Video of big-band in studio, not much isolation between drums and band?

[santiu]

I was looking around the net for vids of Omar Hakim playing, and came across this one. Thought it was interesting that there doesn't seem to be any isolation between the drums and the band, except for a gobo that the solo sax player is playing into. For a CD that's so Drum-centric, i would have thought they would have wanted to isolate the drums more.

http://www.drummerworld.com/Videos/omarhakimslofunk.html
pretty awesome playing too

and then check out this pic on his drummerworld page:

what's that center mic doing? both rack toms?

EDIT: fixed link

 

[toobalicious]

you mean this?
http://www.drummerworld.com/Videos/omarhakimslofunk.html

 

[dean1964]

Especially with music such as this bleed can be your friend, but lets take a look at some of the factors that might helping this setup work. I'd be willing to bed they are getting a greater amount of isolation than it appears.

Looking at the room they are in, I'd be willing to bet there there are not a lot of reflections to deal with.

1) I'm guessing here, but those black spaces between the boards on the walls and in the ceiling are probably black fabric covering insulation or some other sound absorbent material. If you look closely you'll notice that the boards are spaced unevenly. The larger gaps allow low frequency's to pass to the absorbent material, the smaller gaps work for higher frequency's. Having a variety of gap sizes allow for dampening of a variety of frequencies. The cool thing about these things is they don't totally dampen the room. The wood part reflects, the black part absorbs. A totally dead room is not always a good idea, I think these sound better.

2) Placement. Being directly across the room from each other the backs of the microphones, orchestra and drum mics, are facing each other, and if they are using predominately cardioid or hyper-cardioid patterned mics, and it looks like they are, this will add a degree of isolation

3) Notice the bass player is in the iso room with the piano. Bass generally carries a lot of energy and is therefor more difficult to isolate.

4) Close Micing allows for a great amount of isolation simply because whatever source you are micing at about an inch will be louder than anything else around it. As for the times a particular source is not playing it is fairly easy to trim the dead space.

5) Lastly, ( I promise ) it does not get much better than the BRBB. The easiest mix I've ever done was a one off live gig with a similar big band from Kansas City. Put the faders up and let them do their thing. They were so good that I would have had to work at screwing things up. They don't make mistakes. Bad notes are not in their vocabulary. So editing is almost non-existent and who cares if it bleeds a little, the performance is freakn' awesome.

 

[bennychico11]

5) Lastly, ( I promise ) it does not get much better than the BRBB. The easiest mix I've ever done was a one off live gig with a similar big band from Kansas City. Put the faders up and let them do their thing. They were so good that I would have had to work at screwing things up. They don't make mistakes. Bad notes are not in their vocabulary. So editing is almost non-existent and who cares if it bleeds a little, the performance is freakn' awesome.

which band did you work with here in KC?

good post, btw. Good big bands like this are designed to play as an ensemble. The engineer wants to capture how the BAND sounds as a whole and not how individual players sound. And most big bands practice balancing themselves so that basically what you hear on the CD could be heard if you were standing directly in front of them live.

 

[santiu]

fixed the link... oops....

Just a bit of background on the album for those unfamiliar with it. It's was a tribute album to Buddy Rich with the BRBB and a whole slew of famous drummers sitting in for each track (simon phillips, dave weckl, stave gadd, neil peart, max roach omar hakim, etc... super all-star cast).

good observation with the piano and bass, i didn't notice that. Listening to the CD again this morning and it all makes sense. Piano is very delicate but well captured (had to be isolated). Same goes for the bass. And now that I'm paying attention, the drums have a very roomy sound (like there's a lot of bleed from the horn mics). Funny, I've been listening to this album for over a decade now and I never really thought about it. It's fun to think about how the recording process went down now that I'm trying to get into the world of recording

 

[killthepixelnow]

It's fun to think about how the recording process went down now that I'm trying to get into the world of recording

Now I cannot hear a damn song without thinking of how it was recorded.

 

[dean1964]

I thought the clip looked familiar. Is it from" Burning for Buddy?" Observe closely, its a great way to learn.

The band was from KC, historically anyway. It was a tour stop in Georgia for the Count Basie Orchestra several years ago. I was surprised that they did not carry their own engineer on tour. Since they did not, I got to mix. The truth is, I did not do much. The ensemble was so tight there was nothing to do. They blended themselves wonderfully. Its one of my favorite memories.