recording jazz trio in "live" room

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2002 6:51 am

I will be recording a friend at school who has a jazz trio (piano, drums, bass) in our preformance hass, which is a rather "live", but good sounding room.

The equiptment I will have access to is as follows:

-2 SM81

-8 Sennheiser microphones that a friend is bringing (i'm not sure about the specific model number, but they are small diaphram condensers in the $400-700 range)

-Soundcraft Venue console

-SM91 (I know this mic is used in reinforcement for kick drum, but what about jazz recordings? Do I even need a kick mic?)

-ADAT 8ch.

Do you have any advice for mic placement. Should I use and room mics? Should I mic the piano several feed in front or should have close mic it? I have read several posts in this forum, but i'm trying to get as much info as possible.

We are going for a Marcus Roberts Trio/Dave Brubeck quartet sound.

Thanks for your help and advice,
Joel

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2002 7:49 am

I'd probably use two mics on the piano, a mic on the bass, and four mics on the drums (2 overheads, plus a mic for the kick and a mic for the snare). That's seven tracks. If it's a nice sounding room, the last track would be for a room mic.

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2002 10:00 am

I'd go with two mics on the piano (high end/low end), 1 microphone on the bass (positioned on the high-strings side just over the bridge), a stereo pair in x-y in front of the set and perhaps a kick to suplement it.

For the drums, I position the microphones about a foot to 1.5 feet in front of the set beneath the cymbals and over the toms "looking" at the snare. With careful placement, you can really get a great open drum sound (and let the drummer control his or her sound).

This brings us to 6 channels... If you like, you can also area mic the ensemble with a stereo pair to help fill out the sound. Be aware, though, if you put up a stereo pair, your imaging with the spot mics will have to be close to what the stereo pair is showing or it will sound really strange. I tend to pan as you see, anyways- Piano basically on the left, bass in center, drums towards the right. I guess it is sort of an old-school approach.

Good luck and have fun!

--Ben

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2002 2:41 pm

Hi Joel

I have gotten some pretty good advice on this thread too:

http://www.recording.org/cgi-local/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=21&t=000407&p=

Have fun!

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