recording brass

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michael.butler

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I'll be recording a trombone and french horn tomorrow. My first experience w/ brass. I've got a fairly healthy collection of mics, so there are options o' plenty. Any tips?

michael
 
Well, you didn't exactly tell us what "healthy" consists of, but if you have any ribbon mics, they tend to sound great on brass. Being figure-of eight, though, you will get a lot of room sound, which could be good or bad, depending on the room.
 
I think it would be real helpful if we knew what mics you have available and what type of music/sound you're going for.

I'd start off with an RE-20 on the trombone pointed at the bell. A ribbon mic would work too, but don't put it too close to the bell. There can be some good bursts of air moving through there.

For horn, again it would depend on what your going for. Horn to me has a very open almost distant sound. If your room is great, mic it from a couple feet away. You could try setting the player up so that the bell is facing the wall. Then mic the wall from in front and above the player.

There are too many variables for there to be one answer to this.
 
Well you're in luck. Brass aint that difficult to record. Start with RE20/27, if not available anything above $75 will do!

I prefer SM57/58 after RE20
 
As a sax player I can tell you that one big mistake everyone makes is to place the mic too close. You need to pick up the body of the horn and not just the sound coming from the bell because the whole thing resonates and contributes to the tonality of the instrument. If you get too much of the bell; it'll sound thin and overly bright. It's important to get the full sound which includes the sound coming off the body of the horn. If your room permits, I'd stay at least a couple of feet from it. Or if the room isn't conducive to that, you need a mic at the bell and one to the side to pick up the body. Also I almost always hear non-brass guys mix horns too bright. I usually like a bit of roll-off on the high end for sax and brass. Maybe not on a french horn though 'cause they're a little dark as it is.
 
Damn Lt. Bob, couldn't you have said that a couply of years earlier. I preferred the sm57 over the 58 because it's slides further in the sax itself. The 58 seems to get stuck earlier because of the head. Don't forget to attach a cable though, or you won't be able to get your mic back.
 
:D I've still got a couple of them rattling around in my old sax that I couldn't get out. :D
 
Bob, are you using dynamics on your sax? What mics do you like?
 
Well live I use an EV Neodymium dynamic but in the studio I've been using............are you ready?..............a NT-1 that I bought before I came to homerec and found out it's a hated mic. I manage to get a pretty good sound out of it but I'd like to try some of the others that get regular praise here. I'm just too broke.
 
Hmmmmmm. actually i disagree with Lt. Bob. I play trombone and have my studio and normally i find the opposite when recording my self. First of all, the fact that the sound is coming also from the body of the horn and not just the bell is only true with instruments such as sax's and clarinets. Trombone and French horns are from the conical shaped horns therefore the sound is produced from the bell. If you mic anything but your just gonna get noises like the player breathing and the slide clicking when coming to first position. Depending on the sound you want really depends on the positioning. For my work with jazz 2feet directly infront of the bell creates a nice sound, but although bright. For this it seems like you would need a more orchestral type sound. Put the mic about 3 feet in front of the bell in this case (i wouldnt go much farther than that) and instead if you need a more warmer and less attackfull sound get the mic out of the heavy SPLs by bringing it off axis and pointing it up towards the bell. This will get the warmer edge of the sound but still get a good defined attack. You could expirement between 1-3feet and the most i would possibly go is 6 feet. A 57 will work but a condenser like an AT4033 will probably work better. However like i said, try and keep the mic closer to about 1-3 feet only or the sound will be very distant sounding, but still expirmenting is your best key. Its much easier to mic a quiet trombone player than a loud one but he could get quite loud.

Ive never miced a french horn before. But i do know that most of the deep rich sound the french horn makes comes from the reflection behind it. Try putting a decent foldable table behind the player to let the sound reflect there isntead of reflecting of the wall. Expiriment with placement on this table also, bring it back to where you have a good balanced sound. In this case you could probably use a boundary mic on the table. But is this case where you might not have one of those, mic infront of the french horn a few feet but make sure your getting the reflection sound.

There is an article i found about this very subject. However, me doing a style of music that requires a really bright in your face sound lead me to find out that these techniques dont work as good. However, they might work great for your situation. Let me remind you that i am a very loud player and the style i do is bright. However, i talk to many trombone players that say you cant get a good sounding recording without a ribbon mic, and that if your using anything different requires you to be about 1-2feet directly infront of the bell, and most ofthese players were soft players. Hearing this a while back was the key to finding the sound that i like.

http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/jan99/articles/bress778.htm

Also that article has good information on recording woodwinds also and also goes into depth of whats going on with the sound with the instruments.

My hypothesis on how its easier to get a good sound with the mic right up close is this...I believe that most mics besides ribbons cannot handle the serious SPLs. Sure it can take the pressure without microphone overload but the sounds are still too loud and distort. When you have the mic that close, the waves of the horn have not quite formed and thus are actually more quiet and if captured at the right time, has a much less SPLs. If you want a warmer sound then try moving the mic off axis again also.

But it find most of this information being true as i continue to watch great live recordings on TV of great jazz soloists. Infact sometimes i see the trumpets being miced with a 57 practically in the bell, and it sounds good. Watch on Late Night Shows and watch the band, those mics are quite close.

lots of valuable information here, might be overkill but i believe it is something that many people have a hard time with. You will need to expiriment with the sound you like because its not gonna be the same for every trombonist and every type of music being played. But these are some guidelines that should help you in your expirimenting.

Good luck and let me know if you have more questions.

Last note, i decided i should leave a section here on what mikes i recommend. Of course, Ribbon mics are great for this but becarefull, the SPL of trumpets and trombones can actually split the ribbon. SM57 is a very basic one. I have had very good luck with my AT4033 but something with a little more mid would be better suited for this. Also, for loud harsh players, which are generally hard to mic with a good sound, ive heard a Senheiser MD421 works really good for this. But i think most people will tell you to get a Ribbon mic.

Danny
 
Well that sounds like good advice to me. I am a sax player after all and they are a bit different. You notice though that one thing I did suggest was to mic it from a few feet away. And I stand by what I said when it comes to sax. If you stick a mic in the bell of a sax it sounds too bright and thin. But I certainly bow to the experience of a 'bone player....you're gonna know better than me what works on brass.
 
Oops im sorry Lt. Bob if i made that sound like a direct offense towards you. You are correct that with sax and most woodwind type instruments the body of the instrument is just as import as the bell. But micing it a couple of feet back and up a little from the bell should fix the problem of needing a second mic just for the body. And like i said, it is a bit different for trombones and such type brass. Hopefully this article can be a good source of information to anyone on this BBS.

Darnold
 
My goodness................no I didn't take it that way at all. I thought I made it clear that I thought you were giving good advice and that I accepted it as such. Sorry if I wasn't as clear as I thought. Your point about brass versus woodwinds is well taken and as a woodwind guy, it didn't really occur to me to think of the difference between them. But all of a brass instrument's sound comes thru the bell while an awful lot of a woodwind's sound comes out of the tone holes unless you're holding down all of the keys which only happens on the lowest note so it's clear to me that micing the two types of instruments is inherently different. Thank you for pointing that out. Nice to meet you BTW. ;)
 
darnold, I'm very interested in this topic but the link you give is broken.
-Dave
 
darnold said:
Oops im sorry Lt. Bob if i made that sound like a direct offense towards you.
Click to expand...
darnold said:
My goodness................no I didn't take it that way at all.
Click to expand...

What a couple of woosies :D

Reading this I imagine two males with pursus over their shoulder



:D
 
Downside Studio said:


Reading this I imagine two males with pursus over their shoulder
:D
Click to expand...
The pursus is a South American marmoset often seen riding on the shoulders of the most well-endowed men.
Fun Facts: source....National Museum of tropical oddities.
It's True!!! :D :p
 
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