Virtual Big Band Recordings

[Rusty Mike]

Like a lot of other musicians, our big band has become virtual. This is the latest composite video we've created. It's Chris Connolly's arrangement of Makin' Whoopee, which is a tenor feature.

I'm playing the Amber Upright sample on my Stage 2EX, fairly dry. The growth experience for me has been with doing the audio mixing, along with the agony of making video recordings of myself.

The featured player is the band leader's father. I can't get over his smooth tone. If silk made a sound, this would be it!

[Rusty Mike]

Continuing in reverse order, this is the second video we did. It's a big band arrangement of America The Beautiful. The Band Leader wanted to make something a bit patriotic, and this was an arrangement we played before.

Nothing Nord related in this one, but I did get a chance to play my old Hammond M3.



I was not happy with the audio mix I did for the video, so I did a complete remix. Specifically, the trombones have this great rhythmic pulse that gets lost in the original mix, and I wanted to bring that out. I also felt the sax section sounded like an accordion and wanted to smooth that out a bit. The remix is much less muddy to me.

https://soundcloud.com/baldrust/america-the-beautiful

[Rusty Mike]

This is the first track we did, which is a standard arrangement of Fly Me To The Moon. It was the first time I mixed for big band, the start of the adventure so to speak.

No Nords involved, I played the Native Instruments Maverick piano using my Roland RD-800 as the controller.



I plan to do a complete remix of this as well.

[Rusty Mike]

Nice work rusty mike! Must have been a huge amount of work. Love that tenor sound on makin' whoopee. I wonder if a tinkly grand piano sound would complement the sax / big band sound vs the amber (which has a lot of character but maybe a bit too nasal / mid sounding?) - perhaps either White Grand or something brighter like Studio Grand 2? Anyway, it sounds great, would love to hear some more of your piano... maybe your next track needs a piano solo

[Rusty Mike]

Thank you spradders!

The mix was a big challenge in that I had to sync up all the parts. When playing alone, each person has a slightly different idea of where and when to hit the notes. It required a lot of splicing and nudging in Cubase to line everyone up. That was rather tedious to do, but I think it was worth it in the end.

I appreciate your comment about the selection of the piano sound. I actually chose the Amber precisely for its lyrical fundamental tone. I'm a big fan of the jazz recordings of the 50's and the pianos were always very fundamental forward without a lot of bright overtone. I know it had a lot to do with the ability of the recording technology of the time, but I really like that sound.

I knew the tenor player has a lush classic style and I wanted the piano to match that. I also have this notion that, in big band music, the piano is not supposed to cut through but rather accentuate the other instruments. The Amber is ideal for that because of it's rich mid-voice and softer highs and lows.

The next one is a bit more uptempo and will feature a bit of piano solo, but I'm debating if it should be AP or EP. If it's AP, I'll probably use the White Grand for its all-around versatility. Either that or Native Instruments The Grandeur sample. I'll be tinkering with those over the next few weeks.

Thanks again for your comments!

[JayDee]

Loved it Mike! Your Tenor player's tone reminded me of Ben Webster - I know, reach for the jazz almanac on that name, but your tenor player would know. Nice job Mike!

[harmonizer]

I only watched "Makin' Whoopee" so far. That was really well done.

You talked about the challenge to sync the parts. Were the sax players in general playing more behind the beat? (sax is my main instrument).

[jtubaugh]

Very nice. Well done, especially since it was recorded virtually! As you said, Rusty, lots of work splicing and syncing. Looking forward to more.

[Rusty Mike]

Wow! Sounds very cool! I like the sound of a bigband anyway. And applause for the video editing / mixing. Must be a pain in the a** to get everything synced up!
But well done!

[Rusty Mike]

I only watched "Makin' Whoopee" so far. That was really well done.

You talked about the challenge to sync the parts. Were the sax players in general playing more behind the beat? (sax is my main instrument).

Thanks!

Everyone is recording on their own against a sparse backing track. They don’t have the benefit of keying off the lead instrument, so the accuracy is not there.

I start out by creating a backing “shell” in Band-In-A-Box with drums, bass and guitar. I move the tracks into Cubase, add a sparse piano track and a click track. I then remove the drum track from the shell and send it to the drummer to record his part. I also send a shell without the bass line to the bass player so he can record his part. Once the drummer’s part is in, it goes to the rest of the band to record their parts individually. As parts come in, I add them to the project.

What tends to happen is that everyone has their own slight interpretation differences which results in each section having a rather loose sound When you put them together. In the saxes, the two altos are usually pretty on par with the exception of some slight accent/dynamics differences. They both tend to play in front of the beat. The tenor player played slightly behind the beat, which sort of dragged the section a bit so I nudged him up a bit. Bari is a tough instrument. It’s a big horn and it takes time to the air to get through, which then sounds like late notes. I moved him up a lot because I wanted each section to sound punchy and the bari is the key to that punch for the saxes.

There were other cases where someone held a note out too long or not long enough, so I made some corrections there as well. The trombones presented a few challenges as well. Bone 1 has a rather mellow and smooth sound while Bones 2 and 3 were rather punchy and bright. They also had a few rhythmic misgivings.

If you listen to the America The Beautiful recordings, you’ll hear it more clearly. The audio track on the video has very few rhythmic adjustments and not a whole lot of EQ/dynamics blending, while the remixed audio recording on SoundCloud is much clearer. You can hear each section with better definition. I took a lot of time on the remix to line up the rhythmic elements so the hits and counterpoints would stand out.

Overall, this continues to be a great learning experience for me as a hack audio engineer.