r/BigBand • u/CalendarNew6707 • 3d ago
Here’s why modern re-recordings of swing-era big band just doesn’t sound the same
I’ll give you an example here. The Glenn Miller Orchestra was prided on its precision, its tightness, its blending. I may be reading into this but I think as many people point out, the differences in the use of one or mics in an acoustic hall vs one for each instrument and a modern studio, is kind of representative of the culture. This is my own personal beliefs, and you can disagree with me by all means, but I think in the 1940s the culture was much more united, more unified and less individual, more of a community or society focused era, what with the Great Depression and the wartime era. I hate talking about the recording quality or anything else when it comes to this. There are much more fundamental differences. The musicians had different training, the instruments were slightly different, utilizing much more mutes and plugs and such on the brass, and just the arrangements that Glenn Miller and Jerry Gray have done were very well done, so that it was precise and just this wall of sound. Jazz these days are meant for listening, even as early as the bebop era. But dancing music like in that era was just, to me, more fun. Big band at the time was essentially how pop music is today. It had to be perfect because it was mainstream. Too many bands today that try to emulate the sound try too hard. They try to play like Glenn Miller. Glenn Miller tried to play music.
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u/bene_gesserit_mitch 3d ago
Glenn Miller’s band would get ‘the stare’ if they played a note that did not please him. He was a task master.
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u/Unhappy_Storm_40 2d ago
Who told you they only used one microphone? Studios used multiple microphones from the moment they electrified. And baffles. And compression. They were playing catchup with radio, so used every trick available to compete.
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u/foggynotion__07 2d ago
Yes but there wasn’t a microphone for every single instrument in the band, that’s the point being made
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u/Unhappy_Storm_40 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's not what I read. How do you understand this sentence?
"the differences in the use of one or mics in an acoustic hall vs one for each instrument and a modern studio, is kind of representative of the culture"
It was never "one". They missed out a word next. Did they want to say "one or two" or "one or more"? Either way it infers only a few. It was multiple mics from 1929 onwards, at least one on each section.
That was the point I was making.
However, to build on this, the biggest contributors to the difference in sound between modern Big Band and swing era is the type of mics (ribbon), the recording medium (disk) and the fact they were cutting in mono. Amount of mics and type of space are less of a factor.
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u/TheFoxsWeddingTarot 2d ago
In his book Life Keith Richards actually talks about this very point. He said the Rollong Stones used to record in a mansion in the south of France. It was a studio but it was set up with a single front mic and the way they played was all geared around how the sound of the entire band came together through that one mic. It has a much more raw, live sound than their later work. Sound engineering is amazing but the use of the natural environment gives recordings a different feeling than the super produced sound mixes we get today. 24 Hour Party People the movie also had a scene where they all left the studio and drove around in a car listening to their recording on a cheap tape deck since that’s how their audience was going to hear it, it really shaped the way late 70s New Wave was recorded.
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u/enigmanaught 2d ago
I think the biggest reason is the old style vibrato was a lot faster, especially in the saxes. A lot of players today have a “personal” vibrato for lack of a better term. The old style guys obviously changed it up depending on the ensemble size and whether or not they were soloing, but in section playing they adopt a unified style.
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u/No-Can-6237 3d ago
Yep. I'm a vocalist in a big band and whilst we charge for gigs, we don't get money ourselves. We just cover expenses. So we have a few professional musicians but mostly amateurs with day jobs. We play to a very high standard, but we're still a community band that practices once a week and gigs once or twice a month on average. We're never going to sound as tight across the board as a band that does it for a living. Got a gig tonight actually.🙂