Record Great Brass Sounds in your Home Studio

So you are faced with the task of recording a trumpet player, a trombone player, or maybe even an entire brass section for you demo? This task is easier than one thinks and can produce amazing results for your project. First of all the good news - horn sections, trombones, trumpets and saxophones are loud! You don’t have to be worried about cars going by, people walking upstairs, explosions, kids screaming and bathroom flushing noises. They will all disappear in the mix.

Remember that a brass instrument's sound comes from the vibration of its bell, which unlike woodwind instruments (such as sax, flute, oboe, and bassoon), where the sound comes from the keyholes and the bell (or from the “foot” in the case of a flute). Notice that I didn't say the sound comes from the end of the bell, but rather from the vibration of the bell. That is an important distinction. The bell is so important to the character of the sound that a player buying a professional, custom-made brass instrument will usually be given a choice of bell material and shapes, which imbue the horn with a variety of sonic characteristics. (I refer to this as Tonal Color – as different material AND different shaped Bells have unique tone qualities. Believe me, as a sound guy – there is a difference.)

A brass instrument's sound is affected greatly by the room in which it's played. One of the most important considerations when placing a mic to record a brass instrument is how much room sound you will capture. If you close-mic the bell, you'll miss out on much of the room reflections, which, in a good-sounding space, can add character and openness to the sound. A small room will tend to sound boxy and will call for closer miking.

Every room is different, so it helps to experiment with mic placement. Before you set up any mics, have the musician move around until you find the spot where the horn sounds best in the room. Then set up the mic, put on your headphones, and move the mic around until you find the most favorable placement. You'll get different reflections depending on the mic's position, and they can have a big impact on the sound. If you want a completely different sound, record the player with his or her back to the mic, or better still have him stand on his head. Acoustically speaking, a small cramped home studio is really not a good place for brass recording, because of the boxy sound. It's preferable to record in a large space that has hard surfaces to take advantage of the natural ambience. To record Brass, I put them all in my big living room, where it is very spacious, the room is NOT treated acoustically and believe it or not – I ALWAYS get awesome sounding Brass on all my recordings. I run my 50 Foot snake from my Studio way in back of the house, clear out to the Living Room to record them. Now on this last session, I had 2 Trumpet players, 3 Sax players.  

Micing the Horns

Placing the microphones is critical in defining the final sound of the recording. I would suggest putting the microphone 1-2 feet from the bell, to give it a "bigger than life" sound. For Trumpets and Trombones, where one is looking for a more realistic sound you need to place the microphone about 4 to 8 feet away. This produces a very nature, beautiful full rounded tone.  And being yes an anal sound guy, I always, always run 2 condenser mics way above as my overheads. Remember harmonics, reflections give your nice ambient sound quality.

Types of Microphones

Trumpets: I prefer dynamic mics for trumpets. They are robust enough to withstand the high SPL, typically have a slightly rounded or warmer high end that complements the brash tone of the horn’s upper register (while attenuating excessive spit sounds), and their proximity effect can be used for added punch. My favorite trumpet mics include the Sennheiser MD421 and of course Shure SM7 (The Shure SM58 works great too).

Trombone: Everything I said about the trumpet goes for the trombone also. With a range that extends slightly more than an octave below the trumpet, you’ll want to choose mics that can do justice to that bottom end and set the high pass filter at 80 Hz. The Electro-Voice RE20 and Sennheiser MD421 are again my first choice for trombones, and ribbon mics will usually provide excellent results as well. Try your favorite kick drum mic here; you’ll get a great sound.

Sax: I find that a well-balanced sonic portrait of the entire sax’s range is usually attained by positioning the mic 12 to 18 inches away from the horn, aimed at a point equidistant between the end of the bell and the player’s left hand. This captures an acoustic blend of the resonant barking bell tones with the more airy upper register (coming primarily off the smaller tone holes) in their natural proportions. I’ve achieved excellent results recording saxophones with all types of mics, though large-diaphragm mics seem to complement the instrument best. You can’t go wrong with a Sennheiser MD421, and frankly some of my most cherished sax sounds were recorded with a Shure SM58.

Clarinet: The standard Bb clarinet is mercifully a much more voluptuous sounding instrument than the soprano sax, so I use a Large Diaphragm Mic, condensers in fact I prefer them here for their ability to capture subtle detail. Again, the Neumann U87 is recommended (actually, off the top of my head I can’t think of an instrument where that sentence wouldn’t hold true!), as is the RØDE NT1, and I’ve also been pleased with the Sony C-37 (another large-diaphragm condenser) and the Beyer M160 (a ribbon mic). The bass clarinet sounds an octave lower than the standard clarinet, and is considerably larger with a sax-like upturned bell. Many times I find it sufficient to mic the bass clarinet the way I do the alto, tenor, or baritone Saxes, with the mic pointed in between the end of the bell and the player’s left hand.

Flute: Unlike the saxes and clarinets, the “bell” of the flute is effectively non-existent, both in terms of its physical construction (hint: there isn’t one) and how that end of the instrument affects the timbre. Rather, it’s the business end of a flute, the mouthpiece, which contributes far more musical information, including upper harmonics, noise spectra, and mouth sounds.

The objective is to capture the mouthpiece sounds in proportion to the output from the tone holes. I use three different approaches to miking the flute, depending on the context and the sound I’m after.

For the most natural sound I point a cardioid condenser straight down over the top of the flute about 18 inches above the midpoint of the instrument. This allows for an acoustic blending of mouthpiece and tone holes, and seems most effective for classical music, solo flute pieces, or anytime when leakage from other instruments isn’t a factor.

For a more assertive sound, to cut through a dense rhythm section or a rock chart (think Jethro Tull), I’ll close-mic the mouthpiece with a dynamic microphone. Stage-oriented vocal mics work well here, as you’ll need something impervious to breath turbulence. The Shure SM58 is an obvious choice; I’m particularly fond of the Audio-Technica ATM41, which has a more substantial pop/breath filter, a tighter pattern, and a bit more of a rising peak in the 2–3 kHz region.

Sennheiser 421s and 441s work well in this application, though they usually require an external foam breath filter. (You’ll want to crank up the high pass filter to about 250 Hz.)

To Double or Not

Achieving a full and realistic brass sound can be particularly challenging in a home studio, however I find you can build a fuller sound by having the musicians double their parts, and then use both recordings in the mix, panned to either side. For an even thicker sound, record the parts a third time and use that pass in the center of the mix, although the change won't be as dramatic as going from a single part to a doubled part. (Now what I did was yes, I had the musicians play their parts a second time so I could get a fuller sound. Later I brought in a Trombone player had him add a couple extra tracks to give the horn section just a bit more sound. The finished demo was quite impressive)

A good rule of thumb: Usually Brass is tripled when there are 1-2 musicians and doubled when there are 3 people. Also try to keep the highest part and lowest part closest to the center of the track. When doubling keep track of what part goes where, so for instance if you have 4 trumpet parts and 2 players remember to put part 1-2 on track 1-2 and 3-4 on 3-4 otherwise you will have a nightmare at the mix with inconsistent sound coming from all over the place.

When considering doubling orchestration becomes an issue here are common groups vs. orchestration and doubling:

·         Single musician: Mostly doubling is done, for unisons, solos and perhaps chords

·         2 horns (usually trumpet+sax or trumpet+trombone): Best sound is with doubling or tripling the parts. This allows for 4-6 part harmony

·         3 horns - trumpet+trombone+sax: Double - do not triple when using this configuration. allows for 6 part harmony at 2/3rds of the time, can sound tighter than the 2 horn configuration, but not always. Can cover more songs at a time, so it may be cost effective if studio time is expensive.

·         3 horns - 1 trumpet+1 trombone or trumpet+trombone+sax: Like the 2 trumpets+ 1 trombone configuration just with more sound possibilites, you can cover more songs at a time, so it may be cost effective if studio time is expensive. You can also avoid doubling and add brass synth instead.

·         4 horns - 2 trumpets, 2 trombones or 2trumpets+trombone+sax: Double it to get 8 part harmony and bright unisons, although many prefer the 3 horn configuration. Doubling might sound a little on the heavy side, but nothing that canat be repaired with eq

·         5 horns - 3 trumpets, 2 trombones: Do not double a 5 part harmony when saxes are added on seperately. This is beneficial for extremely fast recording times, and is probably very cost effective if you use it in a project with a lot of brass, or when several projects are consolidated into one project.

Well I know it’s a lot to absorb, but I promise in the end, your Recording will sound great and people will comment with oohs and aahs on your horn section.

Until Tomorrow,

Rory