The
Ribbon mics continue to impress with a great new acoustic session from
Graham Hodge CHECK IT OUT. The
BIG IDEA is to run a studio recording materclass weekend. Look out for
details!!!!!!!!!
Brass
bands are part of the English music landscape and they range in
standard from small village bands up to famous professional recording
outfits such as Grimethorpe and Black Dyke which have some of
the finest performing musicians in the world. Competition drives
up the standard with bands rated according to their ability in
different sections and Mark Ager the musical director took Haverhill
Silver Band into the top section in the 2006 competitions.
The
session
The
venue was the Old Independent Church on the outskirts
of Haverhill and I had previously recorded the band in
there in 1999 so I new that the acoustics were very good.
Recording on location for me is all about getting a good
venue and brass bands particularly need space to develop
their sound. As a rule of thumb I try to find a venue
with a high ceiling which the band can fit into at least
3 or 4 times and the church fitted the bill perfectly
with a nice natural reverb of about 3 seconds
First up as always, I set up the Soundfield mic about
20 foot back from the front of the band, set to record
in B Format so that I could alter the pickup pattern in
post production. Listening back it became clear that there
was a lot of reverb in the room and so I moved the Soundfield
progressively nearer a few inches at a time until I had
a good balance between the band and the room ambience.
So many times I still get people booking a venue because
it is acoustically flat and dead with a low ceiling and
this idea that you need a dead room to record in stems
from the 1960s studio and is totally inappropriate for
a large choir, band or orchestra that needs space and
a good natural ambience to blend the sound.
I
have taken to putting up a pair of spaced Omnis about
6 foot apart infront of a brass band and I used the lovely
Hebden Sound 3000 mics on tall stands about 10/12 foot
high either side of the Soundfield. The mixture between
the Soundfield and the spaced Omnis pretty well gives
me the sound I am looking for though I will move the mics
by a few inches either way to get the right balance. Invariably
I will put up some spot mics for detail and on this session
I put a single Rode NT5 over the kit about 4 feet away
and I put a Audio Technica 4047 over the tuned percussion
at the back of the band which picks up the Tymps on this
particular track. Finally I usually experiment with something
over the basses to give me some extra "Umpty"
if I need it and I used a Blue Mouse pretty close to the
bell of one of the E flat basses.
Rimsky Korsakov's Procession of the Nobles is a pretty
dramatic piece with huge dynamics and it is always important
to keep an eye on levels to avoid any clipping or distortion.
I never compress any mics at the recording stage and never
apply any EQ as I monitor the session on headphones and
I want to have everything flat for the editing and mixing
in the studio.
I always set up in the room with the band so I can easily
interact with the players and the MD without silly red
lights and headphones. Above all you need to be totally
transparent as a recording engineer and just drop in as
soon as the MD raises their hand. It is no use having
to stop to ask for retakes because you aren't on the money.
Remember that it really is hard work playing a brass instrument
for 5 or 6 hours both physically and mentally. I get the
band to run a complete take of the piece and then the
MD and I will sit with the score and mark which sections
we need to redo, so in this way you can end up with as
many as 30 separate bits for a really complex piece. I
always ask the players to own up if they know that they
made a mistake as it's so simple to replay a small section
rather than try and mend it in the edit.
So in many ways getting a great brass recording isn't
really about mics and recording gear but managing the
session. You have to read music and to be able to follow
a brass score which can be notoriously tricky and you
have to make sure that you cover all your edits otherwise
it's a nightmare at the edit.
To
hear the audio files above simply double click on
them and they will play in the media player you have
set on your computer. To download the files, create
a new folder on your hard drive and then right click
on the files above and choose "Save as Target"
to your new folder. When you have downloaded all the
files open up Cubase or a similar audio programme
and create a new project. In Cubase go to Import<audio
files and select all the MP3s in the folder. Cubase
will ask you if you want them on the same track or
separate tracks. Choose separate tracks and it will
paste them into a new project for you.SEE VIDEO
Reelsound
is one of the few mobiles that records to multitrack Nuendo
and then edits across the entire multitrack keeping all
the mixing options open to the end. So editing a brass band
CD is a big job that can take 2 or 3 days hard editing in
the studio to produce the perfect take from all the bits.
I always record at 32 bit floating as it definitely sounds
better even if it will ultimately end up at 16 bit. As far
as mixing is concerned the first consideration is the sound
of the room and I always set up a good EQ such as the waves
REQ6 across the whole mix then solo tracks and sweep the
middle to find the boxy mid frequencies around 500hz. Some
rooms don't need much but on others I will cut ruthlessly
to remove the blanket of middle frequencies. The
rest is simply balancing all the tracks and compressing
the final mix to get the dynamics on a CD.