why do cymbals on a recording sound different to live?

Carawaystick

Why do cymbals on a recoding sound nothing like live cymbals?
whenever I go to a gig I always wonder about this.
I mean guitars sound the same, most other instruments and most drums sound similar, but cymbals never.

mike65

Dampening I imagine, that and the fact its harder to control a percussive piece of metal, er see first word of this sentence!

Carawaystick

I don't really understand what you mean exactly by dampening.
I understand damping, but I don't understand what you mean by controlling a piece of metal.
I mean *every* time I go to a gig, the cymbals sound fairly similar, while almost *every* recording has cymbals sounding completely different. I'd go so far as to say they sound like different instruments.
If I hear the cymbals at a gig, how are they recorded to sound differently?
is it done on purpose to make them sound "better" on a record? and the live sound is a flaw?

I mean it's so obvious, it's surely done on purpose, I just don't know why, and I'm curious to figure it out.

mike65

You know, you should take this over to the boys in Music Production, they'll have a theory or three.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

dampening ??

no one dampens cymbals apart from the odd bit of tape to take out an overtone or too much sustain on a ride maybe .

if you mean the room and its contents dampening the sound then yes.

its generally due to the recordings having close mics - like a microscope if you will .

also they are generally eqd and compressed in the studio to bring out high end and sustain .

live , they are generally unmiked unless its a big room

Blisterman

I remember hearing that MP3 compression doesn't work as well for certain sounds. Applause was one of them.

So if you're listening to music on MP3, that could be the reason why.