Method 1 – Live Band/Ensemble Capture
Pre-Production:
I contacted my boyfriend Jacob W, a bassist, and asked if he would like to be recorded which he accepted. I landed on his Specialist Study Group as they all played Jazz which is well suited to being recorded live due to it’s focus on collective improvision.
I then contacted my assignment group and they agreed to record. I asked the SGS if they wanted to be recorded and they agreed. I moved to planning and I began to organise the recording session, which took a while because of people’s personal circumstances.
The band was practicing every week though their Specialist Group Study sessions which insured that they we’re always well rehearsed. During many of these sessions, I would sit in to speak in to discuss what they wanted recorded.
We landed on two songs we would record for them: “Chameleon”, a fast paced fusion song and “Strange Meeting”, a more slow paced ballad.
Recording:
We decided to use Studio 420 because of it’s open live room and access to a vocal booth we could use to isolate instruments and the control room had large visibility. The guitarist for the band, Niko, wasn’t able to come but he called in someone to cover called Lucy. I decided to not record them to a metronome to capture a more authentic performance.
We placed the Bassist, in the Control room with him going directly to the line input of the Neve preamps since we didn’t an amplified tone for Jazz, we would need account for 1 less microphone and less bleed. Jacob was in the control room, all the other band members could see him which helped the musicians feel more connected as a band.
In the live room, we put Lucy and the amp opposite to the drumkit, which sat Jacob C, the drummer. We placed a wooden barrier in front of the guitar amp to prevent the drum kit bleed, and rotated the amp perpendicular to the board so that the reflections from the back of the room were rejected though the SM57’s cardioid polar pattern and so that the amp’s reflections were not picked up into the SM57.
The Saxophonist, Reigan, was placed into the control room to minimize the drum bleed.
For the VOX AC30 amp we used an SM57 placed close to the middle of the the speaker cone of the amp for a fuller, less harsh, tone which was is crucial for the sound of Jazz guitar.
The drums we used the Glyn Johns technique. We used two C414s for the overheads as they are warm with the treble response appropriate for cymbals, and we used a D112 on the kick drum, which I stuffed with coats to create a duller and softer sound which suits the kick’s role in Jazz, because it had a desirable bass frequency response whilst still having some transient 4kHz to cut though.
The Saxophone we used the Røde K2 valve condenser mic for it’s flat frequency response that preserves the natural quality of the Saxophone with a slight boost around 10kHz. We switched the polar pattern to a hypercardioid frequency response which rejected the room sound due to side null rejection and a tighter front lobe.
We used a Sontronics Delta ribbon mic for the room with the null zones of it’s figure of 8 pattern facing the guitarist and drummer to capture room reflections.
I was mostly in charge of setting up the mics and communicating with the musicians and I was the one who was in charge of pressing the record key.
Mixing:
We decided to go with the song “Strange Meeting” take 2 as we felt that the solos and cohesion were best.
We mixed this song over two sessions we organised as a group together. The mixing process had to be very minimal and gentle like how Jazz should be mixed.
We started by panning the drums so that the snare was in the centre of the stereo image, we then made the kick levels soft, and the snare clearly audible, with the cymbals not being too present.
Then we moved onto getting the bass to a more suitable level. Despite many older recordings of Jazz having the bass at a very low level, we wished to keep the bass in the foreground as an important element.
We then moved onto the guitar which we set to a more medium-low level so that it sat in the background as chordal accompaniment, we automated it’s level up for the solo.
We moved onto the Saxophone which we had the level quite high as it takes over the role of a vocal in this context.
We carefully mixed in the room microphone to taste to prevent the band from sounding too sterile.
The automation we used was also very minimal and only served to assist the compositional dynamics of the band.
Project Management:
I was the person who organised the sessions and was responsible for mic setup.
Method 2 – Overdub Production
Pre-Production:
For this production, Dan called in a favour from his friend, Will, to serve as guitarist, bassist, vocalist with our groupmates, Lottie on piano, Tom on drums. We collectively decided on a date which suited us all best. We decided to play the Radiohead song Creep as Indie Rock was very suited to an overdub due to the simplicity of the parts, lack of improvisation, and usage of acoustically loud instruments such as cranked guitar amps and drums, and Will knew the song. We sent Will off to rehearse Creep.
Recording:
For this recording, we made the decision to record everything in one 6hr session to save time. We recorded the song in this order, Drums to establish the rhythm, then the clean verse guitar for the harmony, left chorus guitar, right chorus guitar so we didn’t have to teardown, bass last for no particular reason other than we needed to put bass somewhere, vocals after most of the instrumental to make sure Dan was comfortable singing, outro piano last because it was the thing we had to worry about the least.
To record the drums we used a stereo pair of Octava MK-012s for their bright frequency response with a bump at 6kHz to cut though, SM57 on the snare top for a classic rock sound, and a d112 for the kick out because it’s a sound we were familiar with and had a nice frequency response that emphasises the transient of the kick.
For the verse guitar we mic’d up a Roland Jazz Chorus with an sm57 placed towards the edge of the speaker cone for a brighter tone, with an sm57 to again get that classic rock sound which works for this kind of genre. We also had an off-axis c414 with a figure of 8 polarity to capture the room sound whilst reject the direct signal of the amp and any string noise from the guitar, to prevent the guitar to sound too isolated and dry.
We repeated this same setup for recording the distorted guitars, increased the amp gain to around 8. We also double tracked the guitar tracks to create a wide stereo effect in the chorus that contrasted with the verses.
We then DI’d the bass into the line input of the Neve preamp which we overdrived which created some really nice and soft harmonics that helped the bass be more present in the mix, saving us time mic’ing up a cabinet.
We then put Will in the vocal booth and mic’d him up with a C414 to catch the warmth of the male voice whilst still having the presence in the high end to pop through. We then installed a pop filter to prevent any harsh plosives and made sure he was distant during the verses and more close and intimate for the chorus’ to add some naturally occurring dynamics and to make use of the tone shaping of the proximity effect.
We then used a simple stereo pair of two Octava 012s as an overhead pair on the piano.
Throughout the recording process I helped with the setup and moving of microphones and some of the operation of Pro Tools.
Mixing:
For this song, we used the original album version of Creep as a reference track so we could be as close the the source material as possible.
Firstly we tackled the panning, panning overheads hard left and right, and the chorus distorted guitars left and right too as well as their room mics. We ended up removing one of the chorus guitar room mics as it made them sound overly cluttered.
For the drums, we wanted the kick to be present, similar to the original track. We also wanted the snare to be very prominent so we kept that very high in level also.
To enhance the composition of the piece, we kept the volume of the verse guitar quite low so that it could explode into the chorus as hard as possible, we also kept it panned central so that when the chorus came, the stereo image suddenly expanded.
We kept the bass level low like the original.
For the piano we also kept it’s volume quite low and we slowly faded it in so that the transition to the outro felt as seamless and natural as possible.
We used a thorough amount of automation throughout the song to try and keep the vocal levels consistent I put in a lot more time in to making sure that it had a consistent level.
Project Management:
The organisation of this project was mostly collective for this recording with Dan doing a lot of artist management given that Will was his friend that he knew the best.
My responsibility was with the setup of the microphones and moving them and I helped with organising the mixing sessions.
