BOOKS ON ACOUSTIC RECORDINGS

Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 8:55 am

Dear friends

I'm trying to find books or other media (or even courses) on recording of classical music (choirs, chamber ensambles, orchestras, solo performers, etc.), but all books are on pop-rock microphone/recording/mixing techniques. Can anyone give me any advises?

Thank you

RO Admin Joined: Mar 20, 2000 Posts: 4267 Location: Canada

We have some links to help find some things you may be interested in. See the the Books To Read link beside each post made on this forum.

http://recording.org/books

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 1:17 pm

There is the Classical Musician's Recording Handbook, wich is kinda helpful in some matters. Mostly for beginners, I feel. There is the Tonmeister Handbook by Dickretter, but it doesn't contain as much practical advice as one could hope though... I too would appreciate advice.

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 4:25 pm

Here are my favourites.

http://www.tonmeister.ca/main/textbook/index.html

http://www.amazon.com/Microphones-Technology-Technique-John-Borwick/dp/0240512790/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213395745&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Recording-Engineering-John-Eargle/dp/1402072309/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213395821&sr=1-4

http://www.amazon.com/Microphone-Book-Second-microphone-application/dp/0240519612/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213395821&sr=1-6

www.microphone-data.com/pdfs/Stereo%20zoom.pdf

Plus the AES library which is chock full of the most excellent papers on stereophony and recording imaginable. Become a member and start learning.

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/ and do a search, you don't need to be a member to search.

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 6:32 pm

I should add that there are no books, to my knowledge, with restricted subject matter on classical recording techniques, the market size would be miniscule. The references above are written by classical recording specialists and so their emphasis is on techniques in this area, but the advice is generalised to appeal to a large market.

Fundamentals of recording and mic technique are independent of the music genre being recorded.

Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 6:11 am

If you want to read about how a great acoustical recording is made pick up a copy of the Ring Resounding by John Culshaw http://www.amazon.com/Ring-Resounding-John-Culshaw/dp/0670598895 or you can also get the DVD The Golden Ring http://www.amazon.com/Golden-Ring-DVD-Video/dp/B000PDZQUG

Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 12:21 am

I second the recommendation for The Ring Resounding. You might not learn that much about recording techniques, but it's a great read for anyone with a serious interest in recording and opera.

A devoted Wagnerite...

Michael

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 3:45 pm

Thank you very much to all of you.

Anyway I have to disagree on something, and that's why I asked for "classical music recording". The thing is that to pop-rock artists, they know that a recording is not the capture of reality, it's a construction made in the studio. For classical music performers, they "think"(!) it's a direct capture of reality, therefore we have to make them believe that the recording we're giving them will correspond to that.
Also, I understand that books have to focus on various techniques in order to sell, because I know that this is a small market. However (at least in the country I live), classical musicians still can't tell the difference between a microphone and a microwave, therefore, they always need to pay somebody to record them. In addition to this, a large part of audio technicians (again, at least in my country), with a hanfull of exceptions, record an orchestra as they were recording a rock band, which results on a recording formed by 5 or 6 instrument groups instead of a large orchestra.

Thank you all once again

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