Hey! Here we are, back in action for the second half of Studio 1. I’ve been excited for this project since the start of the trimester because I’ve planned to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. The project is a live recording of a jazz/ house trio named Mon Riser filmed in the Neve live room and aimed at the aesthetic of live sessions such as KEXP, Tiny Desk and Audiotree. The group is comprised of Jasper Gunderson and David Versace from local group First Beige and Megan Christensen from Pink Matter. As for my audio and film crew, I have on board with me two of my good friends Alice Headlam and Mike Allen from trimester 4 to help with mic set up/ set design/ desk operation and DAW operation on the day and trimester 6 film student Alfred Beales and my friend Sean Halford as videographers and editors.
The week began by me gathering all of these people and starting 3 separate Facebook groups so I can communicate with each party about audio, film and band matters. Tuesday morning of this week I set up a meeting in the Neve live room to introduce Sean and Alfred and they will be working together on the film aspect of the project. We talked about how many cameras we would need to film something to the likes of my references and contemplated how the use of lighting would effect the production as well. I’m pretty inexperienced with the technical side of the film world so I basically conveyed my ideas to the both of them and we worked out some fundamental techniques that would work based on my references.
The next step was to organize how I was going to design the set. I booked a session in the Neve live room on Tuesday of week 8 to go in with Alice and a bunch or props. For a few hours we are going to pin up black sheets and hang a number of lights to try and emulate the room that is the KEXP space where the bands are recorded and filmed. Since this is the first time I have worked on a project like this, I wanted to do a ‘practice’ run-through session with the band and my audio and film crew. You wouldn’t normally do this as it takes a lot of time and in the industry time is extremely valuable however everyone was keen to do it when I asked them so that’s amazing! I have an 8 hour session booked on Monday the 8th of April to practice the set-up of the set design, microphone placement (for audio and film), to get a suitable sound out of the desk and to try a few different shots for film. This week has been all about time management/ getting everybody’s availabilities so I can book studio time and planning out the weeks ahead of me in preparation for the execution of the project day.
So far after liaising with the band, I’ve got a pretty solid idea of inputs and mic placement for the practice session. They are still getting back to me with exactly what they’ll need but for a rough idea it’s drums, bass guitar (DI and amp) and 3 keyboards > Nord (stereo), Juno (mono) and a Korg Minilogue (mono). To capture a nice overall sound of the drums without it sounding too much like a studio recording I’m thinking of employing a Glyn John’s style technique which usually incorporates a condenser microphone in front of the bass drum placed a few inches away to avoid the sound of air hitting the diaphragm, one or two overhead condensers to capture the high end (symbols snare) and a condenser placed on the right-hand side of the drummer’s perspective to capture the toms and ride symbol. I plan on doing a little more research on this to get the best drum sound possible but for the first week these are my rough ideas. A project and production plan for the practice session will be coming to fruition in the coming days.
REFERENCES
[Photograph of Parquet Courts live at KEXP] (2014). Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2014/08/11/339526103/kexp-presents-parquet-courts
[Photograph of a man playing drums using the Glyn Johns microphone technique] (2010). Retrieved from https://www.audiomasterclass.com/newsletter/the-legendary-sound-of-glyn-johns