Category Archives: Producer

Robert Friedrich on Recording The San Diego Symphony

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Pianos (dual) – R-122V, R-122
Woodwinds – SF-2
Strings – SF-2
Hall Ambience – SF-24

Recording Engineer: Robert Friedrich
Producer: Erica Brenner

In this video, Grammy-winning engineer Robert Friedrich talks about using ribbon microphones extensively while recording the San Diego Symphony playing “The Carnival Of The Animals.” Of particular interest is his microphone technique on the dual pianos, which were positioned side-by-side and recorded with a pair of R-122V’s and a pair of R-122’s.

Pianists: Jon Kimura Parker and Orli Shaham

Videographer and Photographer: R Chaney

“Carnival of the Animals” (Camille Saint-Saens)

fredrich-orchestra-tn

Lily Wilde And Her Jumpin’ Jubilee Orchestra

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Brass – R-121
Drums – R-121

Recorded and mixed by Craig Brock. Produced by Tom Royer and Craig Brock.
Recorded at Whitehorse Studios, Portland, OR.

Two R-121’s capturing all the brass and drums in a live room (drums also have a single KM-84 small diaphragm condenser mic blended in, hung four feet above the snare).

From the Lil Tom Tom, Inc. release “Insect Ball”.

“Mister Five By Five” (© D. Raye & G. DePaul)

The Quincy Jones – Sammy Nestico Orchestra

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Trumpet and trombones – R-121

Engineered and mixed by Tommy Vicari. Produced by Quincy Jones with Sammy Nestico and Jerry Hey.
Recorded at Capital Studios, Hollywood, CA
From the Qwest Records release “Basie & Beyond”.

Seven R-121’s capturing the trumpets and trombones.
Recorded digitally on Sony 3348-HR’s.

“Out Of The Night” (Sammy Nestico)

 

“Joy Of Cooking” (Sammy Nestico)

Foghorn Stringband

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Bluegrass Band – SF-24
Acoustic Guitar – SF-24
Fiddle – SF-24
Mandolin – SF-24
Standup Bass – SF-24

Recording Engineer: Stephen Schauer

Recording Chain: See Recording Notes below

Foghorn Stringband playing live at Old Style Guitar Shop, presented by The Bluegrass Situation. Great performance of the old Stanley Brothers tune We’re Going to Paint the Town and Kennesaw Mountain Rag. Caleb Klauder on mandolin, Sammy Lind on fiddle, Nadine Landry on bass, and Reeb Willms on guitar.

 

foghorn-strings

Recording Notes from engineer Stephen Schauer:

I had a wonderful opportunity to shoot and record a little video of Foghorn Stringband for Ed Helm’s traditional music website, The Bluegrass Situation (www.thebluegrasssituation.com). This kind of music is close to my heart, so it was a blast to get this time with such an amazing and talented group of folks.

We had an hour with the band and a crew of just 3, so I had to operate a camera AND run sound. The audio setup had to be fast and simple with great fidelity AND not clutter the frame. Using a Royer SF-24 in the center of the band allowed them to play in a traditional way – gathered around a single mic as was done for the last hundred years. It allowed them to huddle up close, and a great performance that you can only get when the band can really hear themselves and play off each other’s energy. The sonic character of the mic was a great complement to voices and the strings.

Regarding the technical side, we kept it simple so I didn’t need to do much fancy footwork in the edit and mix. I had the SF-24 front and center and tried to contain the performers within the front lobes of the figure 8. The room was tiny, but thankfully it was trapezoidal so there were fewer standing resonant tones in the room. The SF-24 is 9-% of what you hear in the recordings.

I panned out the Royer 60% left and right until the soundstage felt like it matched the visual, I put a little notch in the EQ around the lead singer’s voice to help bring it forward, and rolled off the bass of the SF-24 with a mellow high pass curve set at around 70hz (to clean up the room tone and leave space for a close mic I had on the bass, which was panned to match her position).

I had an AKG 451EB on the floor close to the bass, with a low pass filter set for 700 Hz, and a Beyerdynamic MC834 in the adjacent guitar showroom for nice real room ambience that I could mix in later if needed, rather than relying on reverb plug-ins. The MC834 had a high pass filter set at 500 Hz, and the mic was mixed back about 5 dB.

On the master, I pushed up the 300-1200hz about 1 dB, used a little preset compression that sounded good, added a tiny bit of reverb, and used a limiter with about 2db threshold to get the overall levels up for the video.

I recorded directly into a Tascam HS-p82 with no outboard preamps and mixed it all in Reaper with the stock plug-ins, on my laptop.

-Stephen Schauer

 

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Ben Sollee

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Vocals – R-122
Cello – R-122

Recorded by Stephen Schauer
Recorded at Deep End Ranch, Santa Paula, CA.

Recording chain: All mics recorded straight into a Tascam HS-p82, at 96/24.

Recording notes:
One R-122 off the front of the cello, tipped up to bring the vocal into the mix.
For ambience, a spaced pair of Mojave Audio MA-101fets were positioned 5 feet back from the cello and above the frame of the A cam, set for omni and mixed back 6-7db, panned hard left and right.

Producer: Stephen Schauer
Camera: Jonathan Saunders, Lane Stroud, Stephen Schauer
Audio: Stephen Schauer

Letting Go (Ben Sollee)

Ben

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Marshall Ruffin

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Vocals – R-122
Acoustic Guitar – R-122

Recorded by Stephen Schauer
Recorded at Deep End Ranch, Santa Paula, CA.

Recording chain: R-122 and MA-101fet’s recorded straight into a Tascam HS-p82 portable multi track recorder at 96/24.

Recording Notes:
One R-122 off the front of the acoustic guitar, positioned to balance the guitar and vocal.
For ambience, a spaced pair of Mojave Audio MA-101fets were positioned 5 feet back from the guitar, set for omni and mixed back 6-7db, panned hard left and right.

My Son (Marshall Ruffin)

MarshallPlay video

Producer: Stephen Schauer
Camera: Jonathan Saunders, Lane Stroud, Stephen Schauer
Audio: Stephen Schauer

Rick Trevino

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Classical Guitar – SF-12

Producer, Steve Berlin. Engineer, Dave McNair.
Recorded at Sonora Studios, Glendale, CA.

SF-12 on a classical guitar in a large room.

“Vanidad”

Loudmouth

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Electric Guitar – Heavy Rock – R-121
Drum Room Mics – R-121

Engineered by Joe Barresi, Allen Sides and Johnny K. Produced by Joe Barresi and John Sullivan.
Recorded at Ocean Way Recording, Hollywood, CA / Bay 7, Valley Village, CA /
Groovemaster Studios – Chicago, IL.
From the Hollywood Records release “Loudmouth”.

R-121’s on electric guitars.
Two R-121’s as drum room mics.

1) “Rats In The Maze” (John Sullivan)

 

2) “Maybe” (Tony McQuaid)

 

3) “End Of The Century” (John Sullivan)

 

4) “No Heroes” (John Sullivan)

Marvelous 3

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Electric Guitar – R-121

Engineered by Jerry Finn, Butch Walker and Joe McGrath. Produced by Jerry Finn.
From the Elektra Entertainment release “ReadySexGo”.

R-121’s on electric guitars.

a) “Beautiful” (Butch Walker )

 
 

b) “I Could Change” (Butch Walker)

Robert Cray

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Electric Guitar – R-121
Vocals – R-121

Recorded and mixed by Don Smith. Produced by Steve Jordan.
Recorded at Woodland Studios, Nashville, TN
From the Rycodisc, Inc. release “Shoulda Been Home.”

1) “Baby’s Arms” (Robert Cray)
R-121 on electric guitar.

 
 

2) “Help Me Forget” (Robert Cray)
Backward R-121 on vocals. R-121 on electric guitars.