Jazz Quintet Recording Need Help!

[ma_pa]

I want to do some demo recordings for my father's jazz quintet during their rehearsals. The room (approx. 10x7xm and 3,40m in height but the walls are not parallel to each other) in my opinion sounds ok for a demo recording but is not treated and acoustic treatment is not an option.
The quintet consists of trumpet, tenor sax, piano, bass and drums. The style of music is hard bop (some Hank Mobley and Horace Silver stuff and standards)
The gear available is pretty limited and low budget:

• Art Tubefire interface (8 ch.) with Windows Vista Laptop

Mics:

• 1x Cascade Fathead (trumpet)

• 2x MXL 603 (piano/drums)

• 1x MXL 2001 (modded and sounds ok on sax imho)

• 1x Shure sm58

• 1x EV mic (not sure which model but the bass player told mit he liked it on bass an he has something like 30 years of experience in playing jazz on a semi professional level so I will trust him)

I'd like to use the fathead on the trumpet and the MXL 2001 on the tenor sax. I want to go with only one mic on drums and one on piano (a Yamaha grand piano). The piano I'd like to record in the RVG 50's and 60's style with the mic over the soundhole and the drums with the method Steve Remote described in a thread I found.
For the bass I will probably use the EV mic wrapped in foam and mounted behind the strings (read good things about this method and saw a picture of this on the Oscar Peterson LP "Girl Talk"). If someone has some ideas how to improve this setup everything is welcome! I also considered buying another mic in the 300$ price range e.g. to replace the MXL on sax or to find something better for piano or drums. So every suggestion and recommendation is welcome!
Then I've got some questions concerning acoustics and positioning of the players. Would some gobos e.g. helpful to achieve better seperation between the rythm section? And could mini gobos as Steve Remote uses them be helpfull? One final question: Should I record the piano with an open lid and sould the open side of the lid face the wall in order to avoid bleed from the horns or drums?
Gearslutz is a great platform where I learned lots of useful things by simply reading old posts so I hope someone can make some suggestions and help me.
Please chime in!

ma_pa

[7rojo7]

Piano at Half stick should be fine ( i would go with an omni here), Bassist in the arm pit (if the mic is not an omni, I wouldn't put it in the bridge, my favorite was the KM56, maybe this is where you could spend your money and use the EV as part of the drum sit), Drummer on the closed side of the piano, if you can put a 4'x8' (120x240) gobo on it's long side (if it's not the rolling style) on the closed side of the piano, since it's not live you can face the horns towards the piano. If you have any other gobos get them around the bassist. Like this every one should hear each other and see each other, you may want to amp the bass and put it by the Drummer and maybe send a touch of piano back into the room (RVG style) or send the bass and piano from a monitor that comes from the other side of the piano gobo, it'll keep the drummer's attention towards the others. Your biggest problems will be bleed into the bass and piano.
If you dont have gobos, they're easier than easy to make.
!/4' (6mm) plywood
2- 120x30
2- 240x30
8- triangles
Rough Pine
4- 2x2x30
chicken wire- enough for the 2 sides
carpetting or astroturf
Fabric that won't pass fiberglass
Fiberglass
Make a frame screwing the plywood to the 2x2s, mount the triangles on the corners with construction adhesive, staple the chicken wire to one side, fill with fiberglass, staple chicken wire to the other side, staple fabric to both sides, cover frame with carpetting using construction adhesive.
you might be able to get 4 out of 3 sheets of ply, use luan for less weight, might cost less too.
Laid on their sides they help stop sound from moving around on the floor, you can stand them up behind the horns, if you want to get really fancy for cheap, get a party umbrella or PVC gazebo and cover it with moving blankets for over the drums. It's a nice sized room, put the piano where it sounds best and work from there, use the bleed to your advantage and you wont need verb. you might want to cover the piano lid with moving blankets, half stick would be for sight lines, if you can still have sight line with full stick, then use it.
1 gobo on its side behind the piano, 1 on its side in front of the bass, 1 standing up behind each horn, umbrella or gazebo covered with moving blankets over the drums

[ajfarber]

I've made some posts regarding the RVG piano style before. I'll recap it a bit. I don't know hoe Rudy recorded piano in Hackensack, but in the Engelwood Cliffs studio, from 1959 through the 60s, he used only one mic on piano. It was placed in one of holes of his Steinway B on full stick. I think the mic was a Schoeps 221b with a cardioid cap and a nylon windscreen. There are some 60s era photos of RVG sessions at ctijazz.com.

Also, EVre20 mics are pretty common for bass. That's most likely what the bass player is thinking. Put the mic on a stand. Either mic the plucking fingers or the body of the bass just below the "f-hole" on the g-string side of the neck.

[ma_pa]

Thanks for your answers!
@ 7rojo7: I will think about building some more gobos. In the rehearsal space are already 2 of them I think but I'll have to ask our piano player.

@ajfarber: I read most of your posts concerning RVG recording methods. Just looked at some pictures in the Francis Wolff Blue Note Photography book and found one of the method you described. But RVG seemed to use different mics on piano. One picture with Herbie Nichols showes a RCA 44 on piano and on a picture with Barry Harris I saw an old Telefunken (?) mic. The Schoeps 221b was something like RVG's go to mic? I can see him using them on the bariton sax (Pepper Adams), on tenor sax (Joe Henderson, Dexter Gordon), on trumpet (Lee Morgan) and even on bass I think (on a picture with Teddy Kotick from 1958).

As said before I can spend 300-400 $ on upgrading and buying another mic. It doesn't have to be new.
Would an LDC multi pattern mic be a good thing to buy because of the flexibility it gives you or should I upgrade the MXL 603 stereo pair and buy an Octava MK 012 pair that would also give me the ability to change mic characteristics?
Any suggestions are welcome! In general I'm looking for a versatile mic that I can use on different instrument (I only record acoustic jazz).

[ajfarber]

Originally Posted by ma_pa

Thanks for your answers!
@ 7rojo7: I will think about building some more gobos. In the rehearsal space are already 2 of them I think but I'll have to ask our piano player.

@ajfarber: I read most of your posts concerning RVG recording methods. Just looked at some pictures in the Francis Wolff Blue Note Photography book and found one of the method you described. But RVG seemed to use different mics on piano. One picture with Herbie Nichols showes a RCA 44 on piano and on a picture with Barry Harris I saw an old Telefunken (?) mic. The Schoeps 221b was something like RVG's go to mic? I can see him using them on the bariton sax (Pepper Adams), on tenor sax (Joe Henderson, Dexter Gordon), on trumpet (Lee Morgan) and even on bass I think (on a picture with Teddy Kotick from 1958).

As said before I can spend 300-400 $ on upgrading and buying another mic. It doesn't have to be new.
Would an LDC multi pattern mic be a good thing to buy because of the flexibility it gives you or should I upgrade the MXL 603 stereo pair and buy an Octava MK 012 pair that would also give me the ability to change mic characteristics?
Any suggestions are welcome! In general I'm looking for a versatile mic that I can use on different instrument (I only record acoustic jazz).

Chameleon Labs makes a sdc tube mic that is a copy of the old KM56. They will be $400 if you can wait a month. Now they're $500, but Chameleon will be selling direct very soon.

[ma_pa]

Thanks, I'll have a look at this one! I just read an old thread again ( Jazz quintet-recorded in living room ) where you used an SDC Sterling Audio ST44 on piano and I really like the sound you got! I found this one for 299$. How do you think does this one compare to the new Chameleon Labs mic?

[ajfarber]

Originally Posted by ma_pa

Thanks, I'll have a look at this one! I just read an old thread again ( Jazz quintet-recorded in living room ) where you used an SDC Sterling Audio ST44 on piano and I really like the sound you got! I found this one for 299$. How do you think does this one compare to the new Chameleon Labs mic?

I can only assume that the Chameleon is better. Many engineers at AES this week were going on about how good the Chameleon is.

[7rojo7]

small diaphram side address nickel plated variable pattern mobster?

[ma_pa]

Just did some research on the Chameleon Labs mic. It seems to be a really interesting product especially in this price range.
I read in the old thread I mentioned above that you used an AGK d12e on bass. How did you place the mic and did you use any gobos or stuff like that to avoid too much bleed from the other instruments?
I'm also interested in the Lawson mics you used on that recording because the sax sounds very sweet and mellow (of course the sound has been produced by the sax player and not by the mic but this mic fits very well imho). Do you know if you can buy them in Europe?
What are other mics you could recommend for recording tenor sax?

Thanks alot guys!

[ajfarber]

Originally Posted by ma_pa

Just did some research on the Chameleon Labs mic. It seems to be a really interesting product especially in this price range.
I read in the old thread I mentioned above that you used an AGK d12e on bass. How did you place the mic and did you use any gobos or stuff like that to avoid too much bleed from the other instruments?
I'm also interested in the Lawson mics you used on that recording because the sax sounds very sweet and mellow (of course the sound has been produced by the sax player and not by the mic but this mic fits very well imho). Do you know if you can buy them in Europe?
What are other mics you could recommend for recording tenor sax?

Thanks alot guys!

The D12e was placed just below the "f-hole". Really any good dynamic will work. Beyer M88, EV RE20 even a Shure sm57. The D12e and the beyer have better off-axis rejection and a better bass response.

For saxophones, I like a large or small tube condenser. The Lawson L47 is great, so is the Soundelux U99 or the Peluso U47 knock-off. I have had good results with ribbon mics as well. Coles 4038 or AEA r84 are good with saxophone. I bet that Chameleon Labs SDC is good on saxophone.