Recording a Brass Band

[Pablo Diablo]

I've been asked to record a couple of pieces by the local brass band in their rehearsal room this Thursday - yep, preparation is everything - and I could really do with some advice about mic positioning and placement as I have only recorded solo instruments before.

Location:
The room is not very high with a false ceiling so I may find all sorts of unpleasant reflections but I won't have time to do many adjustments nor get a particularly high mic position. Can't imagine there will be much in the way of natural reverb, either.

Equipment:
AKG414XLS
Pair of matched Rode NT5s
Audix D6
2 x SM57s (don't know if they will be any use!)
SE Reflexion vocal booth (again, not much point in this scenario methinks)
all into a Fireface 800 into Logic Studio.
I do have access to a Liquid Channel preamp too

Requirement:
This doesn't have to be a high-end recording, but it may be played on local radio so I really want to get the best results that I can for what we've got.

Any thoughts out there would be much appreciated.

Cheers

p

[Aural Reject]

Easiest thing to do is to use the NT5s in either ORTF or XY and use the 414 as a solo mic if you need one (it depends on the repertoire they're recording). You can potentially employ the reflexion filter here as well if isolation is problematic.

You'll be relying on the band being self balancing (which they should be - although an extra pair of ears familiar with what they're doing in a production capacity is never lost), and you can balance the front to back with the height and angle of dangle of the main pair.

Alternatively you could rig an NT5 and the AKG as an MS pair...

The first option is easier.

[Pablo Diablo]

Thanks for that. Option one seems the easiest option like you say - hopefully phase problems won't be an issue.

What sort of height would you place the NT5s? As high as possible? I suppose that the height and angle will depend on the balance of the band, like you say, but any tips for a good, overall sound?

[Aural Reject]

This is where I'm going to be distinctly unhelpful, I'm afraid and say "it depends"

Without knowing the room + band I can't really tell you anything upfront. Using a single pair you'll need to balance the front to back of the band using a combination of height (or lack of!) and the downward angle of the mics...but you'll just have to listen to find the best position.

If you haven't already search out some reference recordings so you know approximately what you're listening for, but bear in mind most of the commercial band recordings will be multimiked.

[John Willett]

When it comes to recording Brass Bands you listen to everything that Aural Reject says - he's the expert.

Unless you are based in easy distance of Cheshire - where you are close enough to be competition - in which case do the opposite of what he says.

[Aural Reject]

I don't just stay in Cheshire

Funnily enough Cornwall is beckoning fairly shortly...and Yorkshire, Wales, The Midlands....

I"l need a passport for the whippet soon...

[Pablo Diablo]

Thanks guys ... I'll suck it and see, to coin a popular phrase ...

[tacitus]

I've flipped up some, most or all of the ceiling tiles in a suspended ceiling before now to open up the acoustic. Can't say it's perfect, but it might help. And it'll depend on what sort of space there is above the tiles. I'd go for the NT5 pair with the 414 for spot or to fill in the back row/percussion if you find the NT5s can't go high enough to get a good front to back balance.

If you do find you have balance problems, you might want the 57s for percussion, but I wouldn't use amy more mics than I absolutely have to. And bear in mind that the better the band, the nearer you can put the mics. If it's a poor band, you might have to keep the mics well back and add some reverb later to paper up the cracks. I've also done other 'underhand' tricks like speeding up the recording a few percent to make the band sound tighter - it you get them to play a march slightly underspeed with good articulation, it can sound amazing just a few percent faster. It can also sound terrible, so don't rely on it!

On the reverb side, I've added convolution reverb from one of the buildings in the library that comes with Peak Pro to a dead recording made in a carpeted room with 11' ceiling and it was not horrible.

[Aural Reject]

Good stuff...but you're a bit late...it's Friday

[Pablo Diablo]

Thanks to Aural Reject and to Tacitus (though that was a little late - it might serve next time - if there is one).

I'm now listening back and the NT5s sound a little bright. I know that this is a mic forum, but do you have any brass band post production tips?

I've been fiddling with a low pass filter to take out some of the top end which sounds okay, but I hate guessing when there are some much more experienced people out there who could lend me a hand!

Cheers

[tacitus]

On the same lines as keeping the recording simple, I'd tend not to do anything too complicated with post work. So your eq solution is probably the way to go, since you want (presumably) to keep the 2-mic stereo as original as possible while ameliorating your worst problems - in this case the brightness. In the days when I used Adobe Audition for this sort of work I'd use the 31-band eq and that's about all. Since I moved to Peak pro I haven't done so much plain stereo recording but when I have I haven't had to do much to the overall sound - it's been more editing out of fluffs and ragged starts. But using NT55s I do get fairly bright recordings which might sound even brighter to younger ears. I've been adding convolution reverb which seems to work reasonably well in small doses on a deadish recording. Hardy purist, though!

[Aural Reject]

Purist - what's that? It's a brass band

Do whatever you need to to make it sound right or close to your references....you nay find that using multiple instances of an EQ cut rather than using a shovel yields better results

[lje]

Purist - what's that? It's a brass band

That is very funny - let us hope that no Brass Band folk read this list

[Aural Reject]

Purist - what's that? It's a brass band

That is very funny - let us hope that no Brass Band folk read this list

Don't worry Larry, I'm safe...I'm an insider

[Pablo Diablo]

Hello all,

There is a first pass of one of the tracks on this page:

http://www.hillsidestudio.co.uk/Music.html

(I'm having trouble loading it on my Mac but it works fine on a PC - dunno why!)

I'd value your opinions!

Cheers

[Aural Reject]

Could just be my installation of Quicktime....but I'm getting a progress bar with no audio in Firefox & IE8 on PC....

[Pablo Diablo]

I bet the other two songs work okay on there, though. Can't figure it out ...

[Aural Reject]

Don't understand this new fangled technology....but I got to it by downloading it to real player.

[Pablo Diablo]

Finally got the page working so please feel free to have a listen - all constructive criticism and general abuse welcomed!

[Aural Reject]

It's not bad

For my taste it's rather light in the bass end, the euphonium(s) sounds rather thin (it could be the player, though), the snare drum's a bit heavy. This is most likely down to the recording environment as much as anything else....as soon as the tubas start blowing loud it gets hard, and that's normally a sign the room is too small.

I also felt the image is possibly a bit lopsided.....but bear in mind I was listening on the laptop after having sat in an NHS hospital for 6 hours....whereby the solo cornet bench was a little too central and the right hand side of the band - so the euphoniums, baritones and trombones were quite far over to the right....that's also down to personal taste and (producer) preference though as much as anything else.

It's nicely detailed (which the soprano player - who should know better in the first section than to try and put the octave in just before the bass solo and splash it all over the ceiling on a recording)

Did you record multiple takes and are you able to edit out the duff stuff?

[Pablo Diablo]

Thank you Mr Reject - and from your sick bed no less!

For my taste it's rather light in the bass end, the euphonium(s) sounds rather thin (it could be the player, though), the snare drum's a bit heavy.

I must agree that it is a little light in the bass end which I can beef up hopefully without bumping up the percussion too much as that mic picked up the percussionists too! I'm always afraid of adding bottom end because I always tend to add too much which is probably why I'm holding back here.

I also felt the image is possibly a bit lopsided.....

I must admit that the right-handers punished the Rodes far more than the band from the left so I dropped out the volume from the right channel a little which seems to have pushed the cornets into the centre ... hmm.

Did you record multiple takes and are you able to edit out the duff stuff?

Oh I wish - they recorded 9 tracks in one 3 hour stint with only a couple of extra takes for some of the more complex pieces so I'm stuffed really.

The conductor's coming over for a listen early next week so I'll keep plugging away on the other 8 pieces.

Thanks again for your comments and lack of abuse.

[Aural Reject]

Oh I wish - they recorded 9 tracks in one 3 hour stint with only a couple of extra takes for some of the more complex pieces so I'm stuffed really.

I spend a lot of my time trying to educate brass bands and their committees in why they don't get what they (claim) they want....there's quite often a significant lack of understanding of what's required of them, the room and the session....and expectation that the engineer will be able to 'fix' it....sometimes you can and sometimes you can't.

One of the interesting things you said was about the 'more complex' pieces....IMO both as a player and in this job is that there's no such thing as a simple piece - however much the band tries to convince you that there is. Honest Toil isn't easy and - in some places - they've shown that Quite often the most superficially simple things like verses of hymn tunes or Christmas carols is where amateur organisations come unstuck....they can rattle through semiquaver passages until there's no tomorrow, but ask them to play together, in tune and sustained and....

Feel free to send me other bits and pieces - you can email them if you don't want to host them.

(it's not my sick bed btw, it's my mum )

[Pablo Diablo]

Cheers.

As for "more complex" I agree, but more complex (to me anyway) was for the soloists - definitely needed a couple of solo takes so I can pick and mix!

Sorry to hear about your mum. I'll email you some other bits and pieces direct when I get a bit more time to work on them.

Thanks again

[Aural Reject]

As for "more complex" I agree, but more complex (to me anyway) was for the soloists - definitely needed a couple of solo takes so I can pick and mix!

What you usually find is that when the soloist is fabulous the band are, er, less so and vice versa

Sometimes you can get round things with time and judicious editing...other times someone has to make a production decision and, IMO, in the absence of an absolute abortion the soloist wins almost every time (unless there's a middle road of averageness on both sides that's acceptable).

[tacitus]

I couldn't agree more that the 'simple' stuff is what really shows bands up. For a multitude of reasons: poor breath control, lack of confidence, thinking it's too easy, unwillingness for players to subdivide the beat in their heads to keep timing in, lack of phrasing, dodgy tuning, poor balance. I often come across (particularly) wind band pieces that look as if they're graded higher than the notes would warrant, but usually it turns out to be a real challenge to get amateurs to play it musically. Plus in wind bands you get the scourge of amateur music - players who can afford exotic instruments they can't handle. If I had a quid for every bari sax in incompetent hands I could retire NOW!