TubaForum.net

Many of us find ourselves in recording mode, which for me had been a gross display of TRVTH that I did not really want to know.

Our band is recording, for later assembly, the 1912 arrangement of the March from the third movement of the Tchaik Pathetique. We are playing along with one of the military bands in headphones. I’m using a Presonus Studio 24C external USB sound interface to mix the sound from my (excellent) Audio-Technica AT-822 stereo condenser mic, and the Windows 10 Camera app. I’m playing the recording in Groove and recording into the Camera app—that part is working great.



The nightmarish part is what I hear on the playback.

TRVTH: I suck.

TRVTH: Recording gets my nerves going much more than live performance. This is caused by self-awareness.

I recorded a few takes on the Hirsbrunner over a couple of evenings. I have one that is probably as good as I’ll get on the whole (perfection is unattainable), but the sound is aggressive to the point of being barky with the bell right under the mic. I realize just how much than tuba needs a hall. I also realize that my accuracy has to be spot on, and at this time, it ain’t.

So, tonight I tried an experiment: I played the Holton. And what a difference! Much fuller tone—meaning the tone/articulation ratio is much higher. Much more pleasant sound into a mic two feet above the bell.

In the dead auditoriums in which we play, the Hirsbrunner darkens up considerably, without losing power and clarity. The Holton’s sound gets trapped in the curtains in a dead room, but in a resonant hall, the Holton’s sound is omnipresent. But up close, theHolton is pre-resonant, while the Kaiser needs distance whether the room is resonant or not.

I knew all this already, of course, but hadn’t applied it to a close mic. Lesson learned.

(And I have to say an evening with a decent Holton 345 is just plain fun.)



TRVTH: Big, fat tubas may be better for close miking that tall kaisers.

But I still suck.

Rick “good for about two takes before nerves set in” Denney

So what you're saying is that these recordings are no fun to make, either?

Nope. These are not fun. I’m not a soloist, and don’t pretend to be. A recording like this will be measured that way. But it’s better that disbanding for a year.

Next up is Greensleeves (Reed). The recorded military band we are playing along with played beautifully, following a sensitive conductor. Which I don’t get to follow because it’s audio. Which means all their little rubato expressions sprinkled throughout have to be memorized, because there is not enough pulse in what I can hear in headphones above the rattling of tuba sound in my head to hear their beat clearly enough in some cases. And not all the musicians in that group were agreeing on the beat in any case, even if their disagreements were entirely musical. Unhelpful.

I don’t have one usable take in six attempts. I thought the Tchaikovsky was going to be the problem. Oddly, Greensleeves is sounding pretty good on the Hirsbrunner—all very soft articulations and that instrument is incapable of a fuzzy entrance, plus nothing in that arrangement that can bark.

Chops are blown. Try again tomorrow.

Rick “who could play this Greensleeves reasonably effectively at any time in a proper group under an actual conductor” Denney

Oh Rick—how I feel your pain!

How much have you experimented with mic placement?

When recording, I start with the mic about one foot away from the bell and about 45 degrees off of the line/axis coming straight out of the bell with the mic pointing/facing the bell opening. Then I work from there. And, of course, the model of mic, the model of tuba, and the room acoustics are other factors that affect mic placement, so experimenting with placement for each tuba may be necessary. And as always, YMMV.

My set up is a AT4040 into a Scarlett Solo interface, then Audacity. The kaiser and Hagen both sounded nice about 2-3ft away, but I got too much air/buzz noise/artifacts in the sound. I moved the mic about 5ft from the bell (at about the 10 o'clock position from me sitting in the chair. Of course, I had to turn up the gain. And the room I use is LESS than ideal for recording. The Symphonie does well at the 2-3ft distance, and the 186 sounds pretty good anywhere, but it improves (at least in this room) in that 3-5ft range. When I use my SM58, off-axis close miking works well. The difference in mics is another discussion, but further experimentation (if you haven't already tried) might yield more pleasing results.

It did occur to me that the Hirsbrunner bell is six inches closer to the mic than the Holton bell. And that may be part of it.

But this is going to be mixed into an ensemble sound, so it really needs to be dry so that the mixed sound can be blended with effects later. It’s easy to add reverb but hard to remove it.

Mic is about 3 feet from the bell and off-axis about 45 degrees. And it’s a stereo mic, so each element is pointed to the side.

Rick “whose suckage is still the overriding effect” Denney

A group i play with has asked for part recordings, and i been putting it off too long now ro a variety of reasons, most prominently because roughly speaking i have 2 mobile devices to juggle music to read, click track w/conductor, and recording a video. I think i am also supposed to have like a sheet for backgroud or something...

I should bite the bullet and just do it sometime this afternoon.

...

What it would take to make a moving click track is more work than just memorizing the changes.

But your prediction of the outcome I agree with.

Rick “not the one doing the assembly, thank goodness” Denney

Brass instruments generally don't sound very good when close-mic recorded.

The Bill Bell lp is a good example of great playing, though recorded poorly...There's peripheral close-up noise in that recording that wouldn't have been heard in a recital hall.