Most popular-music recordings are built from close-miked or synthesized sounds, not live acoustic performances

Evidence

As pleasurable as the classics are, the majority of our entertainment falls into the numerous subdivisions of what is collectively called popular music. The recording methods used are also shared with most jazz we hear. In general, what we listen to is captured by microphones located very close to voices and musical instruments, or electrically captured without any acoustical connection, and then mixed and manipulated in the control room of a recording studio. The “performance”, the art, is what is heard through the monitor loudspeakers during the mixing and mastering operations. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 258

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes that for popular music, the ‘performance’ is the mix heard over monitor speakers, a foundational definitional point for the whole book’s argument about sound reproduction.