Topic: How would you tape a jazz performance given carte blanc access

[ethan]

I'm heading to denver to tape a jazz performance tonight. I'm pretty sure what I'd like to be able to do wrt mic placement and mixing (probably just the DPA's on-stage mixed the SBD). Just curious what others would do with the gear I'm taking. The club has various stands.

I'm taking:

2 AKG 300's w/ ck91 or ck93's
2 DPA 4011's
V2
V3 (thanks Simpy!)
PS-2 > AT8201 (phantom with line transformer basically another stereo gain to power 2 mics)
Soundcraft Notepad mixer (4 lin/mic balanced ins + 2 stereo line ins)
Every cable imaginable
lots of batteries
D8
SBM-1
DA-P1

BTW, all the above fits in to my tamarac bag and a pelican case 



The line up is:
Saxophone
Bass (electric)
Piano (probably  using the clubs grand piano)
drums

[Chanher]

holy crap, I'm doing the exact same thing tomorrow night: sax, upright bass (electric), drums, and piano.

I would definitely get one mic on each instrument. then run rca board for your last two channels.

REMEMBER TO BRING GOOD HEADPHONES, noise-cancelling preferred because you only get one shot to get the mix right. While it's not a rock concert, you need to be able to clearly hear the mix without the actual performance bleeding through. A long cable run might do the trick if you don't have noise cancelling.

I have many multi-track recordings where just one instrument is too heavy in the mix and it would be SO SWEET if it could just be brought down a bit.

nice ticket/post count.

[ethan]

Where are you taping tomorrow?

-e

[Chanher]

Greeley, Highland Bar and Grille. I've taped these guys a number of times (Dana Landry Quartet) but they got a guest drummer that I really like, very diverse.

This group is pretty average on a bigger scale, but they are quality musicians.

What about you?

[ethan]

It's at Sambucca in low do.

I think they're billed as the Joe Diamo Latin Jazz Quartet.

The line up includes a professor from CU school of music on piano.

Rich Charalucci (sax)
Mike Pagan (CU music Professor) (piano)
Mike Willis (bass)
Joe Diamo (drums)

Joe is a client of my wife. I'm always down for taping something she wants taped. It always ends up working out in my favor. Plus everytime I go out and try these live 2 track mix downs I learn a hell of a lot. win-win

-e

[Chanher]

Plus everytime I go out and try these live 2 track mix downs I learn a hell of a lot. win-win

They are SO MUCH fun. Keep up the good work.

[ethan]

Hey now!

Things went well. I'm now more certain than every you need plans A,B,C,D,and maybe E going into these things. So many things end up needing to go with the flow.

The board outs went to the house sound system so they could play the board mix all over the place in the restaurant including the pisser. So I had the option of  a 1/4 board out. Fortunately I always carry a 1/4 inch unbalanced. Anyhow set up was chaotic and I had to wait till <10 before they went on to set up.

So long story short drums were on the far right of the stage and the grand on the far left. I set up the DPA's (NOS) next to the grand and opened the top on the grand. 
I then mic'ed the sax with one of the 391's. Powerd the DPA's with the V2 and in the interest of time powered the AKG's from the mixer. I ended up liking my mix so I didn't mix any board in after all.

Came out pretty decent. I'm glad I wasn't closer to the drums. The bass was an upright so most of the bass on the recording was the bass players monitor. All in all pretty fun.

peace,

-e