By George Petersen

A couple months back, a a friend asked if I wanted to help do a live 2-track recording of a local big band. The group was on a budget and needed a recording that could double as both a demo and possibly a CD they could sell at their gigs. The venue was at Oakland’s Veterans Hall, which is downtown at the top of Lake Merritt, if you know the area. It’s a wonderful old art deco auditorium/ballroom that holds about 600 people and since I’ve recorded there before, I jumped at the chance. Besides, it sounded like a fun challenge.

The real challenge arrived when we found out that the recording was NOT in the beautiful upstairs ballroom, but in a low-ceilinged, basement cafeteria where the band rehearses. So much for spending hours mulling over the exact positioning of the room mics! Speaking of mics, we kept it simple. We left the tube Neumanns and Telefunkens at home, instead opting for a combination of decent, mostly small-diaphragm condensers, including two Shure KSM109s, two Audio-Technica 3031s and four (oldie but still goodie) TOA K3s. The close-in vox mic was a Rode NT-1A, which on this particular female lead singer gave a sort of silky smooth, 1940’s ribbon vocal sound.

The mics were set up in stereo pairs over each section (trombones, trumpets, saxes, rhythm) with a spot mic on the upright piano and a vocal mic for a couple tunes that had a singer. The section miking arrangement allowed us to have some control over the balance and provided a nice stereo image, rather than going with the “mono-mic-on-each-instrument-pan-potted-into-phony-stereo” routine. This way, each section could define its own blend and by experimenting with mic placement/distance we could create a smooth mix.

We set up a temporary mix position in the hallway outside the cafeteria, and the 10 individual mic cables cleared the door jamb, allowing a little more isolation. The mixer was a Yamaha MG16/6FX–hardly a Neve or API–but certainly clean enough to do the job. The room was VERY live, so adding ambience wasn’t an issue, although we did use a touch of the board’s built-in reverb (!) on vocal.

With not much time and a lotta material to cover, we had the band run through each song, while we set up a mix and then the band did two complete takes of each song for the recording. In all, we cut 12 different tunes. All in all, a pretty good evening’s work. A couple days later, we assembled the best takes, did a quick mastering pass and it was done.

After WAY too many long nights on other sessions auditioning kick mics, punching endless vocal takes or editing hi-hat samples, this recording was a refreshing experience. The whole recording session–from load-in to packing out–was about five hours and we left with some great sounding mixes with some hot performances that everybody liked. And damn, it was even fun… Isn’t that what music is supposed to be all about?

When not working on Mix stuff, George Petersen records and performs with the SF Bay Area-based rock band ARIEL. Check ‘em out at www.jenpet.com.

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