For this mix I took some inspiration from the album "Time Out" by The Dave Brubeck Quartet and used as few mics as possible. I only used the overheads for the drums, the DI Bass with some compression and some eq to smooth it out, one set of piano mics, and the Sax, Trumpet, and Trombone single mics. With this setup it seemed to get me in the ballpark of the more vintage jazz sound.
Cheers,
Dcp
Mixing is way more art and soul than science. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We do it because we love music! It’s the love of music first. Eddie Kramer
Gear list: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, Mbox Mini w/Pro Tools Express, Reaper, Various plugins, AKG K240 MKii, Audio Technica ATH M50x, Yorkville YSM 6
The risk you took by eliminating some of the tracks paid off for you. The mix has a lot of space around it and sound really like that Miles\Coltrane 60s vibe. I imagine also was easier to balance and avoid frequency combing by doing that. I noticed some compression going on on the trumpet, the sax and the trombone. Which model and setting you used if you did. Thank you.
(18-10-2016, 03:37 PM)javierpg84 Wrote: The risk you took by eliminating some of the tracks paid off for you. The mix has a lot of space around it and sound really like that Miles\Coltrane 60s vibe. I imagine also was easier to balance and avoid frequency combing by doing that. I noticed some compression going on on the trumpet, the sax and the trombone. Which model and setting you used if you did. Thank you.
Thanks Javier! On the Sax and Trombone I used a Waves CLA 2a driven pretty hard (10 dBs of gain reduction at the loudest point) and on the trumpet I used Waves CLA 3a (basically a cross between the LA 2a and 1176) pulling 5 dBs of gain reduction. The horns all have some minor eq smoothing ti get rid of the honkiness and a de esser to smooth out the top end.
I wasn't really thinking about frequency combing and getting a balance persay when I eliminated the close mics on the drums and piano, really I just loaded the tracks into Reaper last night and was just blown away by how the overheads sounded. It really sounds like you're in the room with the drummer and to add insult to injury those overheads only have a soft clipper on them to prevent the last 2 hits from overloading the output and some fader automation. This was just one of those multis that just fell together, everything just seemed to fit. I suspect most of the reason is that with Jazz there really isn't that much in the way of conflicting sounds like there is in Rock or Pop, having high quality sources also helps !
Cheers,
Dcp
Mixing is way more art and soul than science. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We do it because we love music! It’s the love of music first. Eddie Kramer
Gear list: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, Mbox Mini w/Pro Tools Express, Reaper, Various plugins, AKG K240 MKii, Audio Technica ATH M50x, Yorkville YSM 6
(18-10-2016, 05:15 PM)loupi Wrote: very nice clean mix, with a great vibe!
Thanks for the kind words loupi!
Mixing is way more art and soul than science. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We do it because we love music! It’s the love of music first. Eddie Kramer
Gear list: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, Mbox Mini w/Pro Tools Express, Reaper, Various plugins, AKG K240 MKii, Audio Technica ATH M50x, Yorkville YSM 6
Some minor things came to my mind
- your room is pretty dry - nothing bad with that - but some tail could be nice to hear in those small stops (0:01, 0:03, 0:05). Now the sound dies away unnaturally in too dead room.
- snare chost notes cannot be heard well enough as overheads didn’t capture them. For example, listen the first piano solo. It’s full of small things what drummer do.
- trumpet solo could be louder. Listen the transition from piano to trumpet around 1:04. Typically trumpet is not so shy.
(19-10-2016, 05:29 PM)Olli H Wrote: Nice mix! Overall sound very pleasant
Some minor things came to my mind
- your room is pretty dry - nothing bad with that - but some tail could be nice to hear in those small stops (0:01, 0:03, 0:05). Now the sound dies away unnaturally in too dead room.
- snare chost notes cannot be heard well enough as overheads didn’t capture them. For example, listen the first piano solo. It’s full of small things what drummer do.
- trumpet solo could be louder. Listen the transition from piano to trumpet around 1:04. Typically trumpet is not so shy.
Thanks Olli!
The reason you can't hear the ghost notes is that I actually automated the drums down during the solo bits, those overheads captured a lot of detail than you think. If this were a rock or metal track I would've added the close mics but this track really lends the drums to being more room heavy and distant. Adding close mics does improve the clarity of the ghost notes yes, but also takes away the subtly of them, the idea of being there but not there at the same time.
I agree with you on the trumpet, the sax also needs to be brought down abit as well I think.
The room sound is pretty dead, I did use a reverb on everything however. It was from an impulse off of a TC Electronic unit that I got from the Pensadia Free Impulse bundle from David Glenn Recording called Drum Room Expander. The idea is that it just adds some air around the tracks with a small tail. It's blended in pretty subtly now but I could totally get away with more, really for this more vintage style of Jazz, the 60's era, most records were pretty dry sounding. Have a listen to A Song for my Father by Horace Silver, Saxophone Colossus by Sonny Rollins, and Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus, those records are super dry sounding which is more or less the sound I was going for.
Cheers,
Dcp
Mixing is way more art and soul than science. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We do it because we love music! It’s the love of music first. Eddie Kramer
Gear list: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, Mbox Mini w/Pro Tools Express, Reaper, Various plugins, AKG K240 MKii, Audio Technica ATH M50x, Yorkville YSM 6
I’m quite sure that the hi-hat is closed mic in that session. It gives nice steady beat to the song. At the same time snare is far away but still all the rolls are clearly audible. For example at 1:53
To me it feels that the space is quite big. For example at 2:22 stronger snare hit has nice long natural tail that doesn’t die away, but nicely fills the empty space in arrangement. I guess that the whole band played in the same time in the same room, but horns had close mic within 1 meters distance. Just guessing without real knowledge.
!
