Do some concert halls sound better than others?

[Elow]

I’m really liking every recording on spotify of the boston symphony orchestra and chicago. I’m not sure but every recording of theirs just sounds soooo good. I’m not sure if it’s the mixing people or whatever and i’d like to find out why i like them so much. Anyone have any insight? If it’s based on the people who put the recording together then how can i find more recordings that they produce?

[Kdanielsen]

Symphony Hall in Boston is one of the best halls out there. Absolutely amazing sound.

[robcat2075]

Yes.

Concert halls do vary immensely.

Disappointing concert experience: going to NYC to hear the NY Philharmonic perform the Bruckner 8 in "Avery Fisher Hall." The place is dead. They are spending millions to try to fix it for the second or third time.

Look for "shoebox" in discussions of concert hall forms. Boston is a "shoebox".

It is possible to make a bad-sounding shoebox but it is difficult to make a good-sounding anything-else.

Concert hall acoustics: Recent findings

How the recording was made is also essential. Fewer mics and less mixing has turned out to be better than many mics and lots of post.

[Vegasbound]

Yes

[CalgaryTbone]

Symphony Hall in Boston is one of the best halls out there. Absolutely amazing sound.

Yes, Symphony Hall in Boston is one of the greatest concert halls in the world. The others that I've been lucky enough to play in are Carnegie Hall (NY), Musikverein (Vienna), and Tonhalle (Zurich). Our hall here in Calgary (Jack Singer) is quite good as well.

Getting to tour a couple of times over the years with the orchestra gave me a perspective on how much the hall contributes to the sound of an orchestra. I remember getting to Boston (the last stop on that tour) after playing a couple of halls that seemed to emphasize the brightness of the brass instruments. We had to really hold back in those halls, but the first notes in Symphony Hall just sounded big and warm - the hall really supports that part of the sound.

Lots of great orchestras, however, play in halls that aren't so fantastic to play in. Good players make it work, but it sure is rewarding to play in a space that resonates. Also, when it comes to recordings, good recording techs are worth their weight in gold. A great sounding space may not come across that way if the orchestra isn't recorded well.

Jim Scott

[Posaunus]

Yes, there can be a huge difference!
• Symphony Hall in Boston: A great concert hall in person; great hall to record in. (Plenty of recorded evidence!)
• Orchestra Hall in Chicago: Definitely a step down in both ways. Great orchestra, but needs intervention by recording engineers.
• Musikverein in Vienna: Close approximation to Boston. Similar design; similar results.
• Carnegie Hall: (To me) Nice but not as wonderful as Boston.
• Disney Hall in Los Angeles: Great for the audience. I've not played there.

[BGuttman]

The sad part about New York: The Philharmonic moved to Lincoln Center from Carnegie Hall. The original Philharmonic Hall was acoustically dead. Avery Fisher spent a bucket load of money on revamping the acoustics and it was still dead. Then they did a major redo again. It's not quite as dead, but a long way from Carnegie Hall. In fact, the acoustics of the Metropolitan Opera are better than Philharmonic Hall (or whatever they call it now).

[Jimkinkella]

Yes, most halls are wildly different if you really pay attention.

And yes, the recording crew and methods make a huge difference.
The bigger labels used to be pretty good about listing who did what, not sure about now in the digital distribution age.
If there's a particular performance / sound that you like, look up the label (Telarc / Sony / etc.) and look for other recordings from the same era as well as the technical personnel.
As times / equipment / philosophies change so does the sound.
Although plenty of vintage mics are still being used...
There are a couple of basic standards, and certain labels / studios / engineers definitely had their own "signature" sound, can be a super deep rabbit hole.
With the internet as an amazing resource to find contact info, if you find a particular vibe that you're finding you like you might try emailing with any specific questions that you might have.
Most audio guys are super nerds and there really aren't any "trade secrets", so you might pick up some interesting insight.

[Posaunus]

Yes, most halls are wildly different if you really pay attention.

And yes, the recording crew and methods make a huge difference.

Nonetheless, it's got to be easier to start with an acoustically great concert hall, and mic simply and sparingly to attempt to capture the feeling of attending a concert in that space.

[AndrewMeronek]

Yes and no. Symphony concert halls, symphony orchestras, symphonic music, and symphonic musician style all co-evolved over the last 3 or so centuries: music driving orchestra structure, orchestra structure driving hall acoustic design, etc. - all elements driving each other in a kind of dance. So, in that sense there is currently an "ideal" set of acoustics a hall probably wants to have to match up with a typical modern orchestra playing the music that they do - but lots of different kinds of music have lots of different "good" acoustic environments. Dead environments are fantastic for bebop. Super-rich reverb are great for church choirs. Etc.

[harrisonreed]

I've played in Boston symphony hall and it's awesome.

The best best hall I've ever played in, however, is this fantastic modern hall in a tiny city in Japan called Ofunato. The city was devastated during the tsunami, and decided to build an unbelievably good hall in the aftermath of that. The crazy thing about the hall is that they put these square baffles along the walls everywhere that I guess alter the reverb. Even a chord that is slightly out gets eaten by these baffles, and spit back out in tune. No idea what was going on in there.

Every hall sounds different though. The Disney Hall in California is also really good.

[elmsandr]

Yes, there can be a huge difference!
• Symphony Hall in Boston: A great concert hall in person; great hall to record in. (Plenty of recorded evidence!)
• Orchestra Hall in Chicago: Definitely a step down in both ways. Great orchestra, but needs intervention by recording engineers.
• Musikverein in Vienna: Close approximation to Boston. Similar design; similar results.
• Carnegie Hall: (To me) Nice but not as wonderful as Boston.
• Disney Hall in Los Angeles: Great for the audience. I've not played there.

You will also note that a lot of the famous recordings of Chicago were NOT done in Symphony Hall; they were done at the Medinah building a couple of blocks away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medinah_Temple

I also disagree with this:

How the recording was made is also essential. Fewer mics and less mixing has turned out to be better than many mics and lots of post.

Nah. I would guess that what you don't like with is people not doing the mixing well. If they did it well, you are not able to tell whether or not the mixing was done. Having worked with some fantastic engineers, I find the good ones put out a ton of mics, but resist the desire to mix as if they are the conductor. Just because you can adjust things does not mean you should. Personally, I prefer a good stereo mic as the primary and use all of the others just to support that feed so that it sounds like it would within a good seat in the hall. On some very good projects I have worked on, if you listen to the raw stereo feed and the final mix; they are very similar... except as you listen closer you can make each instrument a lot richer and more faithful to real life if you have a well chosen mic and placement for each. But over-worked sound can be really bad. It is tempting to try to make it 'better' in post; but the goal should really be to get the hardware out of the way and let the players shine through.

Cheers,
Andy

[harrisonreed]

I also disagree with the "less is more" approach for mics. The right amount of mics is the right amount. The Decca tree only days are long gone. Now you'll do something like a main pair, outriggers, and at least do spots on each section to blend into the main pair sound. Some of the best orchestral recordings are done this way in amazing halls.... And still use fake reverb....

Don't take it from me. Read this book, from a guy who is the best in the business. You can make any decent room sound like the best hall in the world, so the recordings won't tell you about what a hall actually sounds like:

https://www.amazon.com/Recording-Orches ... 1138854549

[robcat2075]

Don't take it from me. Read this book, from a guy who is the best in the business. You can make any decent room sound like the best hall in the world, so the recordings won't tell you about what a hall actually sounds like:

https://www.amazon.com/Recording-Orches ... 1138854549

I haven't bought the book, but I did read his summary.

He seems to view the "one perspective" approach quite highly for the result it gets. After tallying his advantages/disadvantages of each competing method it would appear to remain the strong candidate for capturing the orchestra/conductor that is already accomplished at meeting the needs of live performance... the narrow circumstance of this thread.

The disadvantage he offers is that you have to do it right.

[elmsandr]

I also disagree with the "less is more" approach for mics. The right amount of mics is the right amount. The Decca tree only days are long gone. Now you'll do something like a main pair, outriggers, and at least do spots on each section to blend into the main pair sound. Some of the best orchestral recordings are done this way in amazing halls.... And still use fake reverb....
....

Additionally, when setting up a recording session, it is VERY difficult to go back and add more mics after the session is over. The plan I tend to go with is put out every mic you may possibly ever want in every position. You can always leave it out of the final mix. The mix is usually somewhere around 95%+ just the stereo set above the band... but that 5% can take it from a live-TV type feed to an in-depth experience. Not unlike equipment choices. The excellence is in the margins.

Back to the OP; yes, some halls are just fantastic. Play in some great ones and you will know. A recent hall renovation (OK, more than a decade, but it still feels recent to me) changed a hall quite a bit for me. It took a hall that I liked, a little above average 2K seat place that was relatively warm, and turned it in to a bright and 'crispy' sounding stage. In the hall, as you sit in different seats you now get a very directional experience and a ton of variance in the experience. In recordings, it works relatively the same as before, you are able to get the feel of it pretty close, I'm sure there is some knob turning to make that occur, but live it bugs me a bit.

Cheers,
Andy

[harrisonreed]

Here is an excerpt from the book:

https://pro.harman.com/insights/enterpr ... ensembles/

He basically says in the book that you will get a far better result in much less time if you bring the mics a bit closer, use spots (to complement the main image) and use fake reverb instead of room mics.

All that to say, the hall really only matters for live performances, and you can't judge how a hall might sound live based on some recording from that hall -- that isn't how recordings or microphones work. It's smoke and mirrors.

[Kbiggs]

Only slightly off topic:

The Oregon Symphony recently upgraded their in-house sound system. Their home, the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, is a renovated and re-vamped movie theatre. They’ve been tweaking the acoustics ever since the symphony moved there from the municipal auditorium about 30-odd years ago. I had the pleasure of hearing them play Mahler 2 to open their 2021 season. The orchestra never sounded better in part due to their new sound system:

https://meyersound.com/product/constellation/

Lots of discreet mic placement on stage and in the hall. Overall impression is quite favorable in local press, and to me (which is the only opinion that counts, really ). Lower instruments are more distinct, middle ranges are more clear, and higher instruments are present but not overpowering. Of course, it comes at a price…

[elmsandr]

Here is an excerpt from the book:

https://pro.harman.com/insights/enterpr ... ensembles/

He basically says in the book that you will get a far better result in much less time if you bring the mics a bit closer, use spots (to complement the main image) and use fake reverb instead of room mics.

All that to say, the hall really only matters for live performances, and you can't judge how a hall might sound live based on some recording from that hall -- that isn't how recordings or microphones work. It's smoke and mirrors.

Right, I would classify none of what I am talking about as 'room mics'. In many larger halls, those were hung up there by who knows for whatever unknown purpose. They are usually a lousy mic for whatever you are trying to record and entirely in the wrong place for your setup. Other than that, they are fine. We'll patch them in if we have some unused channels, but usually not worth the time.

Cheers,
Andy

[harrisonreed]

Here is an excerpt from the book:

https://pro.harman.com/insights/enterpr ... ensembles/

He basically says in the book that you will get a far better result in much less time if you bring the mics a bit closer, use spots (to complement the main image) and use fake reverb instead of room mics.

All that to say, the hall really only matters for live performances, and you can't judge how a hall might sound live based on some recording from that hall -- that isn't how recordings or microphones work. It's smoke and mirrors.

Right, I would classify none of what I am talking about as 'room mics'. In many larger halls, those were hung up there by who knows for whatever unknown purpose. They are usually a lousy mic for whatever you are trying to record and entirely in the wrong place for your setup. Other than that, they are fine. We'll patch them in if we have some unused channels, but usually not worth the time.

Cheers,
Andy

I wasn't replying to you or responding to anything you were talking about with the post that you just quoted. It was directed at the discussion about "less is more with mics". A room mic is not the crappy mic hung from the ceiling above the stage, but a distant pair that has a very large separation, likely in Omni, in the middle of the hall. I was just pointing out that the 13 time Grammy winning classical recording engineer who wrote the book on recording orchestra doesn't typically seem to use anything like a room mic (the purpose of which is to get an authentic "hall" sound to blend into the mix). For him, it is faster, easier, and you get a better sound than real life by just using Lexicon.

I do want to bring it back to Elow's OP, which has a title that doesn't really go with the actual post -- the title is about halls, but his post is really about recording techniques and engineers. Elow, are the recordings your listening to on Spotify recent, like within the last 15 years or so? The recent recordings, and the techniques that are used today, you can get almost any decent recording venue to sound like whatever hall you want by doing a relatively simple Decca tree or main pair as the main image, spot mics, and artificial reverb. That isn't to say that getting the correct mics in the right spot, setting the levels, and working on the raw audio in post is simple -- otherwise every small town orchestra would have a Grammy winning engineer recording them. Also, that doesn't mean the same group will sound the same if you put them in a film scoring stage, even if the same engineer is using the same techniques in that space -- it will sound different to the musicians as they play and record, and that will absolutely affect how they are playing. So... It's complicated.

Basically, I was trying to point out that you can't judge what a hall sounds like from a recording, to the OP, because the best recording engineers today aren't letting you hear the room, and mics don't work like human ears do to begin with. Even old recordings lie. That's all.

[sf105]

The BBC Proms are recorded in the Albert Hall, which is a huge barn of a place. The BBC engineers are so good that often you can hear a better concert at home than in the hall -- although the live atmosphere is not to be missed. London, unfortunately, does not have a decent large hall, so it's impressive that our orchestras sound as good as they do.

[Bigbasst]

I've been to Boston's symphony Hall and the acoustics are really amazing