5 mics. Saxophone, Trumpet, Grand Piano, Upright Bass and Drum Set

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atonofclay66

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I have a queston on a review for my audio engineering class that I would love some opinions on. The questions is:

The college has asked you to record a traditional jazz combo consisting of Saxophone, Trumpet, Grand Piano, Upright Bass and a small Drum Kit during a live performance. You have access to any 5 mics. What techniques would you use to record this group? Discuss mic types, directional patterns and mic placement.

Any help?

Thanks!
 
atonofclay66 said:
I have a queston on a review for my audio engineering class that I would love some opinions on. The questions is:

The college has asked you to record a traditional jazz combo consisting of Saxophone, Trumpet, Grand Piano, Upright Bass and a small Drum Kit during a live performance. You have access to any 5 mics. What techniques would you use to record this group? Discuss mic types, directional patterns and mic placement.

Any help?

Thanks!
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Doesn't the information you get through your audio engineering class give you the clues about what to use?

Before you get someone to do your homework for you, perhaps you could explain the nature of the brief more fully: not just the question asked, but what instructions they gave regarding that question.
 
No. We haven't really talked about technique yet. Only things like transient, frequency and directional response. More about what a mic is and less of what to do with it. He always throws in a question that he made up into the test that usually go beyond what we are actually learning at that point. I don't think he would count off on it on the test since it's kind of subjective so long as you wrote some kind of a guess.

As for more information, that's all it said. There were no other instructions. Just that you can use any 5 mics and only 5 mics. Everything else on the review is pretty straight forward and could answer the rest of the questionsin my sleep. Just unsure on this one.
 
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Well, take a guess at it and explain your reasonings, and we will correct as necessary ;)
 
It heavily depends on if the band and room are any good. I'm going to assume it is a good band in a good room or else why bother recording, right?

And this is all wild shooting in the dark without a real band playing a real song with me standing there listening. But...

I would put a stereo pair of large diaphragm condencers on stage in the middle of everything. Maybe the band forms a semi-circle around them, maybe not. Those two mics should be most of the sound the recording needs. Placement of the mics and players around the mics makes or breaks the whole thing.

Then I'd put a stereo pair of small diaphragm condencers... somewhere... further away to capture the room ambience.

If I needed to, I'd throw one last something-or-another on a stand in case a horn player needed to step up for a solo. Then maybe the mix would sometimes use that mic.



But in a nutshell, I'd probably avoid using each of the 5 mics to close-mic the 5 musicians. The drums would sound oddly distant compared to up-close horns and piano, and all of the room ambiance would be missing.
 
Chibi Nappa said:
It heavily depends on if the band and room are any good. I'm going to assume it is a good band in a good room or else why bother recording, right?

And this is all wild shooting in the dark without a real band playing a real song with me standing there listening. But...

I would put a stereo pair of large diaphragm condencers on stage in the middle of everything. Maybe the band forms a semi-circle around them, maybe not. Those two mics should be most of the sound the recording needs. Placement of the mics and players around the mics makes or breaks the whole thing.

Then I'd put a stereo pair of small diaphragm condencers... somewhere... further away to capture the room ambience.

If I needed to, I'd throw one last something-or-another on a stand in case a horn player needed to step up for a solo. Then maybe the mix would sometimes use that mic.

But in a nutshell, I'd probably avoid using each of the 5 mics to close-mic the 5 musicians. The drums would sound oddly distant compared to up-close horns and piano, and all of the room ambiance would be missing.
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This would be my educated guess also. It would stem back to early recordings that were only 2 or 4 tracks.
But maybe he's looking for the best mic to use for each instrument in mono recording?
 
Chibi Nappa said:
But in a nutshell, I'd probably avoid using each of the 5 mics to close-mic the 5 musicians. The drums would sound oddly distant compared to up-close horns and piano, and all of the room ambiance would be missing.
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Pretty good, but the problem is you have no way of knowing what they are running for live sound and how they are set onstage. So it's impossible to say if a pair of mics onstage would work well or sound like crap. And I don't see a particular reason to favor LDCs onstage but SDCs off. Technically, SDCs are nearly always better where off-axis response is important.

If it's a typical live show, the bassist will be at a severe disadvantage to the horns and drums with only the pairs of mics. They'd need a spot at a minimum.

Assuming the FOH is competent and the room doesn't totally suck, I would go main pair FOH, single OH over the drums, spot on the bass. That leaves one more, hmmm. If the room or FOH sucks, then I'd go mono room mic and toss a pair onstage, but possibly spaced instead of coincident, depending on staging. The recording engineer usually does NOT have to power to change a stage plot, unless the band is specifically doing the show for the main purpose of recording.

Reality is if you were hired to do the show you'd run a splitter snake on the FOH mics and add a main pair (or two), and use a 24 track HD recorder, probably with at least 12 tracks running. You might toss out 7 of them in mixdown, but without knowing the room and band and FOH cold, better safe than sorry.

If it's an acoustic show, run a main pair, a couple of spots and a room mic.
 
Again, it's tricky with zero info on the non-existant band or venue, but I'm assuming a studio session, not a live show.

If it is a live show, you take all of the direct outs from front of house and then add in your own 5 mics and the situation becomes totally different. Unless the rules of the assignment would prohibit you from grabbing the feeds from the mics the soundman is already using just to enforce the 5-mic rule, but that wouldn't make any sense.

So instead let's assume studio situation. Or deserted auditorium. Or whatever you got.



Other options:

Walk around while they play for an hour until you find the spot in the room where you enjoy the music the most, put a binural "head" mic there and leave it at that.
 
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Chibi Nappa said:
Again, it's tricky with zero info on the non-existant band or venue, but I'm assuming a studio session, not a live show.
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But . . .

The college has asked you to record a traditional jazz combo consisting of Saxophone, Trumpet, Grand Piano, Upright Bass and a small Drum Kit during a live performance.
Click to expand...
 
I take "live performance" to mean they won't be doing overdubs. Once you throw in a front of house engineer and his mics and the sound of a PA system and all that comes with that, there are just too many variables to even begin to take a guess at what to do.
 
A little birdie told me that your teacher is a regular visitor to this forum. So if you give him this answer or any part of it, he'll know you cheated:

Piano: Earthworks PM40 dual-mic piano miking rack.

Drums: One Mojave Audio MA-200, mounted at about tom skin level 2-3' in front of the kit, facing back.

Sax & Trumpet: One AEA A440, with sax on one lobe and trumpet on the other.

Bass: If there's a lot of slapping, a Senheiser 441 a foot above the bridge, pointed at the strings, not the f-holes If it's all mellow bass, a Senheiser e602, same location.

G.
 
mshilarious said:
And I don't see a particular reason to favor LDCs onstage but SDCs off. Technically, SDCs are nearly always better where off-axis response is important.
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I just have a fetish for LDCs about chest level when a drum kit is near by. :D Careful placement of the musicians would fix the off-axis problems.

But yeah, substitute in SCDs if ya' like. This stuff can get very subjective.
 
Avoiding the "little birdie" issue, here's my solution: OK- the problem itself is obvious- you don't have enough mics or enough tracks to close mic this combo. Hell, you could barely do the drum kit. So- do a search on "Decca Tree". This is a triangular stereo array using 3 omnidirectional mics, often used for orchestral recording. First, you need 3 matched omnis, anything from Neumann U87 to AKG C414, or (to die for) Brauner ifet7. This leaves you with 2 spot mics. I'd put an AKG D12 or D112 on the bass, and an Electrovoice RE20 on kick drum, up close and personal. I'd arrange the performers in a circle around the Decca tree, and move them closer or farther away until I got a good rough balance. Then I would mix in just a little of the spot mics to augment the low frequency foundation. Another alternative would be to skip the low frequency mics, and put 2 matched small diaphragm overheads on the piano, and mix that up to taste- Neumann KM84's or (to die for) Schoeps CM6.
The key is this- if you have more sources than you have mics, you have to use some kind of distant mic'ing, and you have to use positioning of those sources to achieve balance. Good luck-Richie
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
A little birdie told me that your teacher is a regular visitor to this forum. So if you give him this answer or any part of it, he'll know you cheated:G.
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Glen
Would it not be cheating if he gave you credit on his research.
Seems to me that's what he sent his students to do for homework IMHO.
That's what this crazy world of recording is all about ask/learn/remember for future reference.
 
moresound said:
Glen
Would it not be cheating if he gave you credit on his research.
Seems to me that's what he sent his students to do for homework IMHO.
That's what this crazy world of recording is all about ask/learn/remember for future reference.
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Perhaps. If that's the case, the one thing I'd like the OP to learn/remember for future reference is that the last place one should go for reliable information is an Internet forum - unless/until they get to know the players and know how to weigh the reliability of the responses.

How does he know whether to trust my (or anyone else's) opinion enough to let a school test answer rely upon it?

G.
 
True.
But if he gets to know you and your opinions/knowledge and reliability as everyone on this board dose he'll be golden.
But I see your point about internet folklore and the tons and tons of misinformation.
So atonofclay66 I can say with out a doubt you can trust glen with anything he has to say about recording and that's a fact!
 
Answer:

"Stop being so damn cheap and buy some more fucking mics!"

:laughings:
 
atonofclay66 said:
I have a queston on a review for my audio engineering class that I would love some opinions on. The questions is:

The college has asked you to record a traditional jazz combo consisting of Saxophone, Trumpet, Grand Piano, Upright Bass and a small Drum Kit during a live performance. You have access to any 5 mics. What techniques would you use to record this group? Discuss mic types, directional patterns and mic placement.

Any help?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

maybe you can bring in your laptop into the final exam and ask everyone on gearslutz and homerecording for the answers too?

s
 
I would spot mic the bass and use a stereo pair for the rest. some experimentation to get the placement of the pair optimized would be needed. I think that too many mics on a jazz combo unnecessarily complicates the setup and loses the 'organic' sound I prefer.
 
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