John “Jay” Lardinois has been recording and running sound at fiddle contests for nearly twenty years. He developed his love for the fiddle while playing guitar and pedal steel in honky tonk bands during the 1980s. Playing guitar for his son, fiddle player John Lardinois Jr., was his best gig ever, he says.
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000’s, John oversaw recording at the National Old Time Fiddler Contest in Weiser, Idaho. Here at the National Western Stock Show, John says his goal is to reproduce the sound of standing two feet from the fiddler and guitar player no matter where you sit in the auditorium.
What’s the secret to good fiddle sound engineering? John says it’s looking out for, and filtering, the 2100 Hz “honk” that many fiddles produce.
You can hear Jay and John Jr. in the background of several Ken Burns documentaries and on the Grammy-nominated CD, Cowboy Legacy.