Strings, ambiences and analyzers

Abstract

Performances by the Juilliard String Quartet visiting the National Bureau of Standards were recorded as played on two sets of instruments, under three different environmental conditions. The basic instruments were those ordinarily played by the concert artists in performance. A second set of instruments, made to duplicate the contours and size of the Stradivarius instruments played at the Library of Congress, were built by Martin Cornelissen, using classical procedures. Recordings were made also through the “eardrums” of a dummy simulating a median human listener. Using analyzers of several different designs, observations were made on the spectral and transient characteristics of these instruments, and upon several others including instruments made by Carleen Hutchins. Despite the confused echoes in the reverberation room, it did not affect the players' intonations significantly. The anechoic chamber was characterized by the players as “very intimate” but permitted study of the decays of individual notes on the instruments, both as bowed and plucked. In an auditorium basically designed for speech, instrument resonances were not strongly affected. Recordings made through the dummy demonstrate the spectral shaping introduced by the ears and ear canal. Effects will be demonstrated via recordings.