Live Sound Projects

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For this project, we had to find and match an ensemble/ solo musician with a suitable space and record the performance in a transparent and realistic way. To achieve this, we were limited to only using stereo and/ or surround microphone techniques, and NO plugins or effects; we could only mix the track by adjusting the various microphone levels and pan positions.

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A large hall was chosen for the venue to match solo piano performance as we felt that this offered the most flexibility. Depending on the piece, we could have opted for a more or less ambient recording by adjusting the piano and/ or microphone positions.

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The microphone setup consisted of a large-spaced pair, an MS array (to reduce the hole-in-the-middle effect of the large-spaced pair), and stereo close-mics.

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My mix used all of the microphone tracks. I started the piece with just the close-mics and a little bit of the MS-mics, then towards the end of the introduction the spaced pair and more of the MS was brought in, and then towards the end of the track the close-mics gradually faded out. This was done to subtly emphasise the growth of the music and create a more interesting listening experience. The subtle creaking sounds of the piano could have been lessened by altering the positions of the close-mics, but I personally thought that this added to the performance and resulted in a more genuine sound that worked well with the Jazz genre.