I love demo's

[Yannick]

This is a jazz demo recording in my smallish 'very live' room-kitchen-concert space (my studio is mobile).

No reverb, almost no EQ, no compression, almost no level changes. We wanted a natural sound.
It was the beginning of this formation, they hadn't played a concert together yet ...

Got them a three week tour in Australia (coming from Belgium that's not bad).

The up tempo songs are too long to upload

Piano : Royer SF12
Drum : Sennheiser MKH30-40 (MS) in front of drumkit
Bass : MKH80 on hypercardioid
Vibe : MKH80 on cardioid

No room mic - the drum mic was quite far, towards the centre of the 4tet.

[Yannick]

Any comments ?
I'm mainly involved in classical productions, so I'd love some feedback on this

[Randall]

Yannick, this is freaking cool...way freaking cool in fact..
Is this your Sydec system? I was going to ask you if you could post something of your favorites that you had done with Mixpander in the Mix....can ya?

production wise any this peice takes me somewhere on a level that kind of toys with the emotions or something...very interesting stuff, in other words, I like it

[mitgong]

Well that's just lovely. I'll eat in your kitchen anytime. I would have thought that the Royer would be overly dark for the piano, but in this, too, I am wrong.

This must have been a very satisfying recording experience for you. I love recording good musicians.

[Yannick]

The Royer is a strange beast, every time I let a musician hear the difference with a condensor mic the comment is the same :
the Royer sounds more 'brilliant'

Strange thing is that there is in fact a (severe) HF roloff, but it sounds very fresh, which just shows that not all is in the graphics ...

[littledoodler]

great song it's exactly what i feel like today, the vibes rule.

[Yannick]

Oh, I still had to add this was recorded&mixed on a Soundscape32 + mixpander 9 - although I didn't really use the mixpander. The mixer only had two MS decoders, minimal EQ, no compression, and only some dithering at the end (to go to 16 bit).

Preamps were Gracedesign 801R.
Interestingly, since I upgraded my monitoring, I use much less (in this case no) EQ on the bass - this means I was using corrective EQ that was in fact correcting my monitor setup.

[Yannick]

Incidentally, I tried the Royer on the drumkit as well, this brought out the toms and snare a lot more, but could you please send me a check for my second SF12 ?

[CrazyBeast]

Another really great track.

I really like the piano sound. Very cohesive mood that fits the vibe of the piece.

The composition nicely flirts with a Tortoise-ish vibe while still feeling like a jazz piece.

[AUDIOSFX]

sounds fantastic..how big is the space your recording in and what treatments if any in the room?

-ws

[Yannick]

About 7.5x10x3.5 m.
Painted (rough) brick walls - wooden floor.
I have about 20 absorbtive panels I can move around to deaden the space. Nothing fancy as it is not a studio - it's only used 2-3 days/month for recording.

[Randall]

Yannik, any chance you can post something that has some of the Mixpander FX in the mix?...BTW, your suff sounds very nice!!!

[BattleAngel]

Jesus... this is beautiful. Seriously, absolutely gorgeous... such an amazing arrangement and I can't imagine a better production style. Congratulations :-)

[Lee Tyler]

Way cool, nice vibe. I almost feel guilty commenting on the auditory deficiencies because with this quality of work, the vibe rules over audio perfection in my book. Overall volume needs a generous boost, as do freq's from 2000 hz on upward. Properly mastered, this will be as sweet as they come for a mood piece. Hey Yan, may I take a stroll in your fridge, eh??

[Yannick]

Thanks for the very generous comments all !

About the average level : every track was kept at the same relative level, the mix being adjusted in such a way that only the loudest drum hit on the loudest track would go to 0 dBFS.

This means in fact (following the proposed K-system standard, by Bob Katz) that it is about 4-5 dB too soft too comply to the K20 standard.

I tried limiting/compressing, but on my monitoring it is just too obvious and the really big peaks loose impact, which is a pity in this context.

The only way to solve it is actually digital overload, which to my ear sounds more natural ...

So we decided too keep the demo at an average level that is about 4-5 dB too soft.

As for the perceived HF loss : you have too play it LOUD ! (peak should be around 110 dB)

On my K50/Bryston 3BSST/DAC1 system I have to set levels so the peak hits go too about 500-600 W to have a realistic level (K50 = 80W RMS, 3B = about 170 W continuous)

Of course if it were for a commercial release some kind of adjustment would be necessary, but what is really interesting too me is the lack of headroom even in Mr Katz proposed (and very generous compared too most massivly compressed commercial releases) K20 standard.

Ah, live music & live sound ...

(K20 : -20 dBFS is 0 dB on this scale, so you have 20 dB headroom. 0 dB on the K20 scale is calibrated to 85 dB on the listening spot, two channels playing)

[Yannick]

Originally posted by Lee Tyler
Hey Yan, may I take a stroll in your fridge, eh??

My guests are always allowed to stroll in the fridge.

[RichT]

Man, I thought this was analogue until I read the recording details.

Good job!