[jazzbutcher]

Howdy Howdy folks,

I've got a date with a 20-piece jazz big-band in a month or two and I'm trying to figger out how I'm gonna handle recording these guys. Seeing as how almost all my experience has been recording acoustic music in clubs and some studio work, I'm in need of a healthy dose of advice, so let it fly!

Here's the basic setup:

5 saxes
4 trombones
4 trumpets
upright bass
drums
grand piano
vocalist
plus a few guest players

Of course the vocalist will have a mic that is connected to the house sound system (the show is going to be in a liberal-arts college auditorium with pretty good acoustics). I'm guessing the piano and bass will need some help as well (at the very least I will mic them for the recording). I have been told that they may set up a couple of mics near the front of the stage for soloists to come out and play (instead of just standing up in-place). I can take splits from any of these mics to my multi-track recorder along with whatever mics I place elsewhere. I'll mix it all down later (thankfully).

So I'm trying to figure out how to approach this. I thought about trying a Decca tree (as I know where I can borrow some Schoeps omnis) with some reinforcement at the sides of the stage and then maybe a stereo pair a little farther back from the stage. I've also got some Coles and RCA ribbons that I'd like to put to work, what with all these horns on stage. I'm not wed to any of these ideas - this is my first stab at it. There may also be some limits set by the band's director on how much I can "junk-up" the front of his stage with large stands... ;->

I've read a ton of old threads in this forum, looking for how different folks handle a session like this -- most were about classical groups and choirs, not too many specific to Big Bands. So I'd love to hear the pro's and cons of different approaches that you've tried in similar settings.


many thanks,

-dave