recording live Jazz...

[sharpeleven]

Hi fellow Slutz,

I am going to record a live show in a local Jazz Club next week. I have quite a bit of experience in recording Jazz in the studio but this will be the first time I record live to multitrack outside of a studio setting. What should I watch out for? Maybe some one could share some his/her experience in live recording.

The instrumentation is grand piano, upright bass, drums, trombone, trumpet, alto and the pianist will also be singing on some tunes.

The location is a rather large Jazz club / restaurant / bar, about 60 x 25 feet, the stage is raised and about 25 x 9 feet, adjacent to a wall. The ceiling is pretty high at about 14 feet. The room sounds decent / open, lottsa wood, not boxy at all.

My plan is to bring in some gear from my studio: computer/ PT HD, one 192I/O w/add. AD card (16 tracks) , a rack with preamps (api, chandler, cranesong etc) and a selection of mics. Setting up gear next to the band.

I am very tempted to go with the same approach that has worked for me in the past in the studio, using a ribbon close on bass, omnis on piano and the horns and lottsa room mics but now I have second thoughts....

I am concerned about:

• picking up way too much bleed (bass), since my approach usually requires at least some degree of separation or a few baffles between the drums and bass/ piano and that obviously won't work on stage...

• noise: the place will be packed and food will be served during the show, the kitchen is right next to the stage. There is also a bar section and sometimes louder bands are performing upstairs simultaneously.

• Stage seems a bit shaky. Any foot tapping might shake up those mics...

• There will be a FOH engineer micing the band already. How would you go about placing separate mics alongside the ones from the live guy? specially on the hornz?

• bleed from the monitors? Phasing issues?

• how would you guys set up the band? Will a Royer 121 work on bass, having the piano and drums to either side in the dead spots of the mic?

• Should I just go with dynamics?

• how should I go about capturing room sound without picking up too much noise from the audience?

Thanks!!!

Christian

[andrewh]

Originally posted by sharpeleven

• Stage seems a bit shaky. Any foot tapping might shake up those mics...

Are you mainly worried about the mics falling over? Or just the rumble in general? If the former, maybe bring along some sandbag-type things. If the latter, get the owner to install a new stage!

• There will be a FOH engineer micing the band already. How would you go about placing separate mics alongside the ones from the live guy? specially on the hornz?

Maybe you could talk to him beforehand; perhaps on a few things you could agree on a mic to use, and just bring along a couple high quality mic splitter boxes to give you both a clean balanced signal?

Sorry if I stated the obvious and was not much help. You're much more advanced than myself.

[fifthcircle]

A few thoughts- I generally use the same mic techniques in live shows as I'd use in the studio. Sometimes I'll augment it with a pair in front of the ensemble, but it needs to balance very well acoustically to do that. I usually place rear facing microphones to capture audience reaction. This is a pretty important part of a live jazz recording as there is always interaction between performers and audience. Ride the gain as needed.

Meet with your FOH mixer and plan everything. Every mic and the splitting/power issues are going to be the big ones. I generally try to minimize ribbons in live dates because the microphone snake runs are usually too long. If I have preamps to place at the stage to send signal back everywhere at line level, I'll sometimes use ribbons. I'm not a fan of preamps at the stage, though, as I like to be able to control my gain structure without having to call for an assistant or leaving my mix post.

Put every mic in a shockmount as well. This includes dynamics!!! Floor noise will enter the mic and you want that minimized as much as possible.

As far as bleed and gobos go- you will have plenty of bleed so mic carefully. I usually rent plexiglass gobos to place around the drums and contain them a bit. Everybody else is usually pretty good on their respetive tracks once this task is done. Encourage the FOH/monitor folks to keep their levels as low as they can get away with. I often don't put monitors on the stage until musicians specifically request them. They usually play better when they listen to each other rather than a speaker.

When it comes time to remix, be handy with the trim tool.... I will often cut out many of the tracks that contain nothing but bleed. Either that or I bring the level way down to minimize ambience shifts when the level comes up.

Good luck...

--Ben

[Yannick]

Originally posted by fifthcircle
They usually play better when they listen to each other rather than a speaker.

--Ben

I second that - although sometimes it will take a while for the musicians to adjust. I've had situations where the band first didn't like 'my' sound, but after 1h of rehearsing, they would come and have a listen again and say : that's starting to sound great ! My response would then be : 'I' didn't change anything ...

Just think as if it were a studio session and try living with the bleed, get it (the bleed itself) to sound good. Maybe even try to get some bleed into the loud instruments' mics, otherwise the softer players will start to sound too dry.
For me this works better than using a main stereo pair as well.

[Roland]

Originally posted by sharpeleven

My plan is to bring in some gear from my studio: computer/ PT HD, one 192I/O w/add. AD card (16 tracks) , a rack with preamps (api, chandler, cranesong etc) and a selection of mics. Setting up gear next to the band.

I am very tempted to go with the same approach that has worked for me in the past in the studio, using a ribbon close on bass, omnis on piano and the horns and lottsa room mics but now I have second thoughts....

I am concerned about:

• picking up way too much bleed (bass), since my approach usually requires at least some degree of separation or a few baffles between the drums and bass/ piano and that obviously won't work on stage...

• noise: the place will be packed and food will be served during the show, the kitchen is right next to the stage. There is also a bar section and sometimes louder bands are performing upstairs simultaneously.

• Stage seems a bit shaky. Any foot tapping might shake up those mics...

• There will be a FOH engineer micing the band already. How would you go about placing separate mics alongside the ones from the live guy? specially on the hornz?

• bleed from the monitors? Phasing issues?

• how would you guys set up the band? Will a Royer 121 work on bass, having the piano and drums to either side in the dead spots of the mic?

• Should I just go with dynamics?

• how should I go about capturing room sound without picking up too much noise from the audience?

Thanks!!!

Christian

Ribbon's in this situation would be a little precarious, just say one get blown, you will feel sick about the whole gig! Also some practical issues come to mind, as you have so rightly pointed out, monitors, proximity of other players etc and front of house considerations.

I would certainly try and agree with the FOH guy about shared mic choices, (two mics on every drum will be a little intimidating for the drummer). As for the bass I would certainly take a DI as well as a mic could save your bacon (use his cab DI out, almost certainley will be a more usable sound than straight off his bug!)

Omni's may work on the brass and the piano, but be prepared to go cardiods for rejection (open sound with squealing feedback will sound worse I promise you). As for a vocal mic SM87 is always a good choice, Neuman KM105 another.

Don't forget you will need a decent splitter system, I'm guessing you or the club do not have this, so I would find out what the hire will be and how you will rig it with FOH.

Racks of nice pre's may look like a good option, but consider using a resonable desk. I have done gigs like this with a Mackie, and you would be suprised at what you can achieve (as long as you don't go back through it for mixing, they crowd out and lack headroom on mix). Don't forget a couple of decent condensor mics for audience noise, can add a real "vibe" to the sound (on mix you can ride these in and out at the begining and ends of numbers to prevent too much audience noise).

Good luck, enjoy!!!


Regards



Roland

[Remoteness]

Christian,

How did your recording of that live jazz date go?