Far field recording

[jcs]

Stand next to a speaker/sound source, about a foot or two away and listen. Then back up to about 4 feet. Then back up to 8 feet, then 16 feet. Beyond volume, does the sound quality change?

Why is it then that when using a typical microphone, sound quality changes with distance if the sound itself isn't degrading with distance? Because it's a limitation of the microphone and recording system. Are there any microphones that can capture sound at a distance and still sound good? Another user sent me info on the AEA R88:
https://www.aearibbonmics.com/products/r88/

The AEA R88 uses two ribbon mics, mounted at 90 degrees to each other, forming a Blumlein Pair, which provides a very natural, almost 3D sound. Ribbon mics are very technically simple, and can even be made at home. Modern ribbon mics are fairly high-tech and much more durable than early ribbon mics.

Could this work for filmmaking? Think of a shot that needs to sound "like you're there", very realistic and ultra high quality, or when there's a large group of speaker parts and no budget to mic everyone up. Place a far field microphone appropriately, even near/on the camera , and it's possible to capture a natural room sound with many speakers/singers/instruments etc.

While the Blumlein Pair ribbon is pretty cool, it's simple tech and even better microphones are coming which will capture sound from farther distances with even better quality, similar to the way the human ear-brain system works: https://towardsdatascience.com/can-you-hear-me-now-far-field-voice-475298ae1fd3 . I've heard similar results when using an Ambeo ambisonic microphone when outputting simple stereo, there's a bit of room tone/reverb, and when output HRTF (a complex filter based on the ear-head), it sounds much cleaner (along with the perception of the sound source in 3D space).

 

[Bruce Watson]

Stand next to a speaker/sound source, about a foot or two away and listen. Then back up to about 4 feet. Then back up to 8 feet, then 16 feet. Beyond volume, does the sound quality change?

Yes it does. Absolutely. Welcome to physics. The further away you are, the more diffuse the direct sound becomes. And as you back away, you change the ratio of direct sound to reflected sound. So yes, the quality changes with distance from the sound source. That doesn't mean it's a linear change; that would be too easy.

That's not to say that you actually hear it that way. The human ear/brain perception of sound applies a bunch of filters that let you focus on just what you want to hear while diminishing what you don't. In this case, human perception lets you drop out much of the reflection information as not important. Doesn't mean it's not there, just that you filter it out. Not the same thing.

Why is it then that when using a typical microphone, sound quality changes with distance if the sound itself isn't degrading with distance?

Because microphones are not ears, and recorders are not brains. They don't have the ability to filter the sound for you, and they can't guess what you might find important and not. So they just record what is. Not what you want, but what is actually there. So the microphone/recorder records the room reflections that you consider unimportant, and they record the decrease in high frequency information due to room humidity (a component of diffusion that occurs with distance), and the (i^2)*r power loss due to the way sound radiates from the source, etc.

IOW, the mics are showing you what's actually there.

Because it's a limitation of the microphone and recording system. Are there any microphones that can capture sound at a distance and still sound good?

Are there microphones that violate the laws of physics? No, there are not.

Another user sent me info on the AEA R88:
https://www.aearibbonmics.com/products/r88/

The AEA R88 uses two ribbon mics, mounted at 90 degrees to each other, forming a Blumlein Pair, which provides a very natural, almost 3D sound. Ribbon mics are very technically simple, and can even be made at home. Modern ribbon mics are fairly high-tech and much more durable than early ribbon mics.

Could this work for filmmaking? Think of a shot that needs to sound "like you're there", very realistic and ultra high quality, or when there's a large group of speaker parts and no budget to mic everyone up.

So there it is. What you want is a way to capture what you think is "good sound" without paying for it. A laudable goal. But not realistic.

Place a far field microphone appropriately, even near/on the camera , and it's possible to capture a natural room sound with many speakers/singers/instruments etc.

Placing a mic on-camera and expecting good sound is, well, I'll say it: it's just silly. Sound is not light. Microphones are not cameras. So the optimal placement for a camera is extremely unlikely to coincide with the optimal placement for a microphone. Why would it?

But is it possible "to capture natural room sound with many speakers/singers/instruments etc."? Absolutely. But "natural room sound" is what the room actually sounds like, not what you want it to sound like. Blumlein works for stereo recording, as does ORTF, NOS, AB, M/S, etc. Most of the library of classical music, from full orchestras to string quartets, is recorded this way. But typically in performance halls that are engineered to have a pleasing room sound, so that the sound that's recorded is actually the sound you want to hear. If you record the same group in a hotel ball room instead of the performance hall, it will sound like it was recorded in a hotel ball room. Because it was.

While the Blumlein Pair ribbon is pretty cool, it's simple tech and even better microphones are coming which will capture sound from farther distances with even better quality, similar to the way the human ear-brain system works: https://towardsdatascience.com/can-you-hear-me-now-far-field-voice-475298ae1fd3 . I've heard similar results when using an Ambeo ambisonic microphone when outputting simple stereo, there's a bit of room tone/reverb, and when output HRTF (a complex filter based on the ear-head), it sounds much cleaner (along with the perception of the sound source in 3D space).

None of this stuff is going to replace the need for a boom op who knows how to position a microphone and does a good job with it. But you can dream, no harm in that. While you wait for the tech to catch up to your dreams, hire a sound person. Because until you get your desired short cut, a knowledgeable and skilled sound person is your best path to good sound.

 

[Rick R]

Well said Bruce.
There's also the 'proximity effect' to deal when using cardioid mics, which most of our mics are.. aside from lavs.

 

[Alex H.]

Yes it does. Absolutely. Welcome to physics. The further away you are, the more diffuse the direct sound becomes. And as you back away, you change the ratio of direct sound to reflected sound. So yes, the quality changes with distance from the sound source. That doesn't mean it's a linear change; that would be too easy.

And, higher frequencies travel slightly faster and more line-of-sight whereas lower frequencies travel slower and can bend. So combinations of distance and axis can create other artifacts.

Placing a mic on-camera and expecting good sound is, well, I'll say it: it's just silly. Sound is not light. Microphones are not cameras. So the optimal placement for a camera is extremely unlikely to coincide with the optimal placement for a microphone. Why would it?

Sound is not light, but both are subject to the inverse square law.

But is it possible "to capture natural room sound with many speakers/singers/instruments etc."? Absolutely. But "natural room sound" is what the room actually sounds like, not what you want it to sound like.

And the R88 recording provided is irrelevant to most things other than music recording in a studio. Dialog is different as everyone speaking needs to be, mostly, clear and up-front. Yes, the sound can portray distance to match wider shots, but in general everything needs to be as close as possible.

That music recording was made in a recording studio specifically designed to control reflection, diffusion, and absorption. It may have a little “room” sound to it in the end, but that is not a normal acoustic environment, especially for sound recording for movies, TV shows, videos, etc. Plus, music recording and mixing is designed to create layers of the different voices and instruments. That can be done by placement and distance from the mic in a single-mic setup such as the provided example, or use of levels, panning, and reverb if the group is multi-tracked.

The single mic setup is the oldest style of music recording out there, though the originals were accomplished with single mic capsules (monaural recording). And that is still one of the purest ways to get a music recording, even after more than 100 years.

None of this stuff is going to replace the need for a boom op who knows how to position a microphone and does a good job with it. But you can dream, no harm in that. While you wait for the tech to catch up to your dreams, hire a sound person. Because until you get your desired short cut, a knowledgeable and skilled sound person is your best path to good sound.

We’re getting close to 100 years of “talkies”, and those nearly-100 years worth of accumulated knowledge and experience in recording dialog for motion pictures have proven, over and over again, that the preferred placement and application of the mic have not changed. That’s not because people haven’t tried to do it differently. It’s because nothing else works better, and even the professionals in the crowd have, at one time or another, tried something different (even if just playing around on free time) just to see what happens. Yet, we go back to tried and true. This isn’t music recording; the laws of physics aren’t different, but the way we work within them is.

Regarding motion picture sound in 3D space through multi-channel capture, that is a gimmick that sounds really cool through headphones but does not translate to theatrical screening, TV watching, Internet video watching, etc. It’s been around for a while now, but there’s a reason it still isn’t used.

It’s one thing to pose an idea; it’s another to become incessantly argumentative. Fair warning, as the last thread was locked for a reason.

 

[Noiz2]

This is just JCS starting a new thread to preach the same old BS.
Maybe he is from a Russian bot farm?

;~)

 

[Paul F]

Yes, this is trolling like the last thread on this topic. Let's not play again.

 

[combatentropy]

Please don't close this thread. I spoke to jcs a little by private message and think his inquiry is sincere.

I myself am curious too. It was you, Paul F, who piqued my interest in ribbon mics, in this old thread, http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?351449-1940-s-Dialog-Sound-Microphone-What-is-it. You remarked that the actor had a certain "resonance," and I later read that ribbon microphones like the RCA 44, a staple of Hollywood sound at that time, have proximity-effect bass boost up to 6 feet.

In fact it is the "heir" to RCA's ribbon mics, Audio Engineering Associates (AEA), that has an article online that inspired jcs's thread title, https://www.aearibbonmics.com/near-field-vs-far-field-ribbon-mics-whats-the-difference/. You might read that article before responding further. From the article:

"There are two kinds of ribbon microphones, far-fields, and near-fields. Most ribbon microphones in the world, like the AEA R84 and R44, are far-field designs. This means they are designed to work best at distances up to 10 feet or more. . . . the RCA R44 . . . developed in 1932. . . . was tailored to reproduce the natural bass and treble of any instrument from up to 20 feet away. In modern studios, most instruments are miked within 2 feet or closer to an instrument. When using most ribbons, you must think about recording in a different way than you may be used to."

"DETAIL AT A DISTANCE. Their depth and detail is what sets them apart from other microphones. The way that far-fields capture the direct sound of the instrument and room tone together can add realism to a recording. There is really no other mic that captures the magic of a performance like a far-field ribbon mic at a distance in a nice sounding room."

From Sweetwater:

"They have long been revered for their incredibly detailed sound. . . . The way that ultra thin metal ribbon responds to sound pressure is more similar to your ear than diaphragm based mics." --- https://www.sweetwater.com/c403--Ribbon_Microphones

It's not just that they sound warmer and more natural. They sound to my ear closer than they should. Another page by Sweetwater seems to confirm my experience:

"One of the greatest attributes of ribbon microphones is that they're highly detailed without being oversensitive. That trait allows them to pick out the nuances of close sources, while remaining isolated from room noise and off-axis sound that would bleed into most condenser microphones. In terms of practical applications, this quality makes ribbon microphones ideal for miking guitar cabinets or choirs in large spaces, as the reflected sound entering the rear of the microphone will be insignificant compared to the direct sound entering the front." --- https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/ribbon-microphones-how-do-they-work/

Now I am still pretty much a buffoon when it comes to sound. But listen to just a few seconds from these clips (and there are others online). The mic sounds much closer than it looks, and these aren't padded studios:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDAL7nz1g9I (I finally noticed the sound treatment in that old building. I told you I was slow.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpI5g0od1n0 (Room doesn't look treated, but it's a piano, not dialog. Audiences are stricter about reverb in human speech, as has been said. Inconclusive.)
https://youtu.be/WrPu0AxfTz8?t=2m40s (well, that's a control room, is it padded? Either way, mic is pretty close to both of them.)

So, these examples are inconclusive. I still feel that those ribbon mics sound closer than a condenser normally does at those distances. Whether it would good enough for recording people just talking, five to ten feet from the mic, in a completely untreated room, remains to be seen --- or heard.

I agree that more trials need to be conducted, where nothing is different but the mic. jcs, if you're in Los Angeles, maybe there's a place where you can just rent AEA's N8. I wouldn't buy or rent the R88, at least not yet. It needs a special pre-amp, like the other old ribbons. Meanwhile, the N8 has modern electronics. It can take phantom power, so you could just plug it into the preamps you already have (or even your camera, if it has XLRs). Plus, AEA says that the R88 is basically two N8's. So the sound should be the same, just not stereo.

What I'm curious about is, if just planted upright on a mic stand somewhere at camera distance from your subject, if it will sound any better than your example in your last thread --- particularly less reverb.

 

[IronFilm]

Because microphones are not ears, and recorders are not brains. They don't have the ability to filter the sound for you, and they can't guess what you might find important and not. So they just record what is. Not what you want, but what is actually there. So the microphone/recorder records the room reflections that you consider unimportant, and they record the decrease in high frequency information due to room humidity (a component of diffusion that occurs with distance), and the (i^2)*r power loss due to the way sound radiates from the source, etc.

IOW, the mics are showing you what's actually there.

I seem to mention R^2 basically every week! Not just important for sound, but for lighting too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law

 

[jcs]

Again, I have a background in computational physics and fluid dynamics simulations, so I do enjoy discussions about physics and sound. I conjectured that sound in an anechoic room or sound booth does not significantly degrade with distance beyond amplitude (1/r^2). I previously provided computer graphics simulations of wave dynamics with the intention to show that there's nothing inherently in air (a non-ideal gas primarily comprised of nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, argon, and carbon dioxide) that causes sound to degrade spectrally over distances that would be significant for sound recording (including e.g. animals at greater distances). While higher frequency waves lose more energy than lower frequency waves over distance, for the purposes of this discussion, the loss is insignificant (it would have a slight effect for animals such as birds outdoors at e.g. 90+ feet). For example, a 2kHz tone loses a max of < 2dB at 30m (peak) at 10% humidity, dropping to near zero dB at 90% humidity. For indoor distances and human speech it's a negligible loss): http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-air.htm

Higher frequency waves do not travel faster than lower frequency waves: https://www.texasgateway.org/resource/141-speed-sound-frequency-and-wavelength

One of the more important properties of sound is that its speed is nearly independent of frequency. If this were not the case, and high-frequency sounds traveled faster, for example, then the farther you were from a band in a football stadium, the more the sound from the low-pitch instruments would lag behind the high-pitch ones. But the music from all instruments arrives in cadence independent of distance, and so all frequencies must travel at nearly the same speed

Due to diffraction, lower frequencies can effectively bend around corners better than higher frequencies, and thus lower frequency sounds can be heard better in this case: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Sound/diffrac.html

For distances typical for filmmaking, in a free field and anechoic environment, there is nothing to degrade the sound other than the 2D wavefront area growing with distance (1/r^2 amplitude drop). Most environments used for filmmaking are not anechoic. So what happens to the original sound? As the sound travels from source to recorder, reflections are created as the sound waves bounce off non-absorbant objects (reflectors). The recorder picks up multiple (spectrally filtered and phase shifted) copies of the original sound summed with the free field (pristine) sound. The simplest technique to minimize the effect of this "reverb" is to place the mic very close to the source to maximize signal to noise ratio. The reverb is still there, just small compared to the desired signal.

So why is it that when we listen to a sound source at 2 feet, then 4, then 8, then 16 does the sound not really change beyond amplitude? It sounds like there's agreement that it's due to the ear-brain filtering system. Is it possible to create a recording system that can do something similar? Yes, with beam-forming recording systems: https://towardsdatascience.com/can-you-hear-me-now-far-field-voice-475298ae1fd3 . Without this technology, voice-controlled systems would not work nearly as well as they do. Thus it's possible to get access to the original sound once we remove the reflections and other noise, very similar to how the brain does it. Even relatively primitive ribbon mics, with ultra-light transducers do a pretty good job as shown with the AEA R88:
https://www.aearibbonmics.com/products/r88/

The stereo R88mk2 ribbon mic captures sound as your ears hear it, with an honest and open tonality...
As a stereo far-field ribbon microphone, the R88mk2 was designed to capture balanced sound from long distances. Sound sources should be measured in feet rather than inches away from the mic. From 16 inches to 20 feet, the mic retains its full spectrum and incredible low end. When positioned closer than 16 inches, the mic adds proximity effect. When carefully used, this proximity effect can beef up thin sounds — either voices or instruments.

Here's a recording I made with the Ambeo ambisonic (tetrahedral capsules, 4-track) with the Zoom F4. The first track is simple stereo mix (after A-B conversion), the next track is stereo 3D (for speakers), and the final track is HRTF (for headphones). The mic was about 4 feet from the speaker, lying on a pillow on a couch, with the speaker sitting nearby, as with a hypnotherapy session. With progressive processing in post, the room tone diminishes, until with the HRTF it sounds like the speaker is much closer to the mic, and also spatialized in 3D (works best with headphones; also work surprisingly well with stereo speakers): https://soundcloud.com/brightland/sets/hrtf-3d-audio-demo

When I have free time I can try recording from farther away to see how well Ambisonic recordings with post-processing can effectively filter out reflections/roomtone, and also perhaps recording video to provide a 3D / VR recording that matches the POV of the camera.

The original (evolved) post and this post aren't about replacing close mic-ing applications: rather to show that there are other creative ways to capture sound with far field techniques.

 

[Noiz2]

Related, does anyone know what "Add to Ignore List" does? I'm assuming it blocks a users posts but does it also block a topic started by them even if others post to it?

 

[Bruce Watson]

Related, does anyone know what "Add to Ignore List" does? I'm assuming it blocks a users posts but does it also block a topic started by them even if others post to it?

No, it doesn't block the entire thread. Just the posts (even the first post in the thread) from the poster you are ignoring. Blocking any threads started by your ignore list poster might be an interesting option, should it ever be included in forum software and implemented by the sysop and/or moderators.

 

[Bruce Watson]

@jcs: You can of course believe anything you want. Just remember that what you believe, indeed what any of us believe or don't believe, has no bearing at all on the facts. The facts don't care what we believe; the laws of physics are not negotiable.

As to what you believe: you have zero reason to believe any of the people (obviously including me) telling you that what you want doesn't work the way you want it to work. It's so easy to run the tests yourself, to find out for yourself, to prove it to yourself. All you have to do is find the mic(s) you want to test, and do the actual work of running your tests. If you can find something that works the way you want it to work, then it works for you regardless of what anyone else says.

But to find out, you do have to do the work. So quit haunting the forums and go record something!

 

[jcs]

Hey Bruce- you're writing as if though you haven't actually read any of my posts. I've posted math, physics, simulation examples, and most importantly real world examples of far-field recordings of many types that provide useful quality. Beam-forming and computational audio isn't day-dreaming, it's here today: https://towardsdatascience.com/can-you-hear-me-now-far-field-voice-475298ae1fd3 did you read the article?

You've written things I've already said, as if though I haven't already said them. Is this because you haven't read my posts or ? It's cool to disagree, however folks making invalid statements about physics isn't a useful counter-argument. Anyone who's read everything written here can find the truth for themselves, wherever that may lead.

There's more ways to record vs. near field. Folks made statements about physics that are inaccurate. I posted corrections and links back to the math and physics. Some folks don't like being corrected, sorry about that, not sure how to soften it up; just stating the facts without making it personal. I posted NFL videos after searching for parabolics. Folks pointed out that those recordings may be using lavs. I didn't argue, immediately agreed. See the difference? Doesn't sound like most people here are into far field, and somehow it's threatening to them, so I won't post on this topic anymore unless there is renewed interest.

As for suggesting I go out and record something- I've posted my work throughout these threads, did you miss them? Near field recording is easy. Far field recording is harder. I enjoy the challenge. Some folks do not, and that's OK.

 

[Richard Crowley]

@jcs, you are simply in the wrong forum here. DVXuser is a forum for (broadly) video production and this "Location Sound / Post Audio" sub-form in particular is primarily for discussion of PRODUCTION SOUND. That is quite a DIFFERENT kind of discipline than MUSIC recording, whether on location or in a sound studio. The reason why people here have negative reactions to "Far Field Recording" and "On-Camera Microphones" is because neither of them have been found to be very useful to the primary, bread-and-butter kind of audio recording (mostly dialog) that is the focus here. Even after 100 years of experience and generations of amazing technology improvements.

If you want to discuss NON-production sound recording, there are far better places (forums specifically dedicated) to discussion of sound recording in general. For example GearSlutz. And, you will discover that there is little or no discussion of production sound recording because that is not the focus over there. There are other forums like DVXuser, et.al. specifically dedicated to production sound.

 

[Noiz2]

"As for suggesting I go out and record something- I've posted my work throughout these threads, did you miss them?" NO we didn't. If anything they show how "far field" recordings don't work. I mean seriously nothing you posted would pass muster in even the lowest budget film. I'm not being snarky but you keep pointing to really poor recordings as proof that you are right.

As far as physics goes you have the same tunnel vision that affects a lot of engineering. You point to simulations and formulas and that is fine but it is for a perfect world.

Take "air". The composition stays about the same a sfar as gasses but the density varies all over the place. You can see it in heat ripples off hot pavement. Now the speed may not change but the absorption does. Plus your argument ignores the rest of the world. EVERYTHING reflects sound in any real world setting. Even if the direct waves stayed true at a distance you will be picking up countless reflected waves off everything from a blade of grass to a tree. AND those things because of their size and shape reflect a "filtered" version of the direct wave.

SO in your mythical not real world setting you may well be able to record from 100 miles away and get "perfect sound" but that NEVER happens in the real world. And I would bet it never will because nature is a variable that is too hard to predict.
...........

Cool Bruce, that I think will keep me from wasting time.

 

[jcs]

@Richard- now we're on to "wrong forum error". OK, I think you're right.

@Scott- did you read this? Maybe it doesn't make sense to you now, perhaps it will in the future: https://towardsdatascience.com/can-you-hear-me-now-far-field-voice-475298ae1fd3

I'm not going to try to convince anyone on this topic any further. If what I've written doesn't make sense to you, no worries. Enjoy what you enjoy.

 

[combatentropy]

Hey, at the risk of being dog-piled just for bringing up Sound anymore tonight:

Are y'all saying that you don't even like the sample videos I posted in this thread of music? DVXUser has suffered threads like "How to Mic a Piano?" so I don't think it's too far off topic.

And no I am not saying "therefore dialog." I agree music can have more reverb than dialog. I know when I karaoke I like a little reverb . . .

Just wanting to clarify: nobody cares for the music recordings in this thread?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDAL7nz1g9I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpI5g0od1n0

 

[paulears]

You cannot disconnect your ears from your brains processing. I've been watching some amazing recordings on YouTube. John miles night of the proms if you search. There are some amazing visual content and it sounds great on my to system. However if you record the audio it's very different without the brain watching the visuals, and there is also iPhone coverage from the audience that shows how very different it was where they recorded it, but when you watch the thing live it's amazing. You just cannot stop your brain processing the audio or hear and removing the rubbish. Mics and recorded lacking intelligence, means a poor recording. I read all the physics and the mangled physics and it's just poor interpretation that encourages this topic

 

[Noiz2]

This thread is JCS's continuing argument from another thread that you could stick a mic at any distance and it will sound the same. It was started and (from him anyway) continues to be about dialog.

Music is a very different thing, plus the recording with vocals is pretty close miced for the vocal.

Of the two clips the first sounds very nice the second is also good but I had a bit of issue with the clarity in the vocal, though could be the singer?

BUT this has very little to do with either of JCS's continuing arguments, that you can mic dialog from a large distance with no ill affects.

The video postings I was referring to are the ones he made and held up to prove how well distant recording works, and they are noisy and very distant.

This whole forum is not really about recording music. There is some crossover since it certainly comes into play when you are shooting video of a musical performance. But even then JCS's contention largely fails. I have done quite a few concert/ performance recordings and even then (when you want some of the room and the audience) you don't want to be far away. The times when because of logistics I have had to place mics too far back the results were less than they could have been. Dialog for film with extremely rare exceptions always works better recorded close. Part is because the ambience you pick up on a narrative film set is pretty much never the ambience you want in the film. Less true but still often true with documentaries and ENG. Part is because lenses concentrate light as they become more directional and a microphone becomes directional by rejecting sound. So distance affects the mic faster than the camera even if the drop factor is the same. An analogy would be shooting a long shot with a wide lense and then getting you close up be blowing up what you want. Yes it kind of works but the result is noisy and not good. You can use concentrating mics like parabolics but they (like telephoto lenses) introduce distortion. The difference is your brain will quickly "correct" the visual distortion and you don't notice but people are very sensitive to oddness in dialog and it just doesn't sound right.

Music though is not dialog and we are used to music having all manner of FX on it so a vocal on a song that sound unnatural can be a plus but is a disaster on dialog.

Things like discussions on ribbon mics and such are interesting but are also hardly ever relevant to filmmaking. Even modern ones are pretty low output and not practical in most filmmaking situations. VO and music recording in a studio would be exceptions.

The forum is for discussing production and post production sound for filmmaking. Long screeds on VR simulations and such have very little practical use in this context. A board about sound for animation would be a much more appropriate place for those discussions. It's not so much that it doesn't have any value as it has very little relevance.

If someone posts a video where in a real world environment they recorded dialog from 100 feet away and it sounds fantastic (with out a lot of post work or ADR) then the relevance factor changes a LOT. But nothing close to that has happened yet.

 

[combatentropy]

Thank you. I remember when I was in film school a director of photography came to our class. He had done music videos and most recently a small-budget feature. He said lighting the feature was much harder. In music videos he could do abstract, crazy lighting, but narrative required something much more realistic and precise.

Sound is the same, and it's too bad that the better job you do, the less that people notice. I guess it's the same with many jobs, like the newspaper reporter who writes nice, clean prose. In my world of computing, the better you do your job, the more everything just works. I guess you have to have a motivation other than recognition.

I also took one class on sound, and I remember like you said there are Foley artists who not only are doing footsteps but also rubbing two pieces of cloth together as the character walks, all to help the audience forget that they're watching a movie and get immersed in the story. Thank you!