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To Save the Sound of a Stradivarius, a Whole City Must Keep Quiet
- darkerside 8y agoJust a side note, but the auditorium they're using to record is gorgeous. Its lines themselves remind me of a violin.
- Godel_unicode 8y agoThat's exactly why they chose it. The mythos of the Stradivarius is 100% about look and feel as opposed to anything real about the sound. It's the same reason expensive wines are tasted in fancy tasting rooms.
- dejv 8y agoTrue. It is called priming: your mind is preparing itself for something special and it makes you enjoying the thing more.
- andrewbinstock 8y ago>The mythos of the Stradivarius is 100% about look and feel as opposed to anything real about the sound. Nope. The Strads do have a great sound. The fact that select modern instruments can make equally great sound does not in any way diminish that for most of the last two centuries, Strads were among the very best-sounding violins.
- Godel_unicode 8y agoNope. There have consistently been instruments which are indistinguishable or better for roughly 100 years. Stradivarius:violin::Rolex:timepiece
- Drdrdrq 8y agoWell, Stradivarius was exceptional at the time, and the fact that these violins still hold their own after more than 2 centuries means that it's not just look and feel. But yes, there are (some) better instruments available nowadays and we are also able to simulate any instrument available with outstanding precision.
- squidbot 8y agoI don't understand why they would use a hall in the first place and not a studio where they can both control outside noise and any color the hall environment adds via uncontrolled echos. It's very odd, the sound engineers seem to know what they are doing but it baffles me why they made this choice.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y agoInteresting question. I don't know the answer, but the whole Stradivarius mythos is unscientific [1], so I wouldn't be surprised if there is some kind of unscientific (or "artistic") answer to this too. [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/million-dollar-strads-fall-modern-violins-blind-sound-check http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/million-dollar-strads...
- jlebar 8y ago> the whole Stradivarius mythos is unscientific [1] Seems to me a lot like new Coke. In blind tests people prefer new Coke, but if you tell them what they're drinking... I suppose so long as people can tell the difference, recording the sounds of the Strads makes some sense, even if people prefer the new violins in blind tests.
- 90minuteAPI 8y agoAlso I thought part of this had to do with the size of a sample vs a full serving. Sweeter or stronger flavors tend to do better in small volume taste tests (like the Pepsi Challenge). Drinking a whole glass can be another story.
- frankchn 8y agoYeah, I feel like an acoustic anechoic chamber is a better place for this.
- fipple 8y agoAn anechoic chamber is not a good recording environment. The musician won’t be able to play well.
- macinjosh 8y agoI am sorry, but I don't believe that they were able to hear a glass break outside of the building they were in, much less down the street or a few block away. This feels like lazy reporting or something. Am I crazy?
- everdev 8y agoThey say they're using ultra sensitive microphones, but it does seem sensationalized.
- TylerE 8y agoNo, it's a typical puff piece. Sample libraries are nothing new.
- Max_aaa 8y agoBut now you know of "Cremona", and that "Antonio Stradivari" made some violins there (and some other things), and that they have the "Museo del Violino", and other things..... Yes, if the background noise from down the street is a problem, then how come the players heart beat, other body noise and the chair noise are not an issue.
- kurthr 8y agoYou're not crazy... inverse square law. Unless the noise was conducted (or ducted/focused) through a solid (horn/reflector) it would fall off by 80dB at 100m. In order to get it into a solid you need amazing impedance matching (or alignment)... which also reduces signal. Makes a good story though.
- thisacctforreal 8y agoAmusingly, rescuing a Soil Stradivarius happens to be a side quest in Fallout 3. http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Agatha%27s_Song http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Agatha%27s_Song
- gmu3 8y agoIt isn't possible to create a database storing all the possible tones a non digital instrument can make.
- cyberferret 8y agoThey are possibly not going for the individual tones, but rather taking a range of impulse responses (IRs) plus the original timbre. From that, they may be able to digitally reproduce the sound - or else use an ordinary violin, and colour the sound with the Strad's IR to recreate similar waveforms.
- Thiez 8y agoHow is this relevant? The recordings only need to be good enough that a (trained) human cannot tell the difference.
- keithpeter 8y agoBoth harmonic and inharmonic overtones and a changing mix over time. Would be a big database. https://www.pianobuyer.com/Articles/Detail/ArticleId/40/Digital-Piano-Basics-Part-1 https://www.pianobuyer.com/Articles/Detail/ArticleId/40/Digi... Above reference discusses some of the issues for digital pianos - which are well-established and it is easy to find demonstration models in music shops.
- cf498 8y agoAccording to the article, they used a 1615 museum piece for this. I remember reading somewhere that you have to play those instruments regularly for it not to change its sound. Could anyone clear that up for me? Could you tune an instrument, that wasnt properly tuned for decades or centuries?
- bartelby 8y agoYes that’s correct. If there isn’t serious damage to an instrument you can always tune it. As far as playing an instrument regularly for it not to change its sound, that’s also true, although I don’t think anyone knows why exactly. It probably has something to do with the way the sound energy of the instrument, when played, is absorbed by the wood in a patterned way over time. Kind of like a used baseball mitt. If the instrument isn’t played, something happens where the vibrations of the sound don’t flow correctly through the instrument and it can sound, and feel “stuck” to play.
- emilfihlman 8y agoThe Stradivarius' fame is not based on any technical superiority. Like all old things, it starts to be appreciated purely because it's old (and we like to collect old stuff, nothing bad about that itself).
- justtopost 8y agoIn its time, its quality was remarkable. The change is anyone with aged wood, superglue and a cnc can do better now. Then, it was a master craftmans opus.
- hownottowrite 8y agoSome fun dendrochronology references: "Stradivari, violins, tree rings, and the Maunder Minimum: a hypothesis" https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/30407555/burckle_grissino_2003.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1547911680&Signature=Q1ctQoLyg5Xv4%2F0iqqb%2B9tUc8EA%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DStradivari_violins_tree_rings_and_the_Ma.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/30407555/bur... "Chemical distinctions between Stradivari’s maple and modern tonewood" https://www.pnas.org/content/114/1/27 https://www.pnas.org/content/114/1/27
- foobarbecue 8y agohttps://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/million-dollar-strads-fall-modern-violins-blind-sound-check https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/million-dollar-strad... disputes "A Stradivarius violin, viola or cello represents the pinnacle of sound engineering, and nobody has been able to replicate their unique tones."
- dougbrochill 8y agoAre there any recordings of the same piece played with a Stradivarius compared to a "regular" instrument? I have always wondered what makes their sound unique.
- justtopost 8y agoRarity, ego and cost. Most blind tests have pros perferring cheaper modern insturments.
- kwhitefoot 8y agoThere have been some studies comparing Strads with modern vilins: https://www.livescience.com/44651-new-violins-beat-stradivarius.html https://www.livescience.com/44651-new-violins-beat-stradivar..., not sure if there are any publicly available recordings.