Bawn in the Mash

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:03:38 -0500

Fall 2010 is here! The semester, that is, not the pleasant temperatures.

This year WKMS asked me to record the kick-off concert in the quad for broadcast. Normally when Lovett Live brings in a show, I have a nifty little quarter-inch style 24-track digital recorder that patches neatly into Lovett’s live sound board. I don’t set up mics or set levels (that’s all on the live sound guy), I just take the individual feeds out of each channel, dump them to the computer later and mix in the studio.

For this outdoor gig the Lovett system must have been deemed too small, so Mason Sound was contracted. But their equipment did not play well with my 24-track. I discovered this well in advance, when I called the guys from Mason several days out to chat about nerdy audio equipment stuff. So while the live sound guys still set up all the mics and set the levels, I had to use two computer interfaces linked via an ADAT optical connection to accommodate the 12 XLR-only outputs they had to offer. In English all that means is that it wasn’t quite as neat, clean and easy as usual.

So about outdoor live bands... among other things, they use really loud monitors in order to hear everyone else on the stage. Those loud monitors are usually pretty close to the microphones into which they are singing. If there are three or four vocal mics left open throughout the concert, you end up with a bunch of extraneous noise muddying up what is supposed to be a fairly clean lead vocal (with occasional harmonies). So as much of a pain as it is, it almost always helps to go through and mute any mic that is not being used. Otherwise there will be an unnecessary amount of sludge making things sound really strange.

Aside from that trick, I usually listen to the band’s previous recordings on iTunes. If I can hear how their studio project was mixed (vocals in front or back a bit, guitars hot or not, lots of bass and kick or just a little) I feel like I can get a better idea of how I ought to mix the live show.

And last but not least... if a show is indoors it is usually pretty easy to add some real room ambience to the otherwise sterile-sounding direct feeds from, say, an acoustic guitar’s pickups. But when a show is outdoors, room ambience can sound pretty silly. If any extra ambience is added in this case, it usually makes sense to use the sort of ambience that would be found on a guitar amp (spring or plate reverb) rather than trying to faithfully recreate an indoor room sound.

Quite a few of the bands I’ve recorded for Lovett Live have had what I call a “low-fi” sound as part of their character. As such, they may require less production than a squeaky clean and technically impressive national bluegrass act like Alison Brown. Such was the case here. I appreciate Bawn, and I know that a couple of the guys are actually even better players than you’d think from watching a live show. But for a Phish-meets-The Shack Shakers (with Sam Bush along for the solos) this band is a lot of fun.

Oh yeah, one more thing. You absolutely cannot use Autotune on a band like this. Even if some vocal line is obviously out of tune, there is too much purposeful pitchy-ness going on to try to fix the accidental pitchy-ness. So you have to live with the honest-to-God naked vocals, in all their glory and shame.

The Choir Does bach

Fri, 28 May 2010 14:07:12 -0500

There isn’t anything amazing about the technical approach to this concert. It was the choir, so we naturally moved the Neumann KM184 mics back several more feet (into the seats) in order to try to get a blend of voices rather than highlight individual throats. So the set up was: spaced directional mics (probably about 6-8 feet wide) around 30-plus feet from the stage and 18 feet in the air.

What was different about this concert was the program. Bach. He’s awesome, in case you were unaware. But even in a big hall like this, the ambience is just not ideal. Especially for a choral concert. So out came my new reverb toy Altiverb again, this time simulating Mechanics hall in Boston. I might have gone for something more suited to choir specifically, but with the orchestration, I decided a concert hall ambience would be nicer than a church ambience.

Fun stuff.

Trumpet with piano

Fri, 28 May 2010 13:35:15 -0500

So...

I had a baby. Well, my wife did. Child #3 actually, and I’m afraid that adventure sort of brought this semester’s blogging to something of a halt. Sorry about that. On the plus side, I’ve been able to look back over everything that we recorded from early April until now and pick a couple of interesting recitals to highlight some less common approaches. As for the rest of the recitals, well... I think I’m gonna have to let those remain shrouded in mystery and start fresh again next semester. But on, now, to recording the trumpet.

This hall, as you may recall, has a very long reverb tail. It’s so long, it’s actually rather startling. Even with everything mic’d closely, there is still a bit of a subtle, natural tail on this recording (even though 95% of the perceptible ‘verb is provided electronically by Altierb (my new reverb plugin).

I’d been aching to try the ribbon mic out on a trumpet for over 6 months. This was my chance. I placed the Cascade Fat Head II (Lundahl transformer) just off the front of the stage, and low, right where the bell was aiming during the performance. This sort of handicapped the trombone player who was assisting on the recital, but it was (after all) the trumpet player’s senior recital. So I went with making him out to be the star.

My standard close piano mics, the Avenson STO-2 omnis, went on the baby grand just over the strings about 6 inches apart (this hall and stage really can’t accommodate a Steinway D).

By itself everything sounded really dry (with that funny reverb tail going forever in the distant background). Exactly what I wanted, since I was going to simulate the Schubert Hall in Vienna for my ambient needs thanks to Altiverb. I’d known about this plugin for years, but shelling out over $500 for reverb was not something I wanted to do. I had talked myself into believing that the convolution reverb that came with Logic (Space Designer) was probably a close second in quality.

In some ways, it is. But the variety of tones available from so many different churches, concert halls and recording studios is Altiverb’s strength. All those samples (impulse responses, convolutions, whatever you want to call them), provide a huge palate of options, and they are worth every penny.

I was content with the results, especially for a live recording. I felt like the ribbon did a good job of keeping the trumpet sound under control. It was forgiving, which not too many undergrads will complain about. The Avensons did their usual fine job of being flat and natural. As I think about it, these 3 mics represent some of the best bang-for-the-buck mics out there. The Avenons are around $500 for the pair, and the Fat Head is around $300. That’s pretty cheap (compared to our Neumanns) and for this sort of close-miking, I think they are great. At greater distances, the internal noise of these mics can start to be a problem. But up close where the signal is nice and strong, they really shine.

Tech Break #1

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:26:25 -0500

Yes, it is a ‘break’ to post something not related to a recital! We had 3 recitals in one day Saturday, so it’s been hard to find time to even mix. Therefore, rather than leave the blog inactive for days on end, here’s a quick installment of “TECH BREAK” (insert radio bumper here).

A lot has been written about the preference art music engineers tend to have for the spaced omni technique. Because an omni mic is, by definition, NOT directional, the differences between the left and right tracks of a spaced-omni recording are more the result of time cues than volume differences. That is, sounds from a certain point on the stage arrive at slightly different times for microphones spaced 3 or more feet apart. That time difference is perceived by our brains as a difference in volume even though the time component is the more significant variable. This effect can be artificially recreated by shifting the left track of a stereo file a few milliseconds early. The left speaker will seem “louder” only because we hear the information coming from that speaker earlier.

This is one of the least accurate methods (from a scientific point of view). But those imperfections can work to the music’s advantage. Engineers use terms like “warm” and “open” to describe the spaced omni technique, and the performers of art music tend to like those qualities even more than the typical pop/rock musician.

The kicker to the spaced omni technique is that it is even more crucial to locate what folks often refer to as “the sweet spot.” The sweet spot used to be a mystery to me. I thought that somewhere secret was a magical place where the sound was just... awesome. But I had no idea what “awesome” meant specifically.

Years later, I’ve come to a loose definition of what it means in the context of spaced omnis. There should exist a point at which you get enough ambience from the (hopefully warm-sounding) room AND enough clarity from the direct sound of the instrument. Too much room means too little clarity and vice versa. So the sweet spot is the point at which these two elements are in near-perfect balance. Some rooms have very obvious sweet spots, some “sweet spots” are a bit more disappointing.

What the spaced omni technique brings to the sweet spot (that a near-coincident pair does not) is a little extra warmth (or even smear). I’ve likened it to a touch of aural impressionism. This, I think, is the thing a lot of folks like about the technique. And the fact that the omni mics pick up more ambience than directional mics.

We talk a lot about our Avenson STO-2 omni mics. The M-Audio Sputnik tube mics (large diaphragm) also have an omni setting, though I’m not as likely to use them at long distances (small diaphragm mics seem to sound better at long distances). We even have some MXL 604 pencil mics that come with both directional and omni capsules. For the money, those are great options too. If the room has a discernible, natural reverb tail and it’s even remotely pleasant-sounding, you owe it to yourself to experiment with the spaced omni technique. The biggest drawback (aside from difficult placement) is hauling out the extra mic stand to achieve spacings of 3 feet or more.

If you have some recordings you’ve made with spaced omnis, feel free to link to them in the comments...

Percussion Ensemble

Sat, 3 Apr 2010 10:44:40 -0500

This percussion ensemble concert was not quite as extreme as some have been in the past. For example, there have been multiple areas on the stage (far left, far right, extreme front) where different pieces have been performed back to back in previous concerts. This time there were some “side-leaning” pieces, but nothing that really required setting up a special pair over just one area of the stage. Whew!

So I used the Neumann KM-184s on just one stand, about 16 inches apart (angled outward just a little bit). You can see that the stand is out quite a ways into the hall, but since the Neumanns have a lot of “reach” to them (and Lovett is so big that reflections do not cause the problems they do in smaller halls) this didn’t sound as far back as it looks like it would. Still, I didn’t want to angle the mics too far out, because percussion can start to sound too distant very quickly. Whereas a choir or string ensemble begs for extra space (I’d probably move the mics back another 20-30 feet in this hall for choir), percussion is usually at the other end of the spectrum when it comes to the required ambience for appropriate flattery.

I might have been done better to use omni outriggers for this concert, or perhaps to put the Neumanns on separate stands and space them out by a few more feet. There are definitely benefits to both those options.

However, anytime the setup is this simple, I’m hard pressed to want to drag a laptop along and climb the stairs to the balcony with an interface in tow. So the Marantz field recorder made another appearance for this recital. No fake verb - this is all Lovett via the one pair of mics.

Euphonium session

Fri, 2 Apr 2010 22:38:13 -0500

by Justin

This is a bit of a breach in protocol. First of all, this recording took place almost 1 year ago... in the middle of last summer. But the wind ensemble session got me thinking about sessions in general and I really wanted to share another one, even if it was older.

Brandon Jones is a Buffet Crampon USA and Besson clinician and does a ton of work all around the midwest (and beyond). In short, he is a high profile euphonium player (if it is even possible for a euphonium player to be high-profile, anyway). Matthew Mazzoni is a seasoned soloist and collaborative pianist, having appeared on the Naxos label himself. So these guys were awesome to work with. Recording players of this caliber is what makes recording art music so much fun. It’s when the music is really happening that recording becomes truly significant.

Perhaps you notice the baffle between the piano and Brandon? This is one of those things that doesn’t go over so well in a live situation. Prior to this, we had the piano back a bit and Brandon turned around facing the piano so the mics were pointing away from each other. That worked very well, too. The main idea is to get as much separation as possible between instruments. If the piano is too loud, I definitely don’t want to turn it down only to find that what I’m hearing is coming through the euph mic.

Here’s a closer look at the piano mics. Those are the Avenson omnis, and on the hot-rod Steinway they are definitely front runners. Later this semester I’m recording a pianist that is going to be using the other Steinway and I’m really excited. I know our large diaphragm tube mics sound great on that one (they’re too bright for this one). You may also notice the piano is on “super stick.” This extra long, heavy duty dowel raised the lid by several inches, making it possible to bring the mics up higher and more over the top of the strings.

And here are the aforementioned Sputnik tube mics. We had two set up here to compare positions. We ended up with the higher one, which was just barely peaking into the bell. But not by much. These mics are my go to mics. If something needs to sound extra special, it’s a good bet that the Sputniks can make it happen. There are some sources for which they may not be ideal (like a bright violin) but they have some serious mojo going on.

One way to up the ante over the normal recital recording is to mic both instruments individually. Then, in most cases, there will probably be a need to add some artificial reverb in order to achieve the effect of both instruments reverberating evenly in the hall. The verb on this is almost 100% artificial - Space Designer’s 1.5 second “Piano Warmth.” There was a little natural hall creeping in nonetheless.

And here’s the setup back stage. This way they guys could come right around the corner and listen to takes, mark up the score and all that good stuff. This was before we had the Apogee Ensemble; the Avensons are running through two API mic pres into the Presonus Firestudio, and the Sputnik tube mic is going straight into the Firestudio. I did more tweaking with the mastering plug-in Ozone than usual as this was going to be Brandon’s debut CD. Not a run of the mill recital... I brought up some of the ultra low end (around 50 Hz) on the euph. Spent a LOT of time trying to control the brightness of the piano as it was definitely sneaking into the euph mics. There are still some things I’m not crazy about, but by and large I’m very pleased with this recording.

Check out Brandon’s webpage for more info on the whole project. It’s called “Influences.”

http://www.brandonmjones.com

Wind Ensemble recording session

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 22:02:59 -0500

by Justin

Once in a while we squeeze in a quick recording session between all the recitals. A “session” is one of those rare moments when a performance is without an audience, where we can do multiple takes, try a few mic positions out, etc. It’s really a nice breath of fresh air. After so many situations where you just can’t do what would sound best because it would look ridiculous to an audience, it’s nice not to have an audience!

This session was for John Fannin, the assistant director of bands at MSU. He had one piece that was going onto something like 30,000 wind band literature promo discs, and he really wanted it to sound good.

However, if you follow college basketball, perhaps you were aware that Murray State not only made the big dance, but even beat Vanderbilt in the first round (go Racers)! Because of this, John was in California with the pep band while Dennis Johnson and Todd Hill tag teamed the wind ensemble in order to get this piece in the can in time for the CD release date. I know John wanted to be there, but sometimes duty (in California) calls. I’m sure he was miserable...

Right off the bat, I knew I wanted to use the Neumann KM-184 directional mics, spaced about one quarter of the width of the ensemble. I angled the mics outward just a touch. Because the stage is over 4 feet above the floor, I almost always have to put our 14’ mic stands on top of tables to get them up high enough. Such was the case here, with the stands being about even with the first row of seats (probably 20 feet away from the first row of musicians). I used our older Macbook Pro with the Apogee Duet (and some Monster cables for good measure).

I knew that, in order to get a more “polished” sound, John would want to use a convolution reverb from our library of lovely reverbs sampled from real halls. Lovett doesn’t sound bad, but when you’re cranking out 30,000 discs you tend to want an ambience that really shines. And that usually means a fake ambience.

The wind ensemble ran the piece 4 times. We ended up using the final take. It was fairly clean technically, but the tempo was a bit down. So John asked if I could crank it up by a few bpm. Luckily, Logic Studio has really great time mapping and I was able to speed up the tempo ever so slightly (without changing pitch, of course) and really add some life to the take.

I really can’t say enough about this auditorium for recording. It isn’t that the room sounds great... it’s just that it is so big. It’s sort of like being in a studio, because the mics pick up so little room sound if they’re within 20 feet of a large ensemble. It makes for a very flexible raw recording. The verb I settled on was a 2.2 second hall verb called “first row seat” - and it really made the close pair sound three-dimensional. I put a subtle bump across the whole frequency spectrum with Izotope’s Ozone plugin (the exciter, to be precise). That helped spiff up the harmonics and make everything seem even more brimming with energy. Polished things off with Ozone’s loudness maximizer to get the levels up nice and high, and Apogee’s UV22HR dither to get from 24 bits back down to 16.

I think it sounds pretty decent for 40 minutes of work.

Upright Bass and Tablas

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:59:10 -0500

by Justin

Before I forget, please allow me to brag on the superiority of at least one mic in comparison to another (in this particular setting anyway).

Manny the tabla dude brought his own AKG C 1000s. Initially he was wanting to use the AKG and EQ it to get the sound he was looking for, but my PA did not have an EQ with enough flexibility to do what he wanted to do. I had planned to use the KM-184s from the beginning, but I’d forgotten about them. Scott (the piano tech) was helping me out with this “special needs” concert, and he suggested we try the Neumanns. Manny was immediately appeased. This saved me from having to go find some sort of graphic or parametric EQ. Thanks, Scott!

I had been trying to get away with very little for this concert. Eventually, I had to reconcile myself with being there pretty much all day long to help set and reset every speaker, cable, recording device, microphone and stand. Also in the equation: 7 individual mics running through the Apogee Ensemble to Logic for recording. So... I had to switch mental gears and view this as a gig on par with a Flecktones concert.

This was a very unusual recital. I was more of a live sound engineer than a recordist on this one. Tablas are very quiet, and the performers had requested some sort of PA to reinforce the tablas in the room. I am usually opposed to using a PA in a recording environment, but rule #1 is: you gotta make the performers happy!

I set up a Fender Passport system for the tablas and used some microphone splitters to send an unadulterated signal up to the booth for recording.

The upright bass player was using a small amp for his bass, and wanted a mic on his amp rather than on his bass. Again, I’d much prefer to mic the real instrument, but refer to rule #1. In this example, you can barely hear the bass drone in the background (which is the way they wanted it for this bit).

You can see where the Neumanns are, and since this example doesn’t have any drum kit or vibes, i won’t talk much about them: MXL 603s over the kit and Crown PCC 160 boundary mics under the vibes. I did use a little of Ozone’s room mastering reverb to give a bit more ambience to the VERY closely miked tablas.

You’ll see that, aside from the “house” speakers that are not in the shot, there were a few personal monitors set up as well. These were part of a second Fender Passport system brought in by request and via the authority of rule #1. We just don’t do ‘amplified’ in this hall... like, ever. This recital was LOUD. Good, but loud.

I think I like the recorded sound of the tablas a lot better than I liked the sound in the room...

Orchestra

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:21:54 -0500

by Justin

This is a good example of using the Neumanns up close (about 20 feet back) in A-B (you can see the stands behind the conductor if you look closely) and then adding artificial ambience to create a desirable “bloom.”

When I started recording art music, I was a purist. I was terribly afraid of “messing up” the reality of a performance. If the solo instrument wasn’t quite on top of the piano in the actual performance, I didn’t really want to fix it with a close mic (that wouldn’t have been an authentic capture of the performance). I was also afraid of adding “fake” reverb or juicing overtones with an exciter. I was sure the highly trained ears of lifelong musicians would catch such manipulations.

Nope.

Even though I know there are other purists out there, I’m pretty sure they aren’t at Murray State (except for Scott the piano tech). Most people want just one thing: “make my recording compare favorably to similar recordings in my library.” I think to myself, “You want PAH to sound like Carnegie Hall? And what about that tired instrument you’re playing? That’s supposed to sound like a $30,000 instrument?”

Yeah, that’s what they want. It’s impossible, of course, but the application is this: if some fake reverb gets the recording closer to the bloom of someone’s favorite CD, most performers will want it. If some “tube exciter” across the spectrum warms things up, most performer will want it. So I’ve slowly relaxed my purist mentality. And folks seem to have gotten happier with their recordings.

If it’s more work to set up a distant pair of mics, and the conductor doesn’t like the result as much, why do it? Well, because options are good for one thing. What everyone does
seem to agree on is that *something* should be done in addition to a pair of close mics by themselves (either the addition of a distant pair or convolution reverb). Art music has to have some space, after all.

But one rule still stands... reverb is good for art music, but it is still better to have too little reverb rather than too much. Nothing screams “amateur recording” more than a mix with too much fake verb on it. So err on the conservative side, if err you must!

Soprano

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:56:34 -0500

by Justin

Back in the Performing Arts Hall again for another soprano recital. I believe this one was Tom’s and I suspect he used the Neumanns in A-B again. I’ll check...

You can definitely hear the soprano changing positions on the stage.