Recording Brass suggestions

[gaffer]

Does anyone have some advise or tips for recording trumpets and ending up with a natural sound using cakewalk 9.0?

Peavey RQ200 mixer
Darla24 sound Bd.
Peavey PVT 45i unidir (hypercardiod) pattern/dynamic element mic 40-16000 hrz.

What i'm getting isn't too bad but I know it can be improved.
Are there any particular effects that work well for brass?

common you experts out there, tell me what to do.

Thanks,

Gaffer

[MISTERQCUE]

Hey gaffa, the Nov.2000 issue of Recording Magazine has a most excellent article on recording horns.
The few times I have recorded horns we used 2 57's for Tenor and Alto sax,58's on the Trumpet and 'Bones. No effects were used. We panned the Alto and Tenor left and right respectively and panned the brass slightly at the 10-clock and 2-clock settings .These panning selections were used to fill the stereo spectrum as the music featured
the horns. Slight compression and peak limiting was used on the trumpet(as home-boy had this fascination with hitting hi-C's like Maynard Ferguson) and the alto sax. Some 'verb
was added for presence. It came out pretty good,BUT,unfortunately,the demo was lost and we could never
replicate that sound again.

[MISTERQCUE]

Man, I almst forgot!. There was a particular horn line that climbed the D-9 scale building to a crescendo with a strong blast and the end of the horn line. While the horn's were climbing the scale we applied a full flange effect and ended the horn "blast" with echo. Man that sh#t sounded so AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!
Damn, I wish I can find that damn demo!

[Shailat]

With one dynamic mic you dont have many options open to you. See If you can get your hands on a condensor

I would record each part separately to a different track. Try to put the mic a little of axis becuase the wind will cause poping. Also move the mic far enough from the front bell so it doesn't distort.

If you can get another mic and record room ambience you'll improve the sound towards a more natural one.

Reverb is very effective !. For a brilliant sound try a short plate but a hall or chamber works nice as well. Acording to the style of music you should choose the reverb.
Try a tight plate and on top of that a longer hall sound.

Try a predelay of 35-75ms. For a bigger room sound enlarge the predelay.

A subtle chorus on the mix can widen your brass but be carefull a bit to much and it will sound weird.
Also a Delay + panning (with up to 35ms delay) can double the brass sound.

Good Luck

[gaffer]

Thanks to all for the tips, SOUNDS like you all know what your talkin about.

Gaffer

[OldGrover]

I've had some nice sounds out of a SM58 for trumpet, as well. A hint of reverb but that's about it and it sounds really good, IMHO.

[gaffer]

This is an undate,

I just purchased an Apex 420 studio condenser with a 1 inch diaphrame, 20 20,000 hz. It has a switchable mode from a cardiod polar pattern to omni directional polar pattern.

Funny how it all works out, the the better the equipment, the more it costs. It's only money!


IT KICKS BUTT FOR RECORDING TRUMPET!

gaffer

[MISTERQCUE]

I'm so jealous!