SwingDJs

When it comes to recording a jazz/swing band live, what are the obstacles and necessities for recording the band with decent to great production value while maintaining a low cost?

I would love to hear from anyone invloved with the Barbara Morrison live CD or the Binge Band CD and anyone else who has experience with this. I am curious how big of a production it is to record a live album and where the potential catches lie.

I recall a thread about this exact subject. Can someone more search savy and less lazy pull it up?

I'm only slightly less lazy but searched in the tech talk forum and came up with this thread. I think there's also a discussion somewhere on yehoodi started about the same time that Marcelo contributed some helpful suggestions to.

The only information I can offer is that some of Bill Elliott's recordings (which, in my opinion, sound fantastic) were done in a Capitol Records recording studio with a single mic for the whole band, just like back in the day.

I would imagine you could get good results (not studio quality obviously due to lack of sound insulation) with a few really good mics and a digital recording system. The biggest obstacle to your question is "low cost". Sound quality is more or less directly proportional to how much you invest in your microphones. And the sky is the limit when you are talking microphones, at least for mortals like us.

Julius, he was asking about a "live" recording - i.e. at a gig.
There two problems with live recording that come to mind right away:
1) dealing with extraneous noise - crowd appluase is one thing, but ther always a lot distracting noises, bumps, blips, and distractions when recording live.
2) the conflict between live sound and recording sound - what gets amplified by the live sound system is not exactly what you'd want to hear on a record. Drums are not often mic'ed at a medium size venue, nor are bass amps, keyboard amps, guitar amps, etc. Horns and vocals need much more help, so they are overrepresented in the live sound mix.
To do it absolutely right, you would have two sets of microphones on everything, one going to the live system, and one going to multitrack tape. Or, at least get the unmixed signals sent to a multitrack tape so you can mix it later. The next best option is mixing each track on the fly using aux sends - at least you can have a different mix for the recording. However, when you mix in the same room, its harder to isolate the mix from what is going on the room, even with headphones.

Otherwise, you risk having to constantly balance between the sound in the room and the sound going to tape.

I love some of the old Artie Shaw live recordings where you hear a bit of crowd noise, and definitely hear the band members voices getting into it.

Sounds so raw and real to me.

I guess what I'm saying is that it adds something to get a little of the audience noise.

That's what I meant by crowd appluase - that's fine. They are plenty of live records that have wierd, distracting noises that don't sound good.

There are plenty of studio recordings too like that too, like Hamp moaning tunelessly along with the song :)

I know he meant live, but there were bands that recorded live with one mic too, the most famous example being Goodman's Carnegie Hall concert. I freely admit the sound quality on it is not the greatest, but for the recording equipment of the time, it's not horrible either. The masters were never played since they were lost in Goodman's closet for decades, so they never developed the nasty scratches that come from years of handling.

With modern digital recording equipment and a reasonably decent mic, I think you could get a decent sound ... the key phrase being "for the money". Again, the more you spend, the better it will sound. Dual-miking everything in the band is definitely not cheap!

HI There:
My first post here.. I got bounced over off of Lindyhopper.ca

To give you an idea of where I'm coming from, I'm a reed player from Vancouver, BC, who plays in a few different hot jazz & big bands around town and some touring, including The 51st Eight, and the Hoppin' Mad Orchestra.

Audio-wise, I've been involved in Live Audio for approx 10 years, and live recording for 4. In the past year I've done around 12 different project for various ensembles from classical/jazz/rock.

Now-the real solution for what you want to do is not going to be super cheapo---but not hugely expensive either. What you need is what's termed a split-snake. basically, this enables you to mic up everything you need to record the band, and send those signals to your multitrack (its so cheap now to do this), and then the other 'half' of the split goes to you main (Front Of House) sound board, for house mixing.

please feel free to contact me if you have any other questions

Colin Farquhar
Broken Teeth Records

Thanks all... keep he suggestions coming. This is totally helpful.

I would recomend this as a mixer for recording (you need the firewire card):

http://www.mackie.com/products/onyx1640/index.html