wind instruments

.aa – week five.

Wind instruments are something that I have recorded fairly little of, and have never really had much of an idea about how to go about recording (until now). If you think it’s as easy as pointed the microphone at the ‘blow-hole,’ you are sorely mistaken.

A big thankyou goes out to Martin Cheney and Lydia Sharrad, who came along to help Dave, Will, Luke and I get some practise with the art of recording wind instruments. To begin with I asked Martin to walk around the room playing his Alto Saxophone, while we all walked around searching for the “mojo.” During this session with the two wind players, I was able to genuinely appreciate the difference that instrument positioning can have on the sound. I found that the popular area directly in front of the studio one was not as pleasant for these instruments (most likely caused by reflections from the glass). I should mention that I got quite the feeling of achievement when I was able to hear to differing ‘mojo’s’ that the EMU space has to offer!

We found a very nice spot in front of the studio one window, but back about half way across the room. In this spot we decided to mark down some tape on the floor for our wind instrumentalists, who tend to move around a lot while they are playing (causing microphone positioning issues). As usual we played around being engineers, producers and discussing ideas to trial. One idea was to try out a SM58, but that just did not work and the mic was quickly abandoned. Here’s the first recording:

Alto Saxophone (1)

This recording is made of an:
- on axis Shure SM-57 (slightly above the bell)
- off axis AKG C414 BULS (height is parallel with the keys)
- overhead Neumann KM-84 (above, much like in class (work Ben!))
- room microphone Neumann U87 (just outside the EMU “bass trap”)

I would like to also point out that for the most part the U87 was pretty lame as a room microphone for the sax. I feel that this has something to do with it being such a sensitive mic; in the flatter dynamic of a room mic recording, the pressing of the keys, breaths, as well as the sax sound all got blended into one wash of unproductive sound. Not to sday too many bad words against the U87 (Im sorry baby), because later, however, Dave found that putting the U87 just outside the “bass trap” added a bit of useful low-end warmth when mix-in faintly.

Also Saxophone (2)

This mic positioning behind this one is similar to first recording, except that:
- SM57 and AKG position have been switch around (AKG – on axis; SM57 – off axis)
- the KM-84 was swung about 40 degrees away for Martin, where we found a nice sound.
- the room mic (U87) has been removed.



For Lydia Sharrad (awesome flutist) we used similar microphones, the main difference is that the room mic was swapped to an additional AKG C414. I think this next recording is one of the most accurate (to real world) recordings that I have been a part of:

Flute (1)

In this take we used a C414 up around Lydia’s mouth, and the SM57 down near her keyboard. In the next recording (Flute (2)) we switched the position of the SM57 and the C414 microphones around. We also swung the overhead KM-84 to a pleasant off-axis position in Flute (2).

Flute (2)

.sources.

Gemme, Keith 2003, "Tips from the Pros: Recording brass and woodwind, MusicTech Magazine, viewed 29.3.07,
http://www.musictechmag.co.uk/mtm/download/tips-from-the-pros-recording-brass-and-woodwind

Grice, David 24.3.07, Audio Arts: Week 5, "Wind Intruments," Tutorial presented in the EMU space, Schutlz Building, University of Adelaide.