Pierre Jacquot is a man of sound, passionate as much as inspiring!
Live and studio sound engineer (for the greatest: Ray Charles, Steve Lukather, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins or Deep Forest, to name a few!), acoustician, technical supervisor of events, participating in radio and television programs, and for 10 years, trainer at the Abbey Road Institute in Paris... We had the honor and the immense pleasure to collaborate with Pierre Jacquot for the design of the recording studio, and to receive him at the Sunrise Studio Koh Samui, for the final adjustments!
“Knowing how to place a microphone correctly is already acoustics!” Pierre Jacquot
Meet a recording studio master!
1st episode: WHO IS PIERRE JACQUOT?
Why collaborate with Pierre Jacquot for the creation of a recording studio?
Pierre Jacquot, can you please introduce yourself ...
So here it is... I got into the studio business in the mid 70's after planning a career as an arranger. During my first session, when I saw the guy behind the glass surrounded by all his equipment... it was a revelation: I wanted to be a sound engineer! He was the real master of the game !
I immediately liked the lab-like atmosphere and the initiatory aspect of the exercise. I was already in love with synthesizers and machines full of buttons, switches and displays... the process was already running out!
Two different steps gave a real boost to my career:
First I was propelled as manager of an important Parisian studio at the age of 21 (a curious time when I hired sound engineers to watch them work ;-D)
Five years later, I had the chance to work at Real World for Peter Gabriel. His studio in Bath was quite revolutionary for the time and concentrated among the biggest names in pop and world music. This pushed me into a period where I collaborated with a lot of English-spoken artists all over the world. I twisted my childhood dreams and collaborated closely with people whose albums I had been listening to over and over again just a few months earlier! At this time, I was regularly pinching myself to discern dream from reality! 😊
Besides this, I liked the idea of working on the sound aesthetics of an artist in all types of performances: Concert, Studio, TV shows, etc... I liked to learn and transpose my early knowledge to many fields. It was quite atypical to be at the same time studio sound engineer, FOH and TV soundman... that was what I liked!
I came back to France after about fifteen years and in this job where success calls for success, I immediately benefited from the artists' desire to collaborate with this little Frenchman who had exported himself so well! At that time, I have scoured almost all the French-speaking show business and even more widely European. This naturally led me to take over the sound direction of international festivals and big TV shows for several years until I was able to ensure very big events such as the ceremonies of the soccer world cup in Johannesburg in 2010... ultimate moment of madness!
Last episode: About ten years ago, the people of Abbey Road asked me to provide a training part in their brand new structure for education, I was seduced. I was maybe the most British of the French engineers! The fact that they were investing in a studio that I loved and in which I had my habits, finally convinced me.
Today, this little one-third time job that I do at Abbey Road Institute has become essential to me. It is the way to give back what I received from my masters! It allows you to feel aligned with your values!
I also participate in occasional training sessions in the form of workshops organized by universities, organizations and schools. I also write for the French and English-speaking press, do some audio expertise for the courts and finally... I do acoustic design... but we'll talk about that, I think!
In addition to your activity as a sound engineer, you are an acoustician. What does it consist of?
As I explained to you, I like to expand my playing field and learn from the people around me. In my career as a sound man, quite quickly, I had to deal with acousticians who transcended poorly performing places. On the top of it, we often need to diagnose a place, a listening, a room acoustics. So I quickly needed to decode this special art of acoustics!
So I became the assistant of two great acousticians who introduced me to this magical science!
I had to go back to some physics and math studies and I started to work on it
To be complete, our daily gestures as sound engineers are impregnated with acoustics... choosing the right recording location or placing a microphone are already acoustics!
I design 2 to 4 studios a year.
Discover the 2nd episode soon:
DESIGN A RECORDING STUDIO WITH PIERRE JACQUOT
Thanks to Pierre for his availability and kindness!
Interview in June 2023 by Chloé COLIN for SUNRISE MUSIC PRODUCTION STUDIO CO., LTD.
Photo credit: Devenir ingéson
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