Myself, JP and Mitch Stan recently cracked out one of the most successful recordings I've been a part of, and one of the funnest.
We'd been approached by some game designers to produce three songs for their upcoming game, which has elements of sneaking, tense moments when the boss comes, and relieved moments of safety. We decided upon the jazz genre that we pictured could adapt across those elements, and hit up the Brisbane Music Scene online page for some jazz artists. We received quite a few responses and went for the guys that seemed the most reliable based upon communication (even if the next Buddy Rich was interested, it wouldn't work out if he didn't show up!).
Check out the final tracks here!
Pre recording prep:
None of us had experience recording a live jazz band, so for me the first thing to do was research! How do the professionals do this type of tracking? one of the quality information sources I came across was a series of videos Audio Technica put out on recording jazz instruments (on their YT channel here), which gave me some good insight into a few different techniques on mic placement and mic choice for the drums, double bass, sax and clarinet. I also spent many hours diving into Jazz playlists on spotify, getting familiar with the most popular jazz sounds, and finding my personal favourite as well - for example I really like John Coltranes recording of 'Nancy (with the Laughing Face)' which has some chill drums and a smooth sax melody that was what I was after for the 'in safety' relaxed tune.
JP volunteered to prepare the 'Pre-production Plan' for the session, which contained an outline for our schedule, and our planned mic list and placement guide. After doing my own research, I was pleasantly surprised to find that his suggestions aligned very well with my own ideas.
This list is not exactly what we stuck to, read on to see what we changed! ;P
On the day prep!
I booked the studio for two hours before the band arrives, in order to ensure that we were absolutely ready for a quick final set up and record after the band arrived, this involved getting sheet music printed out for and set up each musician, setting up the mics ready to move into place and ofcourse getting correct signal flow from the mics through the Custom 75 Neve to our chosen DAW for recording (ProTools Ultimate). When Mitch and JP arrived I'd already set the studio up with the ProTools session and started putting the mics on stands. We carried on by confirming and fine tuning with each other, on where we wanted to situate each instrument and microphone given the size and sound of the room.
We also patched in all of the hardware we used. A couple of the things we did here was patch in a stereo reverb (lexicon effects unit) and a compressor (dbx) on the K2 (room mic #1), we also hit the Slate ML1 with the Distressor (Here is an super informative article on this compressor), and the 'dick mic' on the drums with the other 2254.
What follows is our choices on tracking each instrument for this live recording!
Room Mics:
The most important mic/s in the room! These guys are not here to just add room ambience and compliment the close mics, they may end up becoming most of the mix! But only if we place them correctly. We spent a fair amount of time placing these as the band played, basically trying to get a 'mixed' sound out of the room mics alone. Ideally, the room would have been larger, but because we were limited to the size of the live room, our final positioning was as good as we could get it, with the drums being just a tad too much in my opinion, but ofcourse that will change with a tiny bit of mixing ;P.
We set up two mics, mic 1: a Rode K2 tube condenser, and mic 2: Slates ML-1 with the VMS preamp.
The K2 is a super warm sounding mic that really does pick up everything in the room.
The ML-1 is a flat response microphone, that (when paired with a linear preamp like we did) can be used in conjunction with Slates VMS software and made to emulate many different mics. This gives us heaps of versatility when mixing.
Again, mic placement is extremely important when recording live jazz and will minimise how much time you need to put into mixing!
In general this article by soundonsound really helped me out through the entire process of recording this jazz band, from planning to execution!
Drums: Mitch Bellert
One of the most important aspects of getting the great sound that we got, is absolutely the drum micing setup we used. Blending these mics in with the room mics really gave us plenty of room to shape the drums in the mix. We used a total of 4 mics on the kit - an X/Y technique for overhead mics 1 and 2 (check out this audio technica video for some reasons why) these were AKG c451b's, we paired that with an AKG C414 cardioid condenser microphone on the kick drum (mic 4) to really pick up a clean attack that wouldn't be present in the room mics, and finally we positioned mic 3, a Royer 121 active ribbon as a 'dick mic', which provided a heavier overall drum sound (it was heavily compressed) that we blended very subtly into the mix. These mics, along with ofcourse almost all the others required careful placing to get just the right sound we wanted.
Double Bass: Elliot Parker
The double bass we mic'd up with a Royer 121, a PZM contact mic, and we also chose to record it's built in DI signal.
Mic 1: The Royer 121 is a ribbon mic, that picks up a beautiful low end. This video by AT was part of my research for mic choice and placement.
Mic 2: The PZM mic took a little playing around with to get it sounding nice, we ended up moving it into a nearby corner and leaning it against the wall which produced a really lovely clean bass sound. This instrument, being a little quieter than the rest in the room, will require more of the close mics to be mixed in with the room mics, so having a wonderful sound direct at the source is very important!
Sax and Clarinet: Alexander Price
Alright, now for these guys we used the same mic set up, choosing to roll with the recording instead of using time we didn't have perfecting the set up when the two instruments changed, besides, what we did sounded awesome for both! haha.
Mic 1: AKG C414 mic, pointed not directly at the bell, but more toward the sound being produced throughout the body of the instrument. This reduces the proximity effect and also allows for a cleaner recording of the high frequencies.
Mic 2: A copperphone mic! This dynamic baby produces an old school raspy flavour (with a freq response of 200Hz to 3kHz) that when used tastefully, can really enhance a recording giving it some extra 'grit' or 'dirt'.
Check out another of AT's videos on recording a sax, here!
Jazz Guitar: Michael Anderson
Lastly, the setup of our jazz guitar. We did something I quite like, by raising the Roland cab off the floor with a keyboard stand and placing a baffle next to it to direct the sound towards the back of the room. This helps to not only control the loudness of the guitar going to the room mics, and reduce bleed in the other instruments close mics, but also by raising it off the ground will ensure that the PZM near the double bass picks up very little of the guitars low end.
Mic 1: an AKG C414 large diaphragm condenser to pick up a clean sound of the cab, with detail on the high end.
Mic 2: an Sennheiser MD421 dynamic, this mic will pick up a really nice low end to give us further control in the mix.
And thats pretty much that! After the big set up, changing the mic placements and pre-amp gain staging we recorded the whole lot live, through the Custom Neve 75 desk into ProTools Ultimate.
These guys were experienced musicians and required very little practice, getting each track done really beautifully after only a couple of practice takes. One of the cleanest, easiest and highest quality recordings I've been a part of. I'll be sure to upload the tracks here when the mix's are finalised!
Til then, keep making those tunes!
- Andy Leeder
Bibliography:
YouTube. (2015). Basic Recording Techniques: Saxophones. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhpuQ6l4SZU [Accessed 15 Aug. 2018].
YouTube. (2014). Basic Recording Techniques: Upright Bass. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8trMp73faw&t=31s [Accessed 15 Aug. 2018].
YouTube. (2013). Basic Drum Recording: The Jazz Kit. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ3ui5X2nls&t=14s [Accessed 15 Aug. 2018].
Robjohns, H. (2003). Recording A Jazz Band On Location: Part 1 |. [online] Soundonsound.com. Available at: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/recording-jazz-band-location-part-1 [Accessed 15 Aug. 2018].
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