Under Rousseau's Moon

[henryrobinett]

Steve Remote! Did you record Gil Goldsteins "Under Rousseau's Moon" Live at The Blue Note? It's such a clean recording. I know you've recorded there quite a bit. No trap set. Don Alias. Richard Bona. Randy Brecker, Mike Mainieri, Chris Potter and a string quartet. Pretty cool. I don't have the recording, just the tune Sarah's Touch from iTunes. If not who did? I imagine Gil Goldstein was mainly directing, since it's very hard to play with strings unless someone is, and I don't hear a lot of his playing on this tune, unless he and Maineri are doing a lot of trading off.

[Remoteness]

Yes Henry, I indeed recorded, engineered and mixed this wonderful record. I also handled the audio co-ordination. I was assisted by Robert Carvell, Marc Van Rompaey and Adam Kushner.

We used The Bread Mobile for the live recording. We mixed the record at the field shop aboard Jethro (our mid-sized mobile unit) with Gil Goldstein and Jeff Levenson. Jon D'Uva handle the ProTools duties during the mix session.

Gil Goldstein not only arranged most of the tunes, he orchestrated the five tunes he didn't arrange! During the performance he played the piano and accordian.

This recording was produced by Gil Goldstein and Jeff Levenson.

The musicians were as follows...

Gil Goldstein - Piano & Accordian
Don Alias - Percussion
Richard Bona - Bass & Vocals
Randy Brecker - Trumpet
Mike Mainieri - Vibraphone
Chris Potter - Saxophone & Bass Clarinet
The Zebra Coast String Trio featuring
Joyce Hammann - Violin
Lois Martin - Viola
David Eggar - Cello

Here's a picture of us during the mix session...

[henryrobinett]

Damn Steve! You 'da Man! And I'm the man because I'm deep enough to know that YOU 'DA MAN!

I'm going to have to buy this CD. That track kills me. It sounds great. Iniially of course, my first mistake would have been to add more reverb, especially to those strings. But you know, it's a club date fer crissakes! As if they'd have a great plate reverb in the basement.

I think it sounds wonderful. Thanks for your brilliance.

[Remoteness]

You are way too kind.

Like I've said a number of times before...

In the Live Recording Business -- An engineer is only as good as the musicians he (she) keeps. They make our job much easier. And, Gil's arrangements and orchestrations were awesome in so many ways.

Gil really didn't want a lot a reverb. There was long discussions about it. Even the Blue Note Jazz Club room tone I normally add was mixed way back. He was going for a very clean sound. I like how Gil approached this mix. It's very fresh to my ears.

Thanks again!

[henryrobinett]

Yes, I think the less reverb approach is the right one. I just wouldn't have made it. That is being critical of ME, not you or Mr. Goldstein. I definitely hear some on the trumpet (Randy).

I'd love to know your layout and mics used. Those strings sound so isolated. Everything does. How you do 'dat?

When was it recorded. Don Alias is there so it couldn't have been too recently.

I love every instruments own space. Bass not center but right, like 2:30. Are they positioned according to the stage layout, to how they were positioned on stage, or were those decsions independent of that? If so is the view from the stage or audience perspective?

OK, damn it. I'm going to down load the whole thing on iTunes. I know I should get the CD. It'd sound better, but iTues is just so damned convenient.

Great stuff Mr. Remote!

[Remoteness]

Here's the input list:

01 ACCORDIAN HL SM57
02 ACCORDIAN HR SM57
03 PIANO LO PZM
04 PIANO HI PZM
05 VIBES MD 441
06 VIBES MD 441
07 VIBES DI
08 BASS GTR LBB100
09 BASS AMP E609
10 VIOLIN CROWN CLIP ON
11 VIOLA A/T CLIP ON
12 CELLO FISCHMAN / LBB100
13 CAJON E602
14 OVERHEAD M160
15 CONGA Y KM140 (2) KM 140s Y
16 DJEMBE / SNARE Y KM140 (2) KM 140s Y
17 TRUMPET (Randy) M149
18 SAX (Chris Potter) M149
19 BASS CLARINET TLM170
20 TALK BACK (Gil) SM58
21 BASS VOCAL (Richard) SM58
22 HL < ROOM DC96B
23 HC ^ ROOM DC96B
24 HR > ROOM DC96B

Believe it or not, there is a bit of reverb on many of the instruments, just not enough to notice I guess. The solo or featured instruments got a touch more wetness than the other tracks.

The layout was as tight as you can imagine -- standard Blue Note situation.
Those strings were totally isolated since we didn't use any mics... Ouch -- Yes, I know but, it didn't sound too bad -- Right? As for the other instruments (isolation wise) my "Virtual Gobo" technique worked very well.

Yes, Don Alias -- What an awesome guy he was. He had so much positive energy. He is greatly missed. I'm happy he had a chance to come into the truck to hear his performance. He was blown away by the isolation of the tracks.

We recorded the tracks during four sets on January 12th & 13th, 2006.

Yeah, every instrument is in its own pocket. I do that with panning, leveling and EQ.
The bass is panned around 2:00 and the foot is around 10:00. The snare is sharing space next to the bass. The kit mic is sharing the space near the foot and the overheads are panned pretty wide.

The instruments are not really positioned as per the stage layout. That would have been a bad idea since everyone was on top of each other. I've been panned the foot and bass equally for many years now. I just like to keep the center clear for solo instruments and such but, with that said I usually pan the stuff in the center just a touch off center. My mixes have a lot of separation, space and spread but fold down nicely in mono.

When I'm setting up the panning I usually check the balances by monitoring off a small mono speaker that's mounted about six feet behind my skull. The nearfields are patched to the mains button and my rear mono source is patched to the nearfields button in the console's center section. I've been mixing like this for decades. IMO, it's the only way to mix.

[henryrobinett]

I'm diggin' this CD. The apparancy of low reverb gives the music a lot MORE space. to breathe. Also with less drums there's less rumble and tumble getting in the way of everything. I mean I like rumble and tumble, but it's refreshing.

[AB3]

Thanks for the discussion. I just checked it out and bought it from Amazon. I look forward to posting a great review there! I saw Henry's name here, learned about this CD, and decided I better have it!

[Remoteness]

Very cool folks...

This recording IS indeed very refreshing.

I cannot stop listening to it in my car.

Gil is up for two Grammys on this record which is his first solo (leader) project.

One for best instrumental arrangement and the other for best vocal arrangement.

[henryrobinett]

Yeah, I'm listening to it again right now. What am I gonna do? Listen to Bush who's giving the State of the Nation speach? Much rather hear this.

Congratuations. You should have a nomination too!

[Remoteness]

Henry,

I was asked to mix today's State of the Union address in 5.1 for CBS.
It happened to be CBS's turn to do the pool feed this year.

The load in, setup and rehearsals started on the 19th. I was already booked for the weekend and could not do the gig...

In any event, I got it on in the background and the audio sounds good.

Henry, we approached Gil's record completely different than all the other Half Note releases. Do you hear a difference? And, what do like/dilike about this recording?

[Robobo1]

Originally Posted by Remoteness

Henry,

I was asked to mix today's State of the Union address in 5.1 for CBS.
It happened to be CBS's turn to do the pool feed this year.

The load in, setup and rehearsals started on the 19th. I was already booked for the weekend and could not do the gig...

In any event, I got it on in the background and the audio sounds good.

Off topic, but... was the 5.1 mix for the pool feed or for CBS only? I didn't think it was possible to do a pool feed of anything but stereo... but then, I'm really only familiar with the radio world.

[Remoteness]

Like I mentioned above, it was CBS’s turn to be the Pool for this event. They asked me if I was available to mix this show in Dolby 5.1.

I would suspect that the pool feed was in stereo and 5.1, but I will ask the director of technical operations at CBS and confirm this notion.

[Remoteness]

Originally Posted by henryrobinett

Damn Steve! You 'da Man! And I'm the man because I'm deep enough to know that YOU 'DA MAN!

I'm going to have to buy this CD. That track kills me. It sounds great. Iniially of course, my first mistake would have been to add more reverb, especially to those strings. But you know, it's a club date fer crissakes! As if they'd have a great plate reverb in the basement.

I think it sounds wonderful. Thanks for your brilliance.

Henry,

I know you downloaded the record from iTunes, but did you ever buy the CD?
It's one of my favorite recordings to date.

PM me if you didn't get the CD yet. I got a surprise for you.

Originally Posted by AB3

Thanks for the discussion. I just checked it out and bought it from Amazon. I look forward to posting a great review there! I saw Henry's name here, learned about this CD, and decided I better have it!

So, how about that review you promised us.
Don't hold back you true feels about the record.
I want to know if you feel the same vibe I do when I listen to that recording.

Gil Goldstein Is brilliant on this (first and only solo record to date) CD.

[henryrobinett]

I love that record. It's in my iPod. I love that tune Suniga. Liberty City, Sarah's Touch, Three Views of A Secret.

I felt bad that I never answered your question long ago about what is it about this record. I think for one, the writing of Gil is always amazing. Evening Faces by Brecker for a case in point. But the fact that there isn't a drum set really opens up the tonality. There's a clarity and simplicity. You can hear things in ways that would be harder, with all those subtleties in the arrangements with the strings.

And uh, no, I'm sorry to say, I didn't buy the CD! Do I get a prize??! What, for being lame?

I wanted to ask you about the tenor -- Chris Potter. What mic did you use? Sometimes it sounds almost out of phase or something. Probably my ears. Potter is amazing.

Great recording Mr Remote!

[Remoteness]

Henry,

Thank you for the very kind words. I love this recording.
The CD lives in my car.

Originally Posted by henryrobinett

...And uh, no, I'm sorry to say, I didn't buy the CD! Do I get a prize??! What, for being lame?...

PM me and find out!

Originally Posted by henryrobinett

...I wanted to ask you about the tenor -- Chris Potter. What mic did you use? Sometimes it sounds almost out of phase or something. Probably my ears. Potter is amazing.

Great recording Mr Remote!

We had a M149 on Chris Potter. He may have been moving away from the mic a bit and there is not a lot of tricks you can do to help that. It's been some time now, so I don't remember everything about the session, but I know we work on many details during the mix session.

I'm going to listen to the CD again tonight when I head home.
I'll report back if anything comes to mind.

[matyas]

Sounds like a really cool record which I'm eager to check out, all the more so because the cellist, Dave Eggar, is an old friend of mine!

[bjornson]

Eggar is the man.
I just recorded him playing a new composition by Soma Satoh.

[Remoteness]

Was it a live concert performance or in the studio?

Originally Posted by bjornson

Eggar is the man.
I just recorded him playing a new composition by Soma Satoh.

[bjornson]

Live.
Recorded in the previously mentioned space.
I promise I'll do a little "gig report" complete with the console failure 1 hr before showtime details.......

[matyas]

Originally Posted by bjornson

Live.
Recorded in the previously mentioned space.
I promise I'll do a little "gig report" complete with the console failure 1 hr before showtime details.......

Was that for Attack Theatre at the Hazlett? If so, I was there.