Jazz Quartet/Small Space

[Dog_Chao_Chao]

Hi.Ive been recording and mixing for a couple of years in my own studio. Ive been asked to do a 3 day recording for Lisbon´s Jazz school. It will be my first time so.
The gig will take place in a little bar and instruments are pretty much sitting on each other lap!

Piano(not vertical. I suspect a half tail), double bass, drums and vocal.

I would love some help from experienced people here. what mic approach should be best? mono overhead, snare, DB and vocal mic? I know drums will get louder than anything else...

Here´s what i have to work with:

8 AD/DA RME fireface
8 ORAM preamps ( I have others like api, sytek, tlaudio but the orams are very portable and should be more than enough i think)

Mics:

414 b-uls
oktava mk12(2)
At 4047
Sm58 (4)
Sm 58 beta
Sm57(4)
rhodes nt5(2)

I have other mics but i guess they are not suited for the job(U87, ribbons,etc)

My problem here is how to track the piano and the Db without too much drum spill.

I could ask a friend to lend me a boundary (schoeps) for the piano.

Any help???

Thanks

ED

[pkautzsch]

You can go either for good isolation, or for an audience-like sound with a main-pair-plus-clean-spots approach. I'd prefer the latter.

Why no ribbons? Beyer M160s are often used as OHs. U87 can also be good. Maybe even stereo OHs for a little spread. You'll go for an image like the audience have, so the drums are not exactly a point source, but not spread out from hard left to hard right either.
Singer probably SM58 or similar handheld, she'll need a PA anyway. So just take the house PA mic.
Piano: inside under closed lid would be best recording-wise. But they might want to have the lid open, so be prepared to use either a hyper somewhere near the stick, or cardioid inside the piano at the rear end, or cardioid/hyper taped to the frame under the soundboard. The last option is quite quick as positioning isn't as critical as from the top (soundboard evening out the sound a bit), but will need some presence boost.
Bass either with lightweight mic suspended in the bridge (if player allows), or via DI. I've not been successful with mics in front of the f hole, but others have. DI gives most isolation of course, and a room/main pair will give some fullness.

Just my .02

[ajfarber]

Try mic'ing the piano's soundboard with a sdc mic about 3cm above one of the little round holes in the harp. A Schoeps 222 or something like it would be perfect. Km84/Km54-AGK451/452....

Ribbons are good on a bass, and the figure-8 pattern has good off-axis rejection.

[Dog_Chao_Chao]

thank you so much for your input. Not sure if I´ll be able to place a main pair mics in the audience. its a really small space...Anyway helpful suggestions, thanks

[Dog_Chao_Chao]

Hi. Just to thank you for your input.

2 days recording live jazz band.

I went for a pair audience placed mics (we werent alowed to use stands so we used some clamps to stick them near the ceiling!). Then a 414 as a mono overhead an oktava 3 cm from piano harp hole ( still a lot of drum spill) and doublebass went DI and pickup. Vocal was a live use black neumann KC something.

Everything was then preamplified by an oram 8 pre and then into a rme fireface. No eq or compression was used.

Overall result was satisfatory but not great:

The piano lacked more clearness and mid bass presence. Its not easy to get it more upfront in the mix...A bit blury maybe.

Double bass lacked some deep low frequencies wich was not bad at all because this helped the overall mix. Still i like to ear a bit of that.
Drums did not sound bad but just a bit to far. mic was at 50 cm high above cymbals. i couldnt place it any lower than that....Ill try a bit of compression.

Vocals sounded pretty perfect. Very good female singer with a lot of mic handling experience. That mic sounds really good by the way. Im considering buying it for studio use.

Still, without even process, eq, compressing or riding levels I ended up with an OK start point. Wich is not bad considering everything....

Just wanted to share this with you people who helped. Thanks