Freesound Forums
The best recording
Started July 6th, 2013 · 20 replies · Latest reply by ayamahambho 11 years, 4 months ago
I give the microphone a little twist and the inclusion of the same environment changes dramaticly.
So I can make an infinite variety of shots at any time on any place.
Does he best recording exists?
The best for what? That's the question. You can have great recording but the perspective doesn't match to the picture (for example) and some little element could be off... and suddently some technically worse recording, but with the right perspective and all the parts works best for the scene and suddenly "worse" is "the best".
The same applies to music, where some lofi field recording can fit the mood of the song/track better than awesome yet too sterile studio recording. Sterile for that particular app.... yet fitting very well for some classical music... and so on.
IMO if you want to record a good recording you need to know the purpouse. The purpose will tell you where to aim the mics and what to avoid. Sometimes you need just background. Sometimes you need noiseless in-your-face dry foreground. Sometimes you need to capture everything in some appealing manner (like a good photo with great composition).
Why are you asking? 
Thanks Matusha,
It is a nice answer and you asked why am I asking. Well; it was just a philosophical question.but thank anyway.
Dobroide,
I think every recording is perfect. Perfectness does not exist. It is what it is... and that is perfect. You only can re cord a more perfect shot, but the other is perfect to. that's the paradox.
Head-Phaze;
Just a twist of the tripod. so the mic wors fine
stomachache wrote:
Perfection exists as a pure sine wave. And it's awful.
for a roller-coaster it is fine
I disagree. There are physiological correlates for like/dislike preferences for sounds, and such sort of perfection should be considered in context. Otherwise - even more perfect is pure DC - a flat line.
ayamahambho wrote:
I disagree. There are physiological correlates for like/dislike preferences for sounds, and such sort of perfection should be considered in context. Otherwise - even more perfect is pure DC - a flat line.
Yes, the perfectness of the great nothing.
Maybe the limitations of being human make it impossible to realize what is perfect and we can only have our own personal and subjective opinions about it.
-A student once asked the Buddha for an example of something perfect.
The Buddha picked an apple from a nearby tree and handed it to him.
The student looked at it and said "But there is a scar on one side,how can this be perfect!"
The Buddha replies "This apple is as close to perfect as you will ever need".
.......happy recording!
juskiddink wrote:
Maybe the limitations of being human make it impossible to realize what is perfect and we can only have our own personal and subjective opinions about it.-A student once asked the Buddha for an example of something perfect.
The Buddha picked an apple from a nearby tree and handed it to him.
The student looked at it and said "But there is a scar on one side,how can this be perfect!"
The Buddha replies "This apple is as close to perfect as you will ever need"........happy recording!
Well thank you justkiddink for this wise lesson.
my answer to this discussion is this perfect recording ( http://freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/193806/ ). This is not arrogant. It is the truth, because nobody in the world is capable to do this recording better. Time has caught up with reality. You all were to late. haha.
Conclusion: all sounds of every freesounder should have 5 start from now.
All the love from Holland,
Swami klankbeeld
klankbeeld wrote:my answer to this discussion is this perfect recording ( http://freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/193806/ ). This is not arrogant. It is the truth, because nobody in the word is capable to do this recording better. Time has caught up with reality. You all were to late. haha.
Conclusion: all sounds of every freesounder should have 5 start from now.
All the love from Holland,
Swami klankbeeld
Nah, it's far away from perfect, you didn't captured proper spatial bubble. It's "just" a recording.
Ahhhhh! Thatnk you klankbeeld for initiating such a wonderfull discussion!
An interesting point, is that perfection itself has to be defined, usually by emplying the use of concepts (or how well the item being evaluated fits those concepts).
The problem is that if one wanted to capture 'perfection on everything' some of those concepts would become mutually-exclusive.
A photo, for example, could not win both the prize for best colour photo and best black & white photo.
A recordign cannot be both the best studio sound and the best outdoors recording...
Fitness for purpose is another way to define perfection.
Someone could be looking throught the sounds on the database and they find the 'perfect sound', usually accompanied by the words "Ah! Just what I wanted!".
But what about art?
Art does not need any other purpose than being art itself.
So, those sounds that are beautiful and make you go "Ahhh!", regardless of context, regardless of what you were looking for in the first place... Those are truly the best sounds.
klankbeeld, please forgive me, but I am very phylosophical today...
klankbeeld wrote:
I give the microphone a little twist and the inclusion of the same environment changes dramaticly.
So I can make an infinite variety of shots at any time on any place.
You are ABSOLUTELY right when you say this!
People often talk about sound waves as 'ripples in a pond'. This is incorrect. Ripples in a pond are bi-dimensional: they travel accross the surface of the pond.
Sound waves in air are tri-dimensional. They are pressure waves, each shaped like a sphere moving away from a (point) source at the speed of sound. Like shock waves moving away from the point of an explosion.
If the object making the sound is not a point source (and it never is), the the 3D shape of sound waves is more complex than a spehere.
They they hit objects, as waves that they are they get difracted, absorbed, reflected and interact with their own reflections... All of this in 3D.
Then you stick a microphone into the scene... and you pickup only a small fraction of the waves bouncing around in that space, only the interaction of each wavefront with the tiny 2D membrane that is the microphone diaphragm.
Then you go one step further: you take the vibrations from the diaphragm and convert them into an electrical signal. A simple, unidimensional electric signal...
So, in recording a sound we have gone from 3D sound waves to 1D voltage fluctuations.
IT is amazing that, having taken so little of what was going on in that initial space, we can play this recorded sound and, by and large, still sound 'natural' and 'realistic'!
How amazing is that?
Imagine doing the same with image instad of sound: A movie would be the brightness flickering of one single pixel on a screen. Could you reconstruct what was going on from that? Didn't think so.
Isn't sound amazing?
he guys,
Thanks for all the philosophical input. My simple answer is this old recording of me that I uploaded today; http://www.freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/193932/
feel blessed by the universe
...good that we have our own recordings to avoid this the only right answer... 