Brass & sax micing & mixing

[jimwilbourne]

Hey guys. I know it's a bit off topic in a metal forum

But i'm recording a ska band startig Thursday and I was wondering if any of you had any tips when dealing wih the brass and sax.

I have to mic a trumpet, trumbone, an baritone sax.

I have 2 57s and a few LDC available
Any micing techniques and any tips in mixing?

 

[Sloan]

FUCK SKA

 

[Sloan]

LOL SERIOUSLY.


But, if your doing it anyway, one technique i read about doing horn sections is to have all the players face a wall and have the mic facing the wall instead of the actual horn/source. Have them all play at the same time etc...

I don't have any real hands on experience with wind instruments other than some live sound gigs where the player provided his own clip on mic that angled down in the horn.

 

[timislegend]

ribbon mic (vin-jet) or small cap (km184)

if you can't acquire these mics... just use your ears with the other ones (obviously).

not too much reverb... and if you use a delay, feed it back into itself... then feed the delay into the reverb. this has a slappy sound that works great for brass and woodwind instruments. it's good to get the room too... use the large diaphragms for that.

the closer you are to the horn with a dynamic mic, the more it will sound like a honk than a breeze (in my experience).

 

[pikachu69]

it depends if you are recording them as a group or individually tracking each brass player.
If you are going one at a time try a 57 pointing towards the bell and mess with distance to create the eq you like. Also add a LDC about a foot up and to the side pointing at the keys and the players fingers. A large part of the sound of a sax in particular comes from the side of the instrument. If you have a nice room mic that too. For ska only ambiance is really needed not full on verb.

 

[jimwilbourne]

thanks for the suggestions!

also, should I record them all at once, or seperately. I have means to do both. but I'm not sure which one will work best.
I'm sure seperately will give me a bit more mixing control. but I'm not sure if that's the best idea for tuning.

 

[timislegend]

i say separately... just gives you a lot more control. be cautious of the intonation while tracking.

 

[fitzrangerhoodngarb]

thanks for the suggestions!

also, should I record them all at once, or seperately. I have means to do both. but I'm not sure which one will work best.
I'm sure seperately will give me a bit more mixing control. but I'm not sure if that's the best idea for tuning.

I would record as an ensemble and spot individually if neccessary. They want an ensemble sound right? Why try to artificially construct it? A recipe for unnecessary headaches. I spose that's the modern way though.

Get your earoles in front of them standing as a group and playing and find a good balance by moving the players back and forward a step or 2. Tell them to listen to each other and keep emptying those spit valves (or suck it back up). Stick an ORTF-ish pair of LDC's where your noggin is on a slight tilt down to the baritone. Don't worry if they aren't the same mic. If it's a reflective floor put a rug on it. Get a bit of air between the mics and the players, slightly off axis is generally pretty good tonally with that combo of horns. See what the balance is like in the track. Move the trumpet player back further again.....Repeat

That's how I would start with what you have. The 57's could work ok for the trumpet and trombone but would most likely make the baritone sax sound like a cow on heat, particularly down low. You never know though.

 

[Sloan]

Here's an article about Daptone recordings which mentions horn recording.

Roth is similarly minimal with the horn sections: a single microphone, often the workhorse Shure 315 or 55 (the "Elvis" microphone), is used to collect the three Daptone Horns, though sometimes he'll go to the '80s-era Radio Shack microphones, placed on a stand about four feet in front of the section. "What you want to do with horns is let them mix themselves," he says. "Give them enough room for the sounds to blend before they hit the microphone. The sound you want really is coming from the musicians, and when guys have played together for a while it's not a strain to get a good sound." On the album of instrumentals by the Budos Band, one of the Daptone Records artists, a Radio Shack condenser microphone was added on the baritone sax. "We wanted to pan the bari on one side and the trumpets on the other," says Roth.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun08/articles/daptone.htm

 

[BLUElightCory]

If you can get your hands on a ribbon mic or a smooth dynamic (MD421, SM7, etc.) you'll be in good shape. Many condensers (obviously not all) can be overly strident on certain brass/woodwind instruments.

The best brass/woodwind mics I've used are the Royer R121/R122.