Jeff Zahos

John Phillips Harpsichord in Follinger Great Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts

On 01.04.10 and 01.04.10, I had the wonderful opportunity to assist engineer Jon Schoenoff in recording harpsichordist Charlotte Mattax performing several suites of baroque comoser Pierre Fevrier for an upcoming release on Centaur Records.  The session took place in the Foellinger Great Hall of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, my favorite space (for sentimental reasons in addition to sonic ones).  Keyboardist/Choral Conductor Kerry Heimann was present as producer.  Added to all that, Mattax performed on a beautiful new instrument by John Phillips of Berkeley, CA, which belongs to the University of Illinois School of Music.  Phillips was present to assist with production and with keeping the instrument in tune – a challenge given the extremely cold and dry weather (the instrument had to be moved in on the first day of recording).

Mics used:

• 3 Schoeps CMC6
• 1 Neumann U87

Techniques:

Two CMC6s were placed L and R, on high (~12′) Atlas iron-based stands.  A single CMC6 (wide cardioid) and the U87 were placed next to each other (giving two options for “main” mics) about 4′ high and about 5′ or 6′ in front of the instrument.

Back in early 2008, I had the pleasure of recording Ryan Leatherman, a very talented saxophonist playing with a jazz quartet for a demo CD.  The recording was done in Smith Memorial Hall Rm. 25.

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Setup/Equipment

• MOTU 896 interface (recording at 96kHz/24bit) – Onboard preamps used

• Recorded and mixed in Cubase

• Drum overheads preamplifier – Hamptone HVTP2 tube preamp

• Microphones:

Sax – Heil PR 30 (cardioid dynamic)

Bass – Heil PR 40 (cardioid dynamic)

Guitar – MXL 603 (cardioid consenser)

Drum Overheads – (2) MXL 2001 (large capsule cardioid condenser) (ORTF                    Configuration)

Bass Drum – Shure SM7 (cardioid dynamic)

Process/Issues/Evaluation:

This live multitrack session was completed in a lecture hall/jazz rehearsal space with no baffling/gobos.  The quartet set up as if performing live, except that the saxphonist faced across the front of the band to keep the polar response null point of the sax microphone facing the drums.  This was done to allow maximum flexibility in mixing the sax.  This also placed the mic facing the keys, for a tone which I prefer.  The bass mic looked up to a spot slightly above the bridge, very close.

The main issues in this session centered on maintaining a very natural performance feeling for the musicians while giving me tracks which were mixable and flexible (mainly by having properly selected mics and rejecting direct sound from the drums).  Perhaps I would use a close mic on the snare drum, if I had another shot at this session.  I feel like the high ratio of indirect to direct snare drum sound is slightly inconsistent with the intimacy of the cymbals, but not objectionable.

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