Baroque acoustic spaces for violin

[outofnames]

4 hours ago, Ganymede Piggot said:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa8jP2J8ut4

Perfect.

And my view is simple…if you’re playing the violin outside and somehow manage to sound BETTER than what Hillary just did, you’re doctoring the audio.  

Which in and of itself is fine, just make it clear that you are and don’t pass it off as that’s your unfiltered playing.

 

thanks for posting that, I had wondered if she had any recordings of herself playing outdoors…such an exceptional talent

[David Burgess]

1 hour ago, Victor Roman said:

No, I think it's a potatophone. Not much else would explain the... fine musicianship. 

The annual celebration of "Mr. Potatohead" took place just nine days ago.
Mr. Potatohead

The juxtaposition of these two events is surely more than coincidence.

[martin swan]

The only viable reference recording I know of (and widely accepted) is a true stereo pair of microphones with flat frequency response such as B&K reference mics.

They are absurdly expensive and of course sound like shit for any kind of musical applications.

Then you need an anechoic chamber … ie. no room sound, zero reflections.

 

[Victor Roman]

1 hour ago, David Burgess said:

The annual celebration of "Mr. Potatohead" took place just nine days ago.
Mr. Potatohead

The juxtaposition of these two events is surely more than coincidence.

I need to get out more.... 

[Marty Kasprzyk]

2 hours ago, martin swan said:

>

Then you need an anechoic chamber … ie. no room sound, zero reflections.

 

Long ago, Anders Buen tested a violin for me.  He took it into a small men's room that had ceramic tiles everywhere so when he played ot there were reverberant sound reflections bouncing all over--the opposite of an anechoic chamber. So with just one microphone he was able to pick up all of the violin's directional sound outputs.

I thought it was a great idea until a fellow came in to take a piss and looked at us carefully.

[LCF]

52 minutes ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

Long ago, Anders Buen tested a violin for me.  He took it into a small men's room that had ceramic tiles everywhere so when he played ot there were reverberant sound reflections bouncing all over--the opposite of an anechoic chamber. So with just one microphone he was able to pick up all of the violin's directional sound outputs.

I thought it was a great idea until a fellow came in to take a piss and looked at us carefully.

Last time I played my violin in the shower I had to put it in the clothes drier afterwards. Until it sounded much drier. 

[LCF]

2 hours ago, Victor Roman said:

I need to get out more.... 

David is from the future. Still 20 days to go. Pencil it in your calendar.

[VicM]

15 hours ago, Victor Roman said:

No, I think it's a potatophone. Not much else would explain the... fine musicianship. 

That was quite shocking. Had to listen twice.

[David Burgess]

18 hours ago, LCF said:

David is from the future. Still 20 days to go. Pencil it in your calendar.

Mr. Potatohead arrived in Australia somewhat later than in North America, due to travel time. Hence, Australia has their own special calendar.

[martin swan]

21 hours ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

Long ago, Anders Buen tested a violin for me.  He took it into a small men's room that had ceramic tiles everywhere so when he played ot there were reverberant sound reflections bouncing all over--the opposite of an anechoic chamber. So with just one microphone he was able to pick up all of the violin's directional sound outputs.

I thought it was a great idea until a fellow came in to take a piss and looked at us carefully.

Any room or mic configuration is fine if you are carrying out your own research, as long as it doesn’t vary.

But for a protocol that gives usable results between researchers, you need to eliminate room artefacts and mic coloration …

[LCF]

10 hours ago, David Burgess said:

Mr. Potatohead arrived in Australia somewhat later than in North America, due to travel time. Hence, Australia has their own special calendar.

So you're not really from the future? 

[Jacobus Drainer]

23 hours ago, VicM said:

That was quite shocking. Had to listen twice.

I listen to it 24 hours a day.  I'm researching ways to dereverbify Milstein's second box set using Artificial Intelligence and technology from the Russian space program.

[LCF]

2 hours ago, Ganymede Piggot said:

I listen to it 24 hours a day.  I'm researching ways to dereverbify Milstein's second box set

Run it through a stiff compressor. It will fit back in the box more easily.

[Dr. Mark]

15 hours ago, martin swan said:

Any room or mic configuration is fine if you are carrying out your own research, as long as it doesn’t vary.

But for a protocol that gives usable results between researchers, you need to eliminate room artefacts and mic coloration …

True that.  Reproducible apparatus and methodology are fundamental to useful research.  You can't compare the flavor of an apple and an orange by eating a banana and an oyster - something like that.

[Andrew tkinson]

9 hours ago, Dr. Mark said:

True that.  Reproducible apparatus and methodology are fundamental to useful research.  You can't compare the flavor of an apple and an orange by eating a banana and an oyster - something like that.

Mr. Potatohead tells me, It is maybe possible to compare the flavour of an apple banana

With an Orange Oyster, if you can find one available to taste!

[LCF]

2 hours ago, Andrew tkinson said:

Mr. Potatohead tells me, It is maybe possible to compare the flavour of an apple banana

 

With an Orange Oyster, if you can find one available to taste!

Perhaps you could mix up some oyster flavoured Irn-bru?

[Victor Roman]

On 4/10/2025 at 2:24 AM, LCF said:

David is from the future. Still 20 days to go. Pencil it in your calendar.

Done....

[Victor Roman]

On 4/10/2025 at 12:19 PM, VicM said:

That was quite shocking. Had to listen twice.

I am quite curious what is going on there and why. And maybe, where. 

[Victor Roman]

On 4/9/2025 at 12:32 AM, Randall The Restorer said:

Judicious application and careful positioning of textiles play a major role in live performance spaces and dedicated recording studios. 
I am not a recording engineer - but I have been recorded in, and broadcast from, world class studios in Toronto.

Randy

Haven't noticed anybody bothering with that during countless recording sessions. That being "Judicious application and careful positioning of textiles". The problem is that everybody knows what's "textiles" while very few know what's "judicious". And even fewer of those agree.

[Dr. Mark]

On 4/11/2025 at 6:49 PM, Andrew tkinson said:

Mr. Potatohead tells me, It is maybe possible to compare the flavour of an apple banana...

A level of emotional cruelty hardly imaginable in this day and age.

[VicM]

12 hours ago, Victor Roman said:

I am quite curious what is going on there and why. And maybe, where. 

Zdrung violin, zdrung player. 

[LCF]

13 hours ago, VicM said:

Zdrung violin, zdrung player. 

Harsh perhaps but there are also some strange artefacts in that recording which sound to me like a combination of poor quality analogue to digital conversion combined with a cheap microphone without a windsock or dead cat fitted,  leading to some compression artefacts driven by wind noise. 

 

Feeding cleaner sections of that recording through a simple iir process as I described earlier makes it sound much like a regular performance in a large space, even up to being similar to the original 'church' space of the OP.  A non-reverberant environment exposes the harshness of approach which might be necessary to fill a large reverberant performance space.