recording acoustic jazz.......... keira witherkay & alicia

Keira-WitherKay

wow guys today wed 23rd we spent the day in a sound engineers lounge....... yes lounge not his studio....
i have an acoustic jazz duo with myself on guitar and percussion and alicia on vocals ..... and we were looking to document what we been doing ...... and a few weeks back we did a test recording or what the engineer called pre production test in his studio.........

the goal was to get us playing live and recorded in same room on multiple tracks but in one take.. no overdubs ... cos we wanted to sound how we do live...... and it's mostly improvised so no way we can do separate takes... anyway the test turned out ok but not great ........ then the engineer called back a week later and said he had the way to get what we were seeking.......

so today he moved this console and much of his studio from his studio to a lounge........ which had a staircase on one side and a high ceiling and the longest curtains i ever seen ...they were 2 floors long ... cos the lounge are had no ceiling except te second floor .... he said this was a good space acoustically for live sound........ and he also brought in a few acoustic panels.......

well you recoding boffs will know the drill..... but he set up the vocalist slightly ahead of me and mic'ed her with a valve condenser mic and an 57 up close( now believe this or not he had read that michael jackson record with an sm 57 for vocals.... this is what he said) then he had me set up my percussion rig and guitar amp about 3 metres fron the vocal position but slightly behind ........ he close mic'ed the guitar amp with a sm 57....... and let me mic my guitar with my own condenser and also all my percussion gear,,,,,,, then set another condenser... not sure what it was but it looked like the bussiness.... next to my guitar condenser..... this mic went straight to the desk my condenser went through the amp........ then to create the live sound... he set up two mics one a tube condenser and the other a pencil condenser to in his words create natural stereo reverb... as he never wanted to use effects on the sound........ and these two mics were set up one literally on top of the other... but maybe 3 metre's in front of the vocalist and 5 metres in from of me maybe my distances are not 100% but this was the oddest setup i had ever recorded with and me not knowing much about recording technique ....... i let him do his thing ,,,

well we played live....... and recorded about 10 songs maybe 12 in 3 hours........ with some breaks ...... all live and all played through one take..... if we felt uncomfortable we did a whole fresh take no fixing.....

this was so much fun and i'm dying to hear the results........

and anyway this young man might be one of the sound guys to watch in the next few years...... but lets wait for the result.... but if he gets me a natural , live recording that when you listen to it ...it should sound like the band is playing in your lounge and you not listening to a cd... he has succeeded....

we discussed it and decided to sacrifice the odd bit of noise or imperfections for live feel.......

oh well so i have high expectations... and i have no clue what the tracks sound like........ so very exciting ......

oh and on a guitar front..... i used my 'pawn shop special" the 37 yr old yamaha i found a few months back....... no direct pickup just mic'd up......... the irony is i had also brought my "better" guitar the yamaha CGX with top of line b band pickup and we tried it and we tried using internal pick up and mic ing at same time...... well maybe on "braaistock" acoustic day here in jhb i will use the CGX to light the fire...... it was amazing ...... how the tone of the other guitar just blew the CGX away...and i really liked the CGX...i have used it for years........ but we recorded a bit with it... then just with old yamaha and the one condenser as a test and it was like an upright piano next to a steinway grand...... the CGX has great playability and is a nice guitar ...... but for my ears...(and i know tone is so difficult to define) the mic'd guitar just spoke to me... heheheh

so guys ... there my recent recording experience.......... oh and yeah the music was way cool jazz standards with lovely swing grooves all done in multipart fingerstyle and simultaneous percussion and with alicia's very sweet voice ...

yeah even if the recording does not achieve what we expecting..we had fun playing with the studio toys and made some grooving music.......
i can think of many worse ways to spend a day .........

peace and light
keira

Gearhead

@Keira: great! When will you get the results?

@ Guys & girls: we heard Alicia sing with Keira at the Blues Festival in Centurion a couple of months back, the little woman has voice. With Keira-style jazz background, the two of them trying to outdo each other on brilliant timing, a great combination. Must see.

Keira-WitherKay

Gearhead wrote @Keira: great! When will you get the results?

@ Guys & girls: we heard Alicia sing with Keira at the Blues Festival in Centurion a couple of months back, the little woman has voice. With Keira-style jazz background, the two of them trying to outdo each other on brilliant timing, a great combination. Must see.

gearhead i have no idea.....when he will have something for us to hear ... hopefully in next week or two......... this sound engineer reminded me so much of you ... also a perfectionist and he was so focussed on the finer details...... and thats a good thing ...........

anyway i'm also keen to hear the results.. cos in reality there were so many condensers of various types in that room all recording that we needed to re record the 1st 3 songs cos the chair i was sitting on was squeeking as i rocked on it ( you know i sit and play but i don't sit still ) so yeah it was so funny it was even squeeking in time heheheh so yeah and we had 1 police helicopter ...it is jhb and some barking dogs to deal with in the session.... but truly the vibe was excellent both alicia and i were experimenting all the time, shifting grooves and changing arangements mid song as is our style...... ... and once we do that we at our best .... so i think the content was good...now lets see if the sound is ok........

peace and light
keira