Well, the recording has come and gone! and here's what I learned:
"No plan survives first contact" - Helmuth van Moltke
Not to say that everything failed, I actually think I the recording was a wonderful success. However things absolutely changed as soon as I arrived, and I had to adjust my plan accordingly.
Click here to listen to the unprocessed and raw recording!
Unexpected Changes!
Room Size:When I rocked up (thankfully around 20 mins early to give myself some more prep time!) I learnt that the concert hall that I was told the recording would be in wasn't available and we were going to record in a small practice room, still at JMI.
Dang, I did make the assumption that the room would be bigger than this small jam jar. This changed my plan substantially, especially around the room mic and drum mic. Now I'm thinking of not micing up the drums at all and that the room mic just went up a notch in placement difficulty and importance. But hey, lets give it a go, and make changes after an initial test recording.
Piano Size:
So ofcourse because the concert hall wasn't available, there is no grand piano, just an upright piano. My research into recording grand pianos wasn't out of the window though, I applied the same principles to the upright piano, aware that the challenge of reducing spill from the drums was going to be a bigger than I anticipated.
And finally,
Double Bass amp:
This unecpected encounter, really could have been somthing that I thought of - Why didnt I think about amping up the double bass? Well now I know I guess, and definitely next time I'll be more mentally prepared. However this ended up being a blessing, as I was able to move the cab around so that the bass could sit in well with the room mic, while the player can chill next to the drummer and take cues off him. This also allowed for easy placement of the PZM mic, and a handy DI output for recording right next to me.
Set up:
Very simple here, I made sure to use my time efficiently and set up the mics I had available on the stands according to my now revised production plan, from there I put them in the general position I had in mind for them, before running cables to each and back to the Zoom F8. I then spent time checking the F8 settings, enabling phantom power to the channels that needed it and all that lovely software stuff that takes a few minutes =P.
Recording:
Piano:
I still used an ORTF configuration on the upright, with the lid open, NT5’s pointing almost directly into the piano. This technique is recommended by multi-platinum recording engineer John Hampton in this article. I was aware that using this position would not reduce bleed from the drums that much as the null from the cardioid mics will be pointing at the ceiling instead of towards the drums. I’d have loved to come around from the front of the piano and angle the mics in from there, providing that extra separation from the drums, but because we were filming the event (and that option didn’t look very pretty) I chose to first see how it went with minimal drum nullification.
In the end, I got nice wide stereo image from the NT5’s with a clear and present sounding piano that had just the right amount of attack. I also really loved the sound of the spill from the drums - nice clean highs that will compliment the room mic well.
Double Bass:
This was probably the easiest instrument to get right with the recording, especially with the flexibility of the amp. All I did was get the DI feed from the amp using an active DI straight into the Zoom F8, I placed the amp in a spot where it sounded right when listening to the room mic, and finally positioned a PZM mic under the piano and next to the amp. If I could, I'd have liked to have gotten ahold of a nice ribbon mic (Royer 121) and placed that near the 'S' holes to pick up the finger sounds and mix those in, however what I ended up with is great, and there are some post production tricks to get that nice plucking sound ;P.
Saxophone:
This instrument didn't change from my original ideas, I put up the C414, tilted it down towards the body of the sax and slightly off-axis. Wow what a beautiful sound, very happy with how it turned out. The only thing I'll say is that the musician Bradley McCarthy really got into it! A lot of body movement, side to side, up and down, back and forth, it looks great for the camera, and it still sounds great listening to the recording - but maybe some slight compression to compensate could add to the mix.
Sorry about the audio in this video, but check out Brad having fun on his sax!
Room Mic:
Small room, sensitive large diaphram condenser room mic on omni, loud sax and drums, I'm impressed with the results I was able to get! Solo'd it sounds pretty good by itself, with the sax the most prominent, the drums quite clear and crisp, the amp on the double bass coming through nicely but the piano is a little too quiet - dang. Good thing those NT5's pick up the piano really well.
Basically, next time I'd love to record in a larger room with more space between the instruments and hopefully even a grand piano. There is little I could do to get the piano louder in the room mic here without losing the balance of the other instruments, simply because the piano sound waves were largely radiating upwards out of the box (into my nice little ORTF matched pair), and not so much towards the player and the room mic.
I tried to use each spot mic simply to augment the room mic as recommended by producer Tommaso Colliva and drummer Alex Reeves in this soundonsound article.
I worked with the tools I had and got a wicked sound. I'm happy.
Drums:
I love that I was able to achieve a great drum sound without any drum mics, the kit is being captured by the room mic and the piano mics, and I think it's well balanced between those mics! good job Andy xP.
My friend Joao Paulo will be mixing and mastering these tracks! Stay tuned!
Bibliography:
1. https://www.mixonline.com/recording/recording-piano-november-1997-377049
2. https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/recording-drums-what-difference-does-room-make
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