Chapel of St John’s College, Cambridge [A] 17.ii.21

[DracoM]

Listening again, I'm afraid the subline motet Ne Irascaris / Byrd suffered a sort of lingering death: it was SO slow, it lost all shape and dynamism.

[mw963]

Well I was all ready to express the wish - when I saw the date of this archive broadcast - that something from long ago could have been used instead, but I'd be the first to admit that Ash Wednesday St John's doesn't get any more exquisite than what we heard today.

[mw963]

The usual way would be to employ a high-pass filter, also known as a rumble filter, which cuts frequencies below a certain point, usually in the region of 50–75 Hz. That will certainly help to reduce traffic noise, though it won't eliminate it entirely.

Even with those frequencies you're reducing the impact of the bottom few notes of an 8 ft stop, and emasculating a 16 ft, let alone a 32 ft. All right if it's just a choir that's being recorded.

There are ways of getting round that, but yes traffic noise is a difficult one.

The basement studios of Broadcasting House in London were similarly plagued with noise from the Bakerloo line for many years, and the problem could become almost intolerable in the late afternoon with the rush house trains rumbling underneath.

[ardcarp]

Listening again, I'm afraid the subline motet Ne Irascaris / Byrd suffered a sort of lingering death: it was SO slow, it lost all shape and dynamism.

Regrettably, I agree! It needed a bit of angst and passion. Afterwards, I went to Youtube and found a version from Ely Cathedral (sung...not live.... in that glorious Lady Chapel). Mixed top line and rather more in the spirit , I thought.

[DracoM]

Voces 8 in utube too.

[Simon Biazeck]

... and others - Not the first part but... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=walkQUgYPf4

SBz

[ardcarp]

... and others - Not the first part but... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=walkQUgYPf4

SBz

That's more like it! (Even if they sing that 'ficta' note (around bar 22) which sounds all wrong and which many choirs don't use any more.)

[Simon Biazeck]

That's more like it! (Even if they sing that 'ficta' note (around bar 22) which sounds all wrong and which many choirs don't use any more.)

I think I did my best to get it removed (as I do every year) - vetoed! You can just about hear me on T. I peaking/peeking over the army of boys!

SBz.

[Vox Humana]

That's more like it! (Even if they sing that 'ficta' note (around bar 22) which sounds all wrong and which many choirs don't use any more.)

... and which is unique to the print. It's not found in any of the manuscript copies of the motet, so is most likely a (rare) uncorrected misprint.

[Miles Coverdale]

Even with those frequencies you're reducing the impact of the bottom few notes of an 8 ft stop, and emasculating a 16 ft, let alone a 32 ft. All right if it's just a choir that's being recorded.

There are ways of getting round that, but yes traffic noise is a difficult one.

The basement studios of Broadcasting House in London were similarly plagued with noise from the Bakerloo line for many years, and the problem could become almost intolerable in the late afternoon with the rush house trains rumbling underneath.

You're getting a bit less of the fundamental, yes, but retaining the harmonics, which is important. If they're fed a pure sine wave, my PC speakers won't reproduce anything meaningful below about 200 Hz, but the fact that the brain 'reconstructs' the missing fundamental from the harmonics means that orchestral music, for example, sounds acceptable.

[mw963]

You're getting a bit less of the fundamental, yes, but retaining the harmonics, which is important. If they're fed a pure sine wave, my PC speakers won't reproduce anything meaningful below about 200 Hz, but the fact that the brain 'reconstructs' the missing fundamental from the harmonics means that orchestral music, for example, sounds acceptable.

But I doubt the people who record CDs would be happy with the idea of tailoring their sound to your PC speakers! A rumble filter is not going to "do" in a professional recording, at least not without some other remedial action being taken to reproduce the bass properly.

Don't a lot of these recordings take place after 10 pm - when the traffic has died down a bit?

[Miles Coverdale]

But I doubt the people who record CDs would be happy with the idea of tailoring their sound to your PC speakers! A rumble filter is not going to "do" in a professional recording, at least not without some other remedial action being taken to reproduce the bass properly.

Don't a lot of these recordings take place after 10 pm - when the traffic has died down a bit?

I wasn't suggesting that they should do that, strangely enough, merely trying to point out that filtering out some of the lower-frequency fundamentals doesn't necessarily reduced the perceived volume of sound. A fair few hi-fi speakers, particularly small ones of course, start to fall off quite quickly below 80–100 Hz.

The only truly effective way to deal with off-stage noise of all kinds is not to have it in the first place. That's why, for example, the Tallis Scholars used to record in Salle and Christ Church used to record in Dorchester Abbey. Orchestral recording in places like London may well be different, but I don't know.

[Miles Coverdale]

A rumble filter is not going to "do" in a professional recording, at least not without some other remedial action being taken to reproduce the bass properly.

Well, a number of professional microphones have built-in, switchable high-pass filters, one of the purposes of which is to reduce low-frequency rumble. For example, the AKG C414, ubiqitous in professional recording studios, has high-pass filter that can be switched to 75 or 150 Hz at 12 dB/octave. I don't think it would be true to say that high-pass filters are never used in professional recordings.