So much about recording saxophone and other reed instruments depends on the player, the room, the mics, the style of play, and how the track fits into the song overall. Here are some recording tips from a veteran producer. Read the post.
Producer/engineer/studio owner Jon Marc Weiss discusses mics, mic placement, and different techniques for recording a great bass tone for every music genre. Read the post.
Producer/engineer/studio owner Jon Marc Weiss discusses piano miking techniques on different instruments in different settings to get the tone you need for the situation. Read the post.
Producer/engineer/studio owner Jon Marc Weiss discusses miking techniques when recording a kick drum in your studio. Read the post.
Producer/engineer/studio owner Jon Marc Weiss discusses miking techniques when recording a snare drum along with a full drum kit. Read the post.
From stereo placement to EQ, busing to reverb, veteran music producer and engineer Jon Marc Weiss gives pro advice and insights on how to manage your mix in your home studio. Read the post.
From communicating, coaxing the best possible performance, and keeping an artist comfortable, a lot of a producer’s skills have little to do with recording techniques. Read the post.
Depending on the genre of music, if you’re doing a live performance, or you’re recording the entire band or ensemble simultaneously, sometimes you can get away without a click – especially if you have a really solid drummer. But 80% of the time in a studio recording – especially if we’re just cutting drums and bass – we’re playing to a click. Read more.
I’ve had drummers who won’t take off their front head, and refuse to cut a hole in the front head. I’ve had to work with that. They had gotten the tuning to sound amazing, or they were purists and didn’t want anything inside the drum. The biggest issue you have when you don’t have the mic in the drum is you’re going to get bleed – bleed from the cymbals, and from the other drums – which can be a real problem for the kick, because it’s driving the entire song, and a lot of times when you’re mixing you want to gate your kick and snare. Read more.
I want to hear a combination of the drum – the hit of the drum – and the snares almost equally as loud as the drum. In a standard 4/4 set up, you’re hearing the snare on the 2 and 4. That snare has a space to fill – it’s the answer to the space the kick drum is filling on the 1 and 3. The snare and the kick have to work together to pull the song forward. If you have a great kick sound, and the snare isn’t matching it, you’ll have this imbalance. Read more.
Jon Marc Weiss is an accomplished recording engineer, studio designer, and musician with over 20 years’ experience. Echoes’ Andre Calilhanna checked in with Jon to discuss the challenges of recording and miking an acoustic piano. Read the post.
When you’re recording an electric bass guitar, blending a direct injection (DI) line recording with a mic’d cabinet is the safest way to make sure you’re going to get the tone you’re looking for. If you have the preamps, mics, and tracks to do it, you might want to record as many as four bass tracks – a DI and three mics – and somewhere in the blend of those four individual tracks, you’ll find the tone you need for each song. Read more.
When considering how to record brass and reed instruments – and when recording saxophone in particular – the player and the tone he’s able to get from the instrument are vitally important. If you’re recording a professional with a lot of studio experience who knows how to get certain tones out of the instrument, you’re going to have a very different approach than if you’re in a home studio recording someone who’s new to the instrument and playing stacked notes.
“Take Grover Washington, Jr., for example,” says Jon. “I had the good fortune to record sax with Grover on a session in the mid 90s. He was as good as it gets. His tone was amazing. You could pretty much put a mic anywhere and it was going to sound good because he could resonate his sax really well.” Read more.