Mixing Jazz Piano Trio
José Luis Amores
I am mixing a jazz piano trio: (Upright Bass, Piano and Drums).
How would you pan the instruments on the mix?
I think of the contrabass centered and in front of the mix but i dont know
what to do with the drums and piano.
I think of panning the stereo piano hard left and right and panning stereo
drums not so wide between 10 and 2 o'clock, but i dont know if i must put
the drums backwards with a predelay or something like that.
What do you think?
P.D.I am a newbie. Excuse my lack of expirience.
Benjamin Maas
you'll see your piano on the left and the drums on the right with the bass
in between.
I set the piano usually between left and about 1:00 or 2:00, bass centered,
and the drums between 10:00 or 11:00 and right. I don't like the 90 foot
wide drum and piano sound across the whole stereo spectrum...
--Ben
--
Benjamin Maas
Fifth Circle Audio
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.fifthcircle.com
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"José Luis Amores" <jlam...@wanadoo.es> wrote in message
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~ rob ~
Put the bass about 10 % left of centre.
Then pan the piano almost full right and full left, with treble on the right
side, and work it so the solo/lead line comes up about 10% right of centre.
Then set the drums in, with Bass drum about 15% right of centre, hi hat out
on the left if you can.
If you can isolate the treble piano, eq it a bit thinner and aux it with a
touch of delay, about 60% right of centre.
Then leave it the mix alone for a few days, get fresh ears, listen to it
again, see how your placement holds up.
To diminish presence of drums, keep their volume down, remember that the
highs can cut thru quite nicely.
EQ and compression are important here, follow chart below as best you can,
gotta understand this to control the finished mix. It's part of the art.
**********************************
Sound is like light, frequencies can 'sum up'. (A red flashlight and a blue
flashlight can look purple when shone simultaneously on a white object...)
So, for example, if your instrument is eqd a bit thin when you solo it, it
will pick up some warmth from other instruments in the menage of the mix.
Sooooo...
12K air
8-10 K Upper Mids, Edge
5-7 K Articulation Zone
1.6-4K Hurtin' Zone
500-1.6 Mids
200-450 Lower Mid, Warmth, Mud Zone, only one lives here, commonly cut a lot
200 Moo Zone
100 Pop Zone, Warmth
50 Thud Zone
Good luck, have fun.
-bg-
www.thelittlecanadaheadphoneband.ca
,
>
>
Luke Kaven
>I like mixing as you'd see them set up on stage. With most jazz trios,
>you'll see your piano on the left and the drums on the right with the bass
>in between.
>
>I set the piano usually between left and about 1:00 or 2:00, bass centered,
>and the drums between 10:00 or 11:00 and right. I don't like the 90 foot
>wide drum and piano sound across the whole stereo spectrum...
>
>--Ben
Ben is absolutely right. It is a preference for a few good reasons
besides personal taste. I'm assuming that everyone is performing in
one room, or hope so anyway. For one thing, there will be far fewer
timing anomalies on the soundstage if you pan the instruments to their
approximately true positions in real space. You will also pick up
cues about ambience that you get from timing information that way.
Microphones for given instruments will provide what I call "de facto
reflections" from other instruments in the room, and so the timing of
these signals is critical. Take care of this, and the listener will
feel more more as though she is in the room with the music.
Wide-panning on drums and pianos is very disturbing, giving me what is
sometimes called "simulator sickness". Simulator sickness is the term
to describe a nausea induced by a simulation where something is just a
little bit wrong. It was noticed in pilots who underwent simulator
training. On a recording, it sounds like the piano is sitting on top
of the drums, and the drums are sitting on top of your head.
Luke
Luke Kaven
do it this way. This is a bit more like special effects. Studio
engineers seem to like this for their own reasons, but I've never met
a jazz musician who liked it, and don't know many listeners who do
either.
Luke
" ~ rob ~" <dontsen...@nothing.com> wrote:
[...]
Ethan Winogrand
> Anyone who wants a traditional or naturalistic sound would not want to
> do it this way. This is a bit more like special effects. Studio
> engineers seem to like this for their own reasons, but I've never met
> a jazz musician who liked it, and don't know many listeners who do
> either.
>
> Luke
>
>
same goes for drums. I think both sound un-natural that way and not
nearly as nice as recordings from the 60s...Rudy Van Gelder and so on.
Try listening to recordings that you like, and attempt to emulate what
they did. Sometimes it works to move the bass over a touch on the
opposite side of the piano and bassdrum. Things like that are useful
for making room sonically. If the instruments are recorded nicely and
the musicians play well, there should less need for eq and
compression. Let the musicians do their thing.
Good luck,
Ethan Winogrand
Spokes Studio
Oviedo, Spain
Benjamin Maas
like this try to get your sounds without the use of EQ or compression. You
may find that your bass may need a touch of compression to firm up the
sound, but your drums and piano need to have their full dynamic range
represented.
If you have tracked and there are major sound problems, then consider EQ as
a last resort... Ideally, though, all sounds should be realized through
microphone choice and placement.
--Ben
--
Benjamin Maas
Fifth Circle Audio
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.fifthcircle.com
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"Benjamin Maas" <ben...@nospamfifthcircle.com> wrote in message
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xy
panning and effects. just use some stuff to balance out the sound.
this music "works" when it has been recorded in a good room with good
players on good instruments with good equipment and the right mics
were put in the right spots. the mix/music should then almost "play
itself".
José Luis Amores
It really surprise me the thing that i can move the bass a little. I never
thougth about it.
I like Rudy Vangelder recordings, but i am looking for a more modern jazz
sound. It is an acoustic trio, but nowadays i dont
hear this type of sound (Vangelder) in jazz piano trios.
I know i must not go too crazy with effects, but what do you think about
using diferrent reverbs, and delays to put the intruments
in a different depth, so they sound more clear? Whats your starting point
with this 3 instruments? (piano, double-bass, Drums)
Thanks again for the help. Excuse my bad English.
Jose.
"xy" <genericau...@hotmail.com> escribió en el mensaje
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Luke Kaven
You are mistaking recording style with genre. I record contemporaries
the same way as the traditional. Jean-Michel Pilc with Ari Hoenig and
Matt Penman sound just like themselves when I recorded them with a
traditional style for an upcoming release. I have no idea what you
mean by a "modern jazz sound".
As far as using different reverbs on individual instruments, it is
done often, but the effect is not additional clarity, but muddiness.
José Luis Amores
lot, and they have a very charasteristic sound.
Talking about "modern jazz sound", i did not try to talk about a specific
style, just not this charasteristic hard panned sound.
I am newbie so i know nothing about recording styles. I just say not to
sound like a 60's record.
About Reverb, it is clear that i must use as less as posible, but can you
tell something more?
Jose.
"Luke Kaven" <lu...@smallsrecords.com> escribió en el mensaje
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Scott Dorsey
>Talking about "modern jazz sound", i did not try to talk about a specific
>style, just not this charasteristic hard panned sound.
"You can tell Modern Jazz because it all sounds like the Modern Jazz Quartet."
-- Colby
"Nobody listens to modern jazz any more."
-- Byron
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
Luke Kaven
>What i tried to say is that those Vangelder recordings are hard panned a
>lot, and they have a very charasteristic sound.
>Talking about "modern jazz sound", i did not try to talk about a specific
>style, just not this charasteristic hard panned sound.
>I am newbie so i know nothing about recording styles. I just say not to
>sound like a 60's record.
Van Gelder evolved a lot between 1953 and 1966, so we're talking about
an ever-changing conception. He did tend to use hard panning
(basically panned mono) when stereo was more of a novelty. But later
on he tempered the practice. And I'm not advocating the hard panning.
I'm also not advocating the later practice of panning the piano and
drums hard L-R. The kinds of things that Benjamin Maas suggested were
a good place to start.
The key idea here is to be true to the geometry of the space. You
can get a good ambient sound with close miking and in not-so-great a
room if you place the instruments in their approximately real
positions in space (from the virtual listener's perspective).
>About Reverb, it is clear that i must use as less as posible, but can you
>tell something more?
>
>Jose.
In order to maintain some semblance of true space, it helps to not
have several reverb settings all contributing conflicting cues about
the space. If you have one good reverb that models room geometry to
the right extent, then that's all you need. With a bad reverb, the
stereo image will flatten out and collapse.
Luke
Robert Aries
Luke Kaven <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote:
> Van Gelder evolved a lot between 1953 and 1966, so we're talking about
> an ever-changing conception. He did tend to use hard panning
> (basically panned mono) when stereo was more of a novelty.
IIRC, an Elvin Jones-Jimmy Garrison record called "Illumination"
(recorded in '63 by RVG) has Elvin in mono panned hard left.
White Swan
piano has as much to do with the miking scheme as the panning itself.
The unnaturalness of wide panning occurs when you use a spaced pair of
close mics where one is picking up the treble and another the bass.
This will result in a typical bass strings left/treble right kind of
result, which if panned fully wide, may also give the illusion of a 20
foot wide piano.
The problem is, the listener doesn't hear bass/left treble/right when
hearing a live piano performance, because they are usually hearing the
piano from the side. Even the performer hears a lot less bass/treble
panning than one might think.
You can get a much more realistic stereo representation of a piano
using alternate mic positions. It is worth it to explore mid-side,
coincident pair, and various other schemes. Speaking as a pianist,
there are few things more annoying to me than hearing the treble notes
come out of the right speaker and the bass notes out of the left.
Roger W. Norman
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> The problem is, the listener doesn't hear bass/left treble/right when
> hearing a live piano performance, because they are usually hearing the
> piano from the side. Even the performer hears a lot less bass/treble
> panning than one might think.
There's another problem, particularly with jazz piano, and that's the fact
of the majority of playing being rather close in the middle range, so widely
spaced close mics don't get the sound correctly of the piano being played.
On the whole, I don't really like putting mics into a piano all that much,
but on a stage with a lot of players it's about the only option. On a nice
intimate piano trio stage, one can experiment with placements outside of the
piano, but not at a significant distance enough to allow the piano's real
musical image to build (depends on the venue, but jazz clubs are generally
small), so we're pretty much back in the box unless we're at a nice
recording facility.
But, as you point out, what the audience hears is not a stereo piano at all,
unless it's presented in the FOH as the musicians appear across the stage.
However, when one is sitting at home listening, definitely I find mixing
hard left to 1 o'clock piano spread, and 11 o'clock to hard right for drums,
both coming towards the center to join with the bass in the way the
instruments are visible onstage, seems to set up the image correctly.
Still, there's another "but" because in most piano trio setups a drummer is
going to be the quietest of the trio, with his normal solos skyrocketing
into the 115 to 120 dB range pretty quickly, and this can cause some mixing
hell. If one tries to squash it a little to bring up the background
brushes, etc., then the sound becomes a little less dispersed, even with the
stereo spread, so this is where I might sneak in a little reverb to add
space. Depends on the drummer and just where one can mic them. I generally
use two 4041s on overheads about 7' up or higher, depending on the drummer's
playing technique, and then try to reach "into" the drums from there, rather
than just having them up there for cymbals as some are prone to do. These
mics are the "main" drum mics, preferrably with a nice condenser stuck out
about 4' from the front of the drums to get the basic trap set for emphasis.
Miking a kick drum in jazz is a waste of time because it's just another tom
to them. 90% of all timing from a jazz drummer comes from the ride cymbal,
not the kick like it is in rock.
Of course, there's the stereo room pair that's an option, and some look it
them as the recording mics and the others as spot mics. Mostly I look at
them the other way, where the instruments are represented best by their
close mics and the room gets added in slightly to enhance the ambience. I'm
still waiting to hear some of Scott Dorsey's mixes of his recordings I've
mixed because we both start at a different place.
So I'm wasting the OP's time with this because he wants to know about
mixing, but I have to say that 90% of the mixing comes from the mic
selection and positioning. From there, properly tracked, one should need
only bring up the appropriate faders and it should sound like you're
standing at the front of the stage.
As an aside, I had one man I worked with for about 3 years who kept trying
to get me to put the piano in the mix "like I was hearing it from the front
of the piano, you know, looking across the piano at the player". My only
response was "the player IS at the front of the piano" and that's how it
should be represented, from the players viewpoint. I do the same thing with
drums. Oddly, though, I do vibes as the audience hears them.
--
Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio
Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net.
See how far $20 really goes.
> I think part of the confusion about panning a stereo pair of mics on a
> piano has as much to do with the miking scheme as the panning itself.
> The unnaturalness of wide panning occurs when you use a spaced pair of
> close mics where one is picking up the treble and another the bass.
> This will result in a typical bass strings left/treble right kind of
> result, which if panned fully wide, may also give the illusion of a 20
> foot wide piano.
>
>
White Swan
> As an aside, I had one man I worked with for about 3 years who kept trying
> to get me to put the piano in the mix "like I was hearing it from the front
> of the piano, you know, looking across the piano at the player". My only
> response was "the player IS at the front of the piano" and that's how it
> should be represented, from the players viewpoint. I do the same thing with
> drums. Oddly, though, I do vibes as the audience hears them.
>
> --
>
What I've always wanted to try is to get an image that reflects as
closely as possible what the player is actually hearing as he/she
plays. Possibly a binaural head or Jaeklin Disk placed just above and
behind the performer. Of course, that would look really funny on stage
(or maybe kind of cool!) but might be worth a try in a studio. In my
room on my piano, the sound I hear where I'm actually sitting and
playing seems to be the sound I always end up going for in the mix.
Haven't ever gotten around to trying it yet, though.
Vladan
<jlam...@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>Whats your starting point with this 3 instruments? (piano, double-bass,
>Drums...
I'd say, it doesn't really matter. The way I'd recommend would be to
1) Balance individual instruments (' mics) in mono.
2) Subgroup all the mics of an instrument to own group and ballance
those groups.
3) Pan the things to as close as natural positions to get nice stereo
spread, but not as much as to unmask everything and get audiable
delays (cca 3ms/m).
[Of course, you can wide pan everything in most unnatural ways,
(like kick on one side snare on another and 20foot cymbal inbetween)
and still end with something worth listening, even with initial
impresion of reality/ naturalty (some Pat Matheny recordings come to
mind).]
4) Balance some more - and that's that.
5) If filtering is nescesserry, first try LP and HP, than shelves,
with sweeps/ parametrics being the last corective option.
Vladan
www.geocities.com/vla_dan_l
www.mp3.com/lesly , www.mp3.com/shook , www.mp3.com/lesly2
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John Cafarella
I've had to mix some multi-miced jazz stuff recently that I didn't
record myself. There wasn't any session documentation either to give
me clues as to the players placement. Bass, sax, guitar, and drums,
one mic on each.
What I ended up doing was to listen carefully to the spill in each
mic, and gave a lot of consideration to panning mics with prominent
spill opposite to that instrument's mic. After a fair bit of juggling
I ended up with quite a pleasing sound. I don't know how much it
resembled reality though!!
With this approach I didn't need to add any reverb/delay, and ended up
with a nice sense of space in the end result.
John Cafarella
EOR Studio
Melbourne Australia
José Luis Amores
"Roger W. Norman" <rno...@starpower.net> escribió en el mensaje
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> "White Swan" <nahan...@netzero.net> wrote in message
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> However, when one is sitting at home listening, definitely I find mixing
> hard left to 1 o'clock piano spread, and 11 o'clock to hard right for
drums,
> both coming towards the center to join with the bass in the way the
> instruments are visible onstage, seems to set up the image correctly.
So, in this configuration you pan from the players viewpoint?
Doing this the snare would be more or less centered, isn't it?
Thanks for the help.
Roger W. Norman
other players and towards the audience, then far right (stage left) starts
with the snare and high hats and it moves across the drums in that stereo
field with the floor tom and usually ride cymbal being center. A drummer
hears it that way. There are a lot of people that mic drums as the audience
would hear them if they were close enough to get some kind of quasi stereo
idea from a kit, but like a piano, the drummer is about the only one that
really has separation of all the components of a kit. I still use the same
image when doing rock, but the drum placement in the stereo field is usually
different, like snare/kick pretty much on center along with the bass. But
jazz seems to open up the stage the other way.
--
Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio
Purchase your copy of the Fifth of RAP CD set at www.recaudiopro.net.
See how far $20 really goes.
"José Luis Amores" <jlam...@wanadoo.es> wrote in message
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