Big Band Session

[guosh]

Hi all,

Recently I was involved in a Big Band concert with one of the groups from my university, and we happened to do a multitrack of it. I'm supposed to help mix it for the group as a friend, but I've little to no experience with mixing as I've been working mainly with classical groups over the years and mostly with only a stereo pair. The Big Band didn't have any main mics, and used mostly spots for everything as it was meant for sound reinforcement rather than recording.

My question thus, is what sort of sound should I be striving towards? I've tried mixing some of the pieces and have come up with results that are rather disappointing to say the least. Of course, the musicians are a factor as they are a group of students who only came together 2 weeks before the concert, but is there anything I can do to make it sound better from the post-production side?


For recording, the engineer transfered tracks via MADi from a Digico console to Protools @ 16/48. The channel list and mics are attached.

I was not the engineer for this project - in fact I was playing for some of the pieces (which I'm actually rather embarrassed to put up now) but I've been asked to help mix the project as the band can't afford to hire anyone to do the mixing due to budget constraints, so I'll need all the help I can get!

Thanks for any help!

[fifthcircle]

A couple thoughts-

1. Pan as you see it on stage. Avoid wide pannings. Your management of bleed will be much better this way.

2. With the size of some of those sections, keep your faders at unity and use the trim to balance out your levels for the basic mix. From that point, you'll find it easier to ride for solos and get back to your original balance. If it was me doing the mix, I'd probably start by soloing each major section (saxes, bones, trumpets, then horns, rhythm, etc...) to make sure that things are individually working.

3. Don't overcompress. If you have bleed issues (which I would expect in a recording like this), they will be accentuated through compression.

Hopefully this should help you get started.

--Ben

[RobAnderson]

It is hard to say without hearing anything, but I would venture that it is safe to say that the highpass filter and EQ will definitely be your friends for this.

If the bleed is really a problem as far as coloration and such, don't be afraid to edit and/or ride faders on mic's when the player in front of it is not active. Obviously there may be some limit to how much you can do this without it being too obvious.

[Roland]

I had a quick look at some of the pictures and judging from some of the mic placement I can see, it's not likely to be easy. Recording big bands well is difficult at the best of times and harder with non pro players as they tend to have many more balance issues. The above advice is all pretty "sound" and I would try not to do anything too radical, e.g. hard eq on one mic, will possibly effect the sound on other mic's close to it. Probably a good approximation will be your best bet.

Regards


Roland

[newyorkbrass]

You can always overdub the parts that didnt come out. This is common practice in many live works. You would be surprized to how well it sounds, especially things such as guitars, brass, piano. You can funnel the bass drum/bass tracks or even the whole track into a very tight EQ extract them and trigger new bass drums using MIDI.

Depending on your budget and importance, you can always send the mix out to a pro - people like Jedi Jones who works with Wynton Marsalis might be available, but I am sure there are many others here on GS that would be able to help for a reasonable fee, or pro-bono.

[bkbirge]

It always amazes me when large groups claim they can't afford to mix or track properly. Charge each member $50 and you'd have a several day lockout at most high end studios. I've run into this before with large classical groups.

[newyorkbrass]

They are a university and probably want to try to learn how to mix. IMHO The right way to do it would be - as this is an oppertunity to learn - is to bring an experienced engineer down to the mix - pay him and stand around while he explains what he is doing.

[guosh]

Thanks for all the suggestions! Sorry I've not been able to reply sooner - finals are coming up so endless days are spent in the library.

I've attached 2 pieces that we did just to give an idea of what I've done thus far - really simple stuff though, barely EQ-ed except for HPF on most tracks and LPF on the bass as the bleed was terrible. The case is made worse as the monitors were really turned up so there's bleed from just about everywhere in the band, but please do have a listen!

Changes I made: added a tiny bit of reverb, boosted overall high frequencies @16khz for a little air, and muted the snare, hihat, toms and floor drum mics as i figured they weren't really necessary. Finally, panning according to stage: Big Band on the right, Percussion, Bass and Guitar in the centre and Piano on the left.

Re: newyorkbrass & bkbirge, yep you hit the nail on the head. Preferably we'd send it to a pro to get it mixed, in fact we wanted to ask the engineer who worked with us for our concert to do it for us, but the budget was blown due to the scale of the production - we made quite a loss for the concert. Recording only came into the mind of the group at the behest of the musical director at the last minute as he felt a multi-track recording would be a good idea.

However, it's not really for education's sake (though it definitely helps my education in terms of experience ), but rather as an archival of our concert. The raw files are still with me, and frankly I hope the group gets the budget to find a pro to mix it in the future but I'll just try to do my best for now as a friend and for the experience of something new.

Just curious though, how would you guys record a big band? We had Ludwig Nuss from the WDR Big Band down last year, and upon looking at our mic setup he said it was rather different from what he's used to. Personally I felt that pointing 2 cardoids like AB omnis for the trombones and trumpets was a little strange, but I didn't get to ask the engineer about that.

[ajfarber]

I assume that I'm the only one here that records big bands on a regular basis. I have posted some info info in this forum about my latest big band recording at Clinton studios in NYC.

[newyorkbrass]

Andy,

I wouldnt say that...

[ajfarber]

Originally Posted by newyorkbrass

Andy,

I wouldnt say that...

You record big bands often?

[newyorkbrass]

not as often as I use to. I think you do more now - but it does come up. here and there. Brass budgets are now now much smaller overdubs rule, I miss the the "no headphone, no clicktrack, no booth" idea. I saw you posted somewhere else you try to record that way.

[ajfarber]

Originally Posted by newyorkbrass

not as often as I use to. I think you do more now - but it does come up. here and there. Brass budgets are now now much smaller overdubs rule, I miss the the "no headphone, no clicktrack, no booth" idea. I saw you posted somewhere else you try to record that way.

I always record that way for real jazz. Film, TV, commercial and other bullshit production music can be done as overdubs for budget reasons. But real album quality jazz must be played live.

[newyorkbrass]

I hear ya!!!!!