Method 1 –

Pre – Production

We began our pre-production of recording our live jazz band; we first had to decide which mics we would be using to mic up all the instruments. From prior recordings of the piano, we decided we liked the sound of two AKG 414’s and two Neumann KM184’s, so we were going to mic up the piano using the AKG 414’s spaced pair method over the lower and the higher strings to get the widest range of highs and lows over the piano, and the Neumann KM184’s in a coincident pair over the middle of the strings the get the mid mid-range of the piano. We wanted to get all the range we could out of the piano, as we saw it would suit the song very well, as the piano had a lot of depth.  Although this is what we planned, it is not what we could do on the day of recording due to the mics being unavailable, so we had to improvise. Instead of our original microphones, we used an AKG c414 XLII to replace our pair of Neumanns, which is one less than we prepared for, which we thought was going to hinder the sound of the piano we wanted greatly, but we found out it didn’t affect the sound and still gave it a very roomy sound. For the AGK 414’s, we replaced them with two Scheops Mk2 microphones, which are still very high-quality microphones and captured the natural sounds of the piano.

With the drum kit, we wanted the sounds to be very crisp and clear and simple; we didn’t want it to be overpowering and a compliment to the song. We decided not to mic up every aspect of the drum kit and keep it simple by only using six microphones. For the snare, we decided to double mic it up, recording the top and bottom of it, so we used A Sennheiser MD421 as the snare top, as we found that this mic picks up the crisp attack that the snare gives off. For the snare bottom, we used Beyerdynamic M201, as when we recorded our overdubs, we found that this microphone gets rid of bleed from the Hi-Hats, which was a problem we came into before. We planned on using a spaced pair method for the overheads, and the microphones we were going to use were the Neumann KM184s, as they are very good at picking up natural sounds and picking up as close to what you would be hearing if you were stood Infront of the drum kit. We also decided to place a Beyerdynamic M160 as a mono overhead. We kept it simple, the drum kit and only used Sonotronics DM-1B, which we placed roughly just outside of the kick drum’s port hole. We felt this was the right distance, and paired with the mic, it meant we could get a very clear sound of the kick.

Production

The saxophone posed a problem for us due to our having little experience with this instrument; we found it was very difficult to have the saxophonist stay the same distance from the standing microphone throughout the duration of the song. This ruined the dynamics, making the saxophone sound uneven and changing its levels from low to high. We combatted this by deciding to use a clip-on system where the mic would stay in front of the sax the entire time with little to no movement, which solved the problem entirely. For our vocalist, which I wasn’t too sure about what microphones or setups would be good to be recorded, as I have little experience in micing up vocalists, I stood back and let the more experienced members decide what would be good to use. We knew we wanted, like with all the instruments, a very natural sound. They made the decision to use an Electrovoice RE-20, which was very successful. For our bass cab, we felt that the JZ V67 was a very good option to choose due to its ability to capture the warm tones that the bass was giving off.

When it came to the day of recording, the live jazz band had to figure out which room would be the best and which one we would be able to use. Due to the booking process of rooms, this was something that would almost be luck-induced, as we hoped for the biggest room. We eventually got the room we wanted to book out and had to map out the best location for each instrument to be. Bleed is something we were worried about having, so we knew we would have to use the provided soundproof boards to our advantage. We knew that the loudest instruments producing the loudest sounds and high frequencies would cause problems when it comes to bleed, as the room we used was very long, we decided that they should be at the furthest end of the room, with soundboards covering the drums from the front angles. We felt the back of the drum kit was okay to be exposed, as it was very close to the back wall. We then placed the saxophonist beside the drummer at a distance from the boards of the drum kit, making a block between them. We then placed boards in front of the saxophonist block them from the other musicians at the front of the room. The bassist, with their low frequencies, we knew would travel far, so we decided to place them in an isolation booth. The piano almost had to be at the front of the room due to the piano being very difficult to move around, so we worked around this and placed the vocalist nearer to the middle of the room with boards surrounding her. It was very difficult to find a position for the vocalist where the bleed isn’t affecting their mic. We found that it was very difficult to ultimately get rid of this, so we opted to put her closer to the piano.

Overdub Production

For this recording, we initially started by looking for other musicians to play parts that we could overdub. We found this difficult, and everyone in our production group is a competent musician, so we decided to do it within our group. After the discussion, we decided that we would use Max for bass guitar and Sam for Lead electric guitar. We needed a drummer, and for their song, they both knew a drummer from the university who was skilled enough to bring little technical problems to the mix. They prepared a piece of music to perform for the overdubs in their own time. After this was sorted, we had to deal with studio bookings. We eventually got one booked with a drum kit and decent space and had planned to get all the recordings done in one session.

When it came to us recording in the studio, we wanted everything to be miked up to its highest quality before recording. A Roland Cube 20GX was used for the guitar amp. We had no amps for us to use in the studio, so we had to improvise and take Roland from another studio.  The track being recorded was a heavy metal song, so there was a high amount of gain used in the amp to suit that genre. There were two microphones placed on the amp: one was a Beyerdynamic M160, and the other was an AKG 414 XLII. The first mic was placed directly in front of the amp to pick up the bassier tones. The second one was placed to the left of the mic at a slight distance. The bass guitar was recorded into a DI after the session by the bassist due to a variety of problems, meaning we couldn’t get a good tone out of it, so we thought it was best if it was done in post.  

For the drum kit, we wanted a very clear and impactful sound and used a lot of microphones for it. On the snare was a Beyerdynamic M201 on the bottom and a Shure SM57 on the top, as both are high-quality microphones that can pick up the higher frequencies of the snare. On the hi-hat, an AKG C451B was placed underneath, pointing upwards towards the bottom of the hi-hat. For our overheads, we used two AKG C414 XLS’s using the spaced pair method from Glyn Johns’ technique, where they are pointed at the snare from equal distances. All the toms were miked up the same way with three Sennheiser MD241’s, placed just above the point down towards them.  On the kick, we used two microphones, the first one was a Sub kick lofreq on the head of the kick, and an Audix D6 on the inside. This gave us a very bassy tone, which is what we were looking for.

When it came to recordings of the song, a rough demo of the track was recorded so the drummer had something to play along to when it came to the final takes. The majority of the drumming was successful apart from the fact that we had to comp a few fills into the track due to timings, and most of the take was very good. Then the guitar was recorded after this, playing a long to the just-recorded drums, which went down very easily and efficiently due to the skill of the guitar player. These were then mixed together, and we tried to record the bass but ran out of time, so it was done later in post-production.