? Because then we
couldn’t instead place it in a barn, or a bigger office, or a different
office, or no office, because it would be “a recording of an office”.

But then, most people apparently cannot tell the difference between good
and bad audio. Do you think? If “ER” was recorded in a barn, do you
think the viewers would realise that something, even if they could not
put their finger on it, was wrong? Would the recordists bother using a
studio if people couldn’t, even unconsciously, tell the difference?

Sound quality is important. How important, is up to you, and will be dictated by the project you’re working on. However, you wouldn’t
have spelling mistakes or bad usability on your website, so why is sound
any different?

Most people don’t realise it, but while you cannot see sound
waves, much of what you perceive and “see” when you enter a room, is
presented to us by our hearing, not our sight. It is our most humble sense, and the one
which allows us to most accurately perceive a real 3 dimensional space.