So this weekend I had a cool opportunity to assist Chris Garges on one of his sessions. The artist was Jazz guitarist Alex Martin from Maryland. Alex switched between acoustic, nylon, and electric guitar, and played a blend of traditional jazz tunes along with some brazilian and latin influenced pieces. Alex had a drummer (Thomas) and upright bassist (Ron) to back him up. Overall, the sound had a great clean texture to it. I haven’t had the opportunity to hear the final mixes, but I’m sure the band will send me a copy after it gets pressed. This wasn’t my session so I am not really at liberty to go through and list the techniques that were used for capturing, but I will list a few mics that stood out to me in this session.
I really liked the upright bass sound. Double bass is typically a hard instrument to capture in my (little) experience trying to do so. There was a curiously placed lapel mic taped to the bass along with a Neumann u87 a few feet out front. The combination made for a really nice natural but present bass sound. Another mic that shined was those little side addressed ATM450 sdc’s from Audio Technica. I asked about it and Chris mentioned that they have a nice detail for brush work. I had never head of anyone using one on snare, but man Chris was right. It was like you were sitting beside the snare. The mic captured a super realistic representation of that snare. Oo! I just realized it’s finally sunny outside. Hooray.
Alex Martin - Jazz Guitarist
You can view more pics of Alex and listen to his music at http://www.alexmartinmusic.com
