AAwk5

Special thanks to Lydia Sharrad and Martin Cheney.

We found the best sound for the Saxophone was facing the studio, at the point where the roof is lower to the ground. To close to the glass sounded to sharp, and other places in the room had too much 'space.' The area near the door where the bass trap is just muddied the sound.

We found that the AKG C-414 BUL worked best about half a meter back from the Sax, off axis and 3 quarter way down the keys. Too close to the Sax lost to much spectrum of tone, but too far away just had a flat sound. The second recording we did was on axis as a comparison at about the same distance and height. On axis picked up too much 'punch' from the bell and sounded awful in my opinion. The higher up the sax we went the higher the tone and the 'breathier' the sound. Too low faced the same problem of having too much 'punch' from the bell.

We placed an Sm57 just above the bell on axis. This was a nice addition to the overall sound although not the greatest sound. We needed to ensure it was not too close to the bell that it got blasted away though.

For the second recording we swapped the BUL and the Sm57 positions around. I think this was a failure. The 57 lost toned and the BUL sounded to airy.

We used a Km 84 facing down from above. What we found that was quite interesting was we got the best sound when we moved the mic so it was no longer over the sax but about half a meter to the left.

As a room mic we used the u87. We found the best sound was just outside the 'bass trap' near the door.

These two mics remained in the same place for both recordings

We also used a Sm58 in much the same position as the SM57. The sound was terrible so we just decided to mute it during play back of the first recording and didn't use it in the second.

Sax 1 with Sm58
Sax 1 without Sm58 2
Sax 2

The Flute recordings worked in much the same way as the Sax recording.

She sounded best in the same spot in the room as the sax did.

The BUL worked best from just below her flute hight facing towards the keys about 3 quarter way down the flute. And the Sm57 worked best angled up the keyboard a bit to the left of the BUL.

We swapped the two mics for the second recording, but I don't think it worked as well. The Sm57 picked up too much noise from the keys and the BUL didn't pick up as much of the tone.

The Km84 also sounded brilliant when it was moved so it was facing down from above just a bit to the left of where Lydia and her flute was.

As something different we used two room mics.

We used the U87 towards the back near studio 2. and another BUL closer to studio 1 to the left of where Lydia was standing. This worked brillian. The BUL had a great 'body' to the sound. Where as the U87 further back just added a little bit extra.

We swapped the mic's for the second recording, but in my opinion it was awful. The U87 was too sharp and pushed the BUL to the background.

Flute recording 1
Flute recording 2

And finally for something completely unrelated. Ben expresses his true love to ......

JENNY