Jazz piano trio

[5flagsaudio]

Took me a lot of wavering to work up some nerve to be judge by the incredible ears on this board, but here goes. Signal chain available to those interested.

File is almost 22 MB, .m4a format 320kbps AAC

RapidShare Webhosting + Webspace

Thanks for your constructive criticism.

[Remoteness]

I clicked on the link and could not find it.

Where's your file located?

[5flagsaudio]

Originally Posted by Remoteness

I clicked on the link and could not find it.

Where's your file located?

I double checked. The link worked for me just now. One caveat: once you select the link, you need to click on the "free download" button near the bottom, unless you're a rapidshare member.

[Remoteness]

No, I didn't do that. I was expecting it to be on that page.

Damn, I click on the girly photos... silly me.

Hey, I just checked again and I did not see the "Free Download" link.

[5flagsaudio]

sounds like this might be more trouble than it should be. perhaps i should edit the 9 minute piece to something much shorter so i can upload it directly here.

[loujudson]

Originally Posted by 5flagsaudio

sounds like this might be more trouble than it should be. perhaps i should edit the 9 minute piece to something much shorter so i can upload it directly here.

Or make a smaller MP3. I'd like to hear it!

Lou

[5flagsaudio]

OK, here's a different, shorter track. Also, encoded at a lower quality 128kbps AAC.

Thanks for the constructive criticism.

[Remoteness]

I understand that a M4a is a valid file, but I cannot open it.
Isn't a .M4A formated file actually the audio layer of non-video MPEG 4 movie?
I guess it will be a new standard one day, but my computer does not compute.

All I can say is, it was not in the cards for me to review your work.

A simple MP3 file would have given everyone an opportunity to listen to your work.

[leddy]

I was able to open it in RealPlayer.

Sounds good to me - maybe a comment or two on what I would do differently since you are asking for them.

The panning seems a little unbalanced to me, and I think the individual instruments are slightly too wide. And I gotta ask about the ride cymbal: Around 1:33 I hear the wood of the stick and the wash coming from different places. Like the stick is just right of center, and the wash comes from much further right. That was distracting to me.

Nice detail in the sounds.

[5flagsaudio]

Originally Posted by Remoteness

I understand that a M4a is a valid file, but I cannot open it.
Isn't a .M4A formated file actually the audio layer of non-video MPEG 4 movie?
I guess it will be a new standard one day, but my computer does not compute.

All I can say is, it was not in the cards for me to review your work.

A simple MP3 file would have given everyone an opportunity to listen to your work.

My apologies. I didn't intend for it to be so much trouble to hear. Very valid point. Here's an mp3.

[5flagsaudio]

Originally Posted by leddy

I was able to open it in RealPlayer.

Sounds good to me - maybe a comment or two on what I would do differently since you are asking for them.

The panning seems a little unbalanced to me, and I think the individual instruments are slightly too wide. And I gotta ask about the ride cymbal: Around 1:33 I hear the wood of the stick and the wash coming from different places. Like the stick is just right of center, and the wash comes from much further right. That was distracting to me.

Nice detail in the sounds.

Thank you for your comments.

While difficult for me to remember exact details of panning and plug settings, I can give you a general idea.

The piano was panned nearly hard left/right. I do know some people do not like that "10 foot wide" piano effect. It was miked in with a coincident technique.

Drums were panned more narrow than piano, but equally across left/right. The kit was miked with "ORTF" overheads, snare, kick. I'm not sure why the stick is localizing differently than the wash. After relistening with this in mind, he's what I noticed. The stick and highest freqs are localizing correctly, it's the lower freq wash that's weird. Very weird.

Bass amp was miked, panned C.

[ajfarber]

Originally Posted by 5flagsaudio

Thank you for your comments.

While difficult for me to remember exact details of panning and plug settings, I can give you a general idea.

The piano was panned nearly hard left/right. I do know some people do not like that "10 foot wide" piano effect. It was miked in with a coincident technique.

Drums were panned more narrow than piano, but equally across left/right. The kit was miked with "ORTF" overheads, snare, kick. I'm not sure why the stick is localizing differently than the wash. After relistening with this in mind, he's what I noticed. The stick and highest freqs are localizing correctly, it's the lower freq wash that's weird. Very weird.

Bass amp was miked, panned C.

Try to pan the instruments to sound like you're in the audience. That "10 foot wide" piano effect does'nt work for jazz. It can be cool for "produced" pop tracks. Same goes for the drums.

I am not in favour of mic'ing a bass amp (Or using one for that matter). The drums sound to me like rock drums. I must be the way they were tuned and the type of heads used. The bass drum sounds like a cardboard box. Again, that's how the drummer has tuned it (and put a pillow in there as well.)

[under the fridge]

I'm no expert in this field, but I do agree that the kick drum is a bit too much "pulsating dance beat" and not enough like a really big drum. That combined with the bass amp make it sound more like a rock band in a more jazz-like section. An upright bass somewhere more on the left side (if that's where the bassist was standing) would give a great picture of the stage with all three in a row. The way it is now with stereo drums, center bass and the piano on the right it almost seems like the drummer and bass were in the middle of the stage, the piano was off to the right, and there is this big, dark death-pit or something off to the left just reverberating, or perhaps in this case more like a tiled shower, which is still weird to picture on stage.

Other than that the drums are really good, the actual panning of the kit is quite nice except for the strange whirring of the ride in the right channel that someone mentioned. The piano is quite detailed and well balanced, I can't hear one side louder than the other, and the lid doesn't seem to be interfering with the sound in any way.

I enjoyed listening.

[5flagsaudio]

Thank you all for your great comments.

The recording was done in April 07. This weekend, I had to record this competition again. This time around, I talked to the bass player about the recording I did last year. He wasn't a fan of the miked amp either. He recommended I take his direct feed, because according to him, he's always been happy with the sound of that tube preamp he uses with his rig. So, I took his DI feed and also miked the bass with a 414B-ULS.

I listened to the drum set at the sound check by standing right behind the drummer. Amazingly enough, his cymbal sounded exactly the way it does in the recording. His comments to me about the recording were: "This is the first recording I've ever heard where my drums sounded like my drums." I'll take that as high praise.

Piano: Not really happy with my miking choices on it this time. My go-to mic got damaged the previous weekend and went off for repair.

If anyone would be interested, I'll post an example of this year's recording once I've had a chance to mix it.

[Remoteness]