Interview with Sebastien Giniaux: "A lot is due to the way it's recorded"

anthon_74

The modern. perfectly crisp recordings sound like "elevator music" to my ears. I like the haunting quality of the old recordings, if not the loud hiss. This is why I loved Fappy's 96 recordings because they captured that sound without the extra hiss. Wem, I like that video you posted. They really did capture that sound. I would LOVE to hear Mogniard/gonzalo/Giniaux etc with that type of sound. It would be very cool.

Bob Holo

Tydides wrote: »

I'm curious as to whether anyone has done any serious research, like sound engineers, or simply have software ways or modern hardware that achieves something different than: fidelity = good.

Well it depends on what you mean by 'fidelity = good'

If you ask most people what good fidelity is, they'll say it relates to extended frequency response, low distortion, and a low sound-floor. For electronic music, these are very important - but for live acoustic music they're not paramount. I've seen / read / participated in tests for Intel when we were developing early mp3 player technology including flash memory and both dedicated & FPGA logic. Bottom line, you can fool the brain with reasonably restrictive frequency compression, and even some fairly decent dynamic/bit-depth compression, because the brain is good at filling in gaps when the data set is incomplete. (this is similar to why optical illusions work) But monkeying with the time domain of music is a different matter because the brain is not filling in missing data - but rather it's ferreting out false data. I read seminal research, much from the BBC and the Canadian National Research Council, on how important time-domain is. I learned how to convert from the time to frequency domains and back using various transforms to understand how changes in the time domain are sometimes very audible in the frequency domain and sometimes not so much. One of the highlights of my time in audio was when Sigfried Linkwitz invited me out to his house and we had lunch and I pitched him on a business idea that had to do with using microprocessors to manipulate time-domain to create virtual 7 channel home theater using 3 speakers. Sigfried worked for years at Hewlett Packard and so he knows a lot about both sound and computers. He said: (paraphrasing) "It would be hard to truly fool the brain in the way you're proposing, given that the room is a large part of the equation and affordable processing power isn't up to the task. (this was some 15 years ago) And besides, the THX guys have patented extensively in that area so if we did create anything new they'd find a way to stop us from doing it." What a gentleman - neat person - and very sharp guy he is. He & Ken Humphries & Jan Paus & Jon Bau & Ken Kantor & Floyd Toole were stars to me. Wound up meeting all of them except Floyd. Worked with two of them. They are/were genuine engineers in an industry that is mostly chrome & snake-oil. But I digress.

Bottom line, the brain is incredibly good at locating sounds because, for millennia, it was important to our survival to know where the predator and/or prey was. So, when we listen to music, we know we're hearing frequency and volume, but what we don't know is that we're also hearing and processing and comprehending a lot of time-based cues. One reason that studio albums sound fundamentally different than "five guys around a microphone" recordings is that the sound-man has assembled discrete recordings into a believable soundstage, whereas a live recording is an actual real-life soundstage. The studio recording "sounds" like a painting while the live recordings "sounds" like a photograph. Sure, soundmen have a lot of tools and transforms and emulators to help them create a believable soundfield if they understand these concepts and want to create something that sounds live, but again, the human brain is a lot better than the best soundman when it comes to interpreting and reconstructing all these little cues into a cogent representational sound-field vs. a truly natural sound-field.

It would also explain why Rino & Dennis' album sounded so authentic in the antique version - because it wasn't constructed before it was antiqued. It was recorded as the old ones were recorded and then the recording was simply damaged by post processing in ways that are similar to how vintage sound equipment damaged the original recordings (reduced frequency and dynamic response and distortion)

Buco

I love the old Hot Club recordings.

But, I'd love even more to hear the recording of Django and the Hot Club that can make me feel as if I'm sitting in that room with them listening to what they play.
A truly good recording with a truly good equipment, and you stand the chance to achieve that feeling.
We won't get that chance in case of Django.

Jon

Wim Glenn wrote: »

Check out "Duved's Hot Five", some young guys in Paris today. They're a new band so not very well known just now, but it's great playing and they do the old style sound!



Duved told me they record all together on one mic (a zoom) and then he just fiddles with the EQ a bit to get the sound. Well it sounds so simple but I like the result.

A few more up there ->

https://www.youtube.com/user/duved/videos

That sounds great. Their version of Panique is cool too. Good one Wim!

AndrewUlle

Speaking of vintage recording techniques, the Dutch jazz band "Beau Hunks" reproduced the soundtrack music from the 1930s Hal Roach Studios - Little Rascals, Laurel and Hardy, and such. According to the liner notes, they used mics, equipment, and recording methods of the 30s. The sound is amazingly authentic, but perfect sounding. Anyone else here heard these CDs? They are somewhat rare.

Bob Holo

Beau Hunks !!!

Nice call! They do some great work - the Little Rascals album is essentially a bunch of short musical sound-effects tracks mixed in with the film's thematic pieces, but is still worth listening to straight-through as an album because the quality of the music and musicianship is so good - and yes, the recording quality is wonderful. Very cool stuff. That album is a straight-up time machine and it's impossible to be in a bad mood while listening to it.

If you can find their Saxophone Soctette stuff, get it. If you like the movie soundtrack work they do, or if you're at all a woodwind nerd, you'll love it.

pickitjohn

Thanks @Andrew Ulle what a treat!!

Whole Little Rascals album is on youtube...

Stymie: Wood doesn't grow on trees! Uncle George: Yum Yum Eat em up, Spanky: I wish Cotton was a monkey,

Beau Hunks - Good Old Days



:peace:

AndrewUlle

Concerning software that can create a vintage effect, I sometimes use some old Nero wave editor software that has two filters - one to sound like a 33 rpm record, and one for 78 rpm. It adds scratches, clicks, and pops, and also compresses/EQs the audio. It's pretty convincing. Of course, I normally use the filter that *removes* pops and static noise from LPs I've recorded to digital.

Jazzaferri

I play sax as well and quite freely rip DR's phrases I particularly like. What you seem to me to be saying is that the meaning of say Shakespears words changes somewhat depending on whether its printed in Caslon or Times New Roman. Alas we must agree to disagree.

Teddy Dupont

stuart wrote: »

I don't take any real issue with anyone who prefers the sound of those 30s records but I do take issue with anyone who, as the OP appeared to say, attributes Django's reputation to the way he recorded rather than his musical accomplishments.

I could not agree more. Although I do not question Sebastien Giniaux's ability or right of opinion, I think this comment is truly fatuous. I often wonder if gypsy jazz guitarists at his level get sick of Django being held up as the master (in the way Grappelli often did) and lash out with statements of this type.